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    But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz
    But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz
    But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz
    Audiobook5 hours

    But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz

    Written by Geoff Dyer

    Narrated by Dion Graham

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    About this audiobook

    In eight poetically charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skillfully evokes the music and the men who shaped modern jazz. Drawing on photos, anecdotes, and, most important, the way he hears the music, Dyer imaginatively reconstructs scenes from the embattled lives of some of the greats: Lester Young fading away in a hotel room; Charles Mingus storming down the streets of New York on a too-small bicycle; Thelonious Monk creating his own private language on the piano. However, music is the driving force of But Beautiful, and wildly metaphoric prose that mirrors the quirks, eccentricity, and brilliance of each musician's style.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 9, 2019
    ISBN9781977380685
    Author

    Geoff Dyer

    Geoff Dyer is the award-winning author of many books, including The Last Days of Roger Federer, Out of Sheer Rage, Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It, Zona, See/Saw, and the essay collection Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism). A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dyer lives in Los Angeles, where he is a writer in residence at the University of Southern California. His books have been translated into twenty-four languages.

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    Reviews for But Beautiful

    4/5

    123 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I liked it. I don't think it's historically accurate, but it gives a flavor of the different artists and makes me want to explore them further.
    • 4/5
      Pleasant imagery and symbolism, but I was kind of duped by the "A Book About Jazz" part. Loved the book and what it sets out to do but would like more biography like the Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington sections. Perhaps I'm letting preconceived notions ruin a just reading.
    • 3/5
      Sort of an imagined biography of several great jazz musicians of the 40s and 50s. The author uses the quality of each artist's music to model the imagery with which he describes them. The stories are similar with racism, mental illness and drug addiction playing important roles in almost every case.
      There is a danger of romanticizing all of this with the usual comments that boil down to great artists must suffer.
      ==================
      I think it is helpful to recall that before the discovery of Koch's bacillus (and for some time afterwards!), Tuberculosis was linked in literature and common thought with the artistic, the hyper sexual, and so forth. It does seem that depression, suicide and drug addiction are more common in creative people, but once a clear genetic linkage is found (if it is), the more artistic comments may seem silly - i.e. it may not be that great artists must suffer, just that they do.
    • 3/5
      Dyer knows how to turn a phrase - his writing in But Beautiful makes Kerouac's prose seem plain jane - but about two thirds in and the poetic language became a distraction for me. Not as good as I hoped.
    • 5/5
      This book is one long fictionalized riff on a selection of jazz giants: Thelonius Monk, Ben Webster, Charles Mingus, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Lester Young and Bud Powell. Each musician/composer has his own chapter, with the chapters separated by imagined portions of the legendary road trips of Duke Ellington and Harry Carney. Very lyrical and musical prose, great subjects. Dyer says he used photographs, new reports and interviews to conjure his somewhat stream-0f-consciousness takes on the melancholy and sometimes tragic lives of these great artists. My hat's off to him, however he did it. Loved this book and felt I learned things I needed to know.
    • 5/5
      Reading this book is like listening to music playing the players. It's seeing a world full of colour, sharp and hazy, constrained and limitless at the same time. It's languid and drawling and bruising and brimming of pain, but beautiful. Quite beautifully.
    • 3/5
      Well-written, and most likely, an important book on jazz. Just not my cup of tea. I prefer my Geoff Dyer books to have at the forefront his personality. I also desire his wanton perversions and idiosyncrasies to be involved with the text, even as painful and disgusting as they sometimes are. This book was more a clean, academic study of an art form that I would much rather listen to than read about.
    • 5/5
      A very special book about jazz.Geoff Dyer has done extensive research of the be-bop giants: Ellington, Monk, Coltrane, Mingus, Bird, Lester Young, Bud Powell, Chet Baker and Art Pepper. Each giant went through his own mania and the often gypsy life they lived is depicted in novelistic fashion.Following these snapshots there is an extended essay about the music they played.If you like jazz you will love this special book.
    • 2/5
      Beautiful writing. Jazz lovers would probably like this book a lot.
    • 4/5
      So difficult to review this book - the likes of which I've never read before. I shan't attempt to in all honesty. Suffice to say, Geoff Dyer's writing is gripping, heartfelt, and all too believable. Which is pretty much all that matters given the subject matter - imagined portraits of the equally troubled and gifted musicians he portrays - Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Ben Webster, Charles Mingus, Chet Baker, and Art Pepper. I finished each chapter with an indelible impression of the soul of each of these men. It matters not if you do or don't know the music of each artist covered, though you may want to refer to the select discography at the back. Dyer bases each vignette on known histories, conversations, photographs, newspaper clippings, all of which he references in the appendix. Interweaved between each story is the very appealing construction of an imagined Duke Ellington on the road between gigs, alone with his driver Harry, as he crosses the American night. Following the main part of the book is an extended essay on the artistic course and ongoing direction of jazz music which I found a satisfying accompaniment to the earlier chapters. Recommended for all, and a must for anybody with a love of Jazz.