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But Beautiful
But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz | Geoff Dyer
3 posts | 2 read | 4 to read
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.
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CarolynM
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Recent acquisitions

Not that I‘ve read even one of the last stack of books I bought

Ruthiella What a great stack! 🤩 I want to read more Elizabeth Taylor books. I‘ve only read (and loved) 2y
Cathythoughts Great stack! @Ruthiella I want to read more Elizabeth Taylor too. 👍🏻 2y
TrishB Great stack! 2y
See All 7 Comments
LeahBergen Ooo! 👀 2y
Graywacke A new Ann Patchett? 2y
CarolynM @Graywacke Only new to me. It was first published about 10 years ago, I think. 2y
Graywacke @CarolynM well, new to me too. 🙂 2y
63 likes7 comments
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Woozy-Shooz
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Get into the heads of Prez, Duke, Monk, Charlie Mingus—maybe I‘m forgetting one or two—in these deeply imagined fictional memoirs of a few jazz greats during the 1950s. The thread is being on the road with Duke as he writes, talks and ponders. Sad, nostalgic feel for the lives he documents. Somehow sepia-toned. Dyer at his best.

CarolynM I've only read one Dyer, but I enjoyed it a lot. This one sounds great. Stacked. 3y
8 likes1 comment
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tkmadden
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A perfect Jazzy Sunday: Max Roach birthday broadcast on WKCR, wifey reading But Beautiful 🎷

RickMoody Great great book 9y
Peterstraubnyc Well, I'm not so sure. The Young and Pepper chapters are ruined by a combo of cliche and sentimentality. Jazz "feeling" at its real worst. In the end, I had to dump the book into a bin. 9y
18 likes3 stack adds2 comments