Stardust Melody: The Life and Music of Hoagy Carmichael - Couverture rigide

Sudhalter, Richard M.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0195131207 ISBN 13 : 9780195131208

Editeur : Oxford University Press Inc, 2002

Synopsis

Hoagy Carmichael was one of that remarkable group of songwriters who created the American popular song in its great age from the 1920s to the 1930s. Unlike most of the other leading songwriters of the period - such as Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, among others, all of whom were strongly New York based and directed - Carmichael's origins were in the Midwest, and his music, as one writer describes it, reflected the 'sounds of summer in a small-town America that is long ago but still longed for'. The American popular song developed and reached its peak in the same years that jazz extended its hold on America's music. Hoagy Carmichael has the strongest jazz roots of all America's great songwriters. He was intimately involved with the legendary jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke, who was the dominant influence on his music. He sang and played piano in jazz groups well into the 1930s, and many of his songs greatly reflected these jazz roots - among them, 'Riverboat Shuffle', 'Washboard Blues', 'Georgia on my Mind', 'Lazy Bones', and 'Skylark'. Carmichael wrote 'Star Dust' - one of the most famous and popular American songs - which could be heard everywhere in the 1930s. In the late 1930s Carmichael began composing songs for Hollywood musicals, among them 'Two Sleepy People', 'I Get Along Without You Very Well', 'Ale Buttermilk Sky', and 'In the Cool, Cool of the Evening'. Carmichael also had a successful career in Hollywood as an actor, singer, and piano player. He appeared in 'To Have and Have Not' (with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall), 'The Best Years of Our Lives', and 'Young Man With A Horn'. Throughout his career, Carmichael never lost his early affinity for, and deep love of, the dynamic jazz music of his youth. And some of the most majestic moments in the career of Louis Armstrong, jazz's preeminent figure, occur in performances of Carmichael's songs. And as Richard Sudhalter brilliantly reveals in this perceptive and moving biography, Carmichael and his music represent a special vision of America: 'open and decent, worldly but appreciative of simple pleasures, pragmatic yet principled, secular yet deeply moral.' Sudhalter understands Carmichael's music and its jazz roots, but he has an equally deep feel for this extraordinary man. He has written one of the great biographies of an American musical figure.

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

"Meticulous, admiring, perceptive and informative.... A first-rate job of showing that Carmichael's mind was deeper and tougher than first impressions might suggest." --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

"A thorough, superb and evocative biography."--Tom Nolan, San Francisco Chronicle

"Musically knowledgeable and truly dedicated to his subject, Sudhalter writes for a general audience with passion, enthusiasm, and a fine understanding of the subtleties of the songwriter's craft."--Baltimore Sun

"An engaging bio."--US News & World Report

"An apt and able bio of a singular talent."--Kirkus Reviews

"Hailed by critics as the definitive look at the Hoosier songwriter."--Indianapolis Star

"Highly readable and thoroughly researched."--William F. Gavin, The Washington Times

"Sudhalter is a dedicated researcher who has to admit that his hero sometimes made a few things up, tricked cold facts into a wry story and generally saw himself in a smoky light akin to that of movies."--David Thomson, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Sudhalter's entertaining yet straightforward style propels the narrative forward, and the musical examples are a plus. The exhaustive research, including interviews with Carmichael's relatives and colleagues, makes this essential for all popular music, American culture, or Indiana collections."--Library Journal (starred review)

"Richard Sudhalter's new book is undoubtedly the most well-researched biography of Hoagy Carmichael available. Anyone interested in this fine American composer should get hold of a copy immediately." --Artie Shaw

"Sudhalter writes with the voice of a novelist, the eye of a historian, and the heart of the superb jazz musician he is known to be. Stardust Melody sets a new standard of literary excellence for all celebrity biographies to come." --Max Morath

"Richard Sudhalter has written an elegant, carefully etched portrait of Hoagy Carmichael, his life and music, with so much history and wealth of detail in every anecdote that each one comes alive for the reader. No one but a jazz musician could have shown such insight as Sudhalter does, revealing the many secrets of the man and his music and making Hoagy's songs glow forever in the mind and heart." --Marian McPartland

"With the instinct and insights of a discerning musician, Dick Sudhalter is a sensitive researcher, he's hip to how songwriters think, and he knows how to write about history and make it sing. Even Hoagy Carmichael, salty and critical as they come, would have probably pumped the author's hand and said, 'You got it, buddy.'" --Dave Frishberg

Présentation de l'éditeur

Georgia on My Mind, Rockin' Chair, Skylark, Lazybones, and of course the incomparable Star Dust--who else could have composed these classic American songs but Hoagy Carmichael? He remains, for millions, the voice of heartland America, eternal counterpoint to the urban sensibility of Cole Porter and George Gershwin. Now, trumpeter and historian Richard M. Sudhalter has penned the first book-length biography of the man Alec Wilder hailed as "the most talented, inventive, sophisticated and jazz-oriented of all the great songwriters--the greatest of the great craftsmen." Stardust Melody follows Carmichael from his roaring-twenties Indiana youth to bandstands and recording studios across the nation, playing piano and singing alongside jazz greats Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and close friends Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong. It illuminates his peak Hollywood years, starring in such films as To Have and Have Not and The Best Years of Our Lives, and on radio, records and TV. With compassionate insight Sudhalter depicts Hoagy's triumphs and tragedies, and his mounting despair as rock-and-roll drowns out and lays waste to the last days of a brilliant career. With an insider's clarity Sudhalter explores the songs themselves, still fresh and appealing while reminding us of our innocent American yesterdays. Drawing on Carmichael's private papers and on interviews with family, friends and colleagues, he reveals that "The Old Music Master" was almost as gifted a wordsmith as a shaper of melodies. In all, Stardust Melody offers a richly textured portrait of one of our greatest musical figures, an inspiring American icon.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press Inc
• Date d'édition: 2002
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0195131207
• ISBN 13: 9780195131208
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 446
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Ufficio Anagrafiche Messaggerie; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italie