Sweet Swing Blues On The Road

by Wynton Marsalis, Frank Stewart

Jazz and classical musician Wynton Marsalis’s free-ranging text includes characterizations of the musicians in his septet, breezy descriptions of places where they perform and snippets of their lively banter, while Frank Stewart’s 140 b&w photos offer a behind-the-scenes look at the performers, their families and their audiences. The book conveys the nervous energy and fast pace that characterize the lives of musicians on the road and includes trenchant accounts of conversations with young followers who want to become musicians. Marsalis’s advice is always the same: practice. The self-consciously hip writing, however, becomes incoherent when he discusses his views on romance, politics and the history of jazz.

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