Wynton Marsalis Discussion Forum

I just finished Robyn Kelly’s massive and comprehensive biography of Thelonious Monk.  There have been several previous books written on Monk, but this is the first comprehensive biography and it is a must-read for any serious jazz fan.  It is not often that a jazz book that well written and researched comes out.  It has everything you always wanted to know and more about Monk.

Anyone else read this?

     

By tomorrow I hope to start reading Brian Priestley’s slim book on Charlie Parker.  It is mostly a discography, but there are about 150 pages of narrative.  I’ll bide my time with this Bird book until Stanley Crouch finishes his long-in-the-works bio.

     

my friend has tried to get me hooked onto the biography of charles mingus, but i never get past the first chapter.

     

Raw_Brass_Kicks Wrote:

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> my friend has tried to get me hooked onto the

> biography of charles mingus, but i never get past

> the first chapter.

There have been several biographies/books about Mingus, but I assume you mean the famous, or infamous, autobiography, “Beneath the Underdog.”

 

I am pleasantly surprised with how much I liked Brian Priestley’s Bird book, “The Life and Legacy of Charlie Parker”.  I’m about 100 pages into the brief book, which also includes a lengthy discography.  It is proving to be a worthwhile read, at least something to tide me over until the Crouch tome is released.  The Priestley book flew under the radar.  It was published in ‘06 and I stumbled across a copy in the Strand bookstore.  A good book.