Book / Magazine News

Lena Horne Biography Tells of a Star Shaped by Rejection, Racism

Source: Michael Ricci
May 11, 2010

'Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne' by James Gavin reveals a woman whose life reflects the civil rights struggles of the times.

According to James Gavin's new biography, “Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne," the legendary singer-actress was never comfortable being an icon. “As I say in the introduction of my book, icons are not allowed to be human beings," explains Gavin, a lifelong fan who interviewed Horne in 1994. “Once you step up on that pedestal . ...

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Beyond Hefner's Bedroom, a Look at His Legacy

Source: Michael Ricci
May 10, 2010

The tale of the Playboy founder's gift to help save land by the Hollywood sign is but one of many stories of his life chronicled in 2,000 scrapbooks.

Before I explain how I happened to be in Hugh Hefner's bedroom last week, let me start at the beginning. I bumped into L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge at the supermarket recently and asked if he'd had any clue that Hefner was going to save the day a couple of weeks ago ...

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AllAboutJazz-New York May 2010 Issue Now Available!

Source: Michael Ricci
May 3, 2010

Lest one needs a reminder of the globalization of the world in general and music in particular, last month's eruption of a volcano under Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier was a particularly effective one. Lost in all the news reports of stranded travelers on both sides of the Atlantic were the many musicians whose tour plans were disrupted by the thousands of cancelled flights. The modern musician is a world traveller by necessity in the 21st century; there just aren't enough audiences ...

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'Free to be Creative at the Piano' Makes It Easy to Sit Down and Play

Source: Michael Ricci
May 1, 2010

Music fans take note: Edward Weiss has just completed his extensive new book on creating, composing and playing New Age piano compositions. A distillation of Eds 20 years as an instructor and composer, Free to Be Creative at the Piano promises to take even novice players step by step through the process of creating music from scratch. In fact, in his book, Edward even effectively teaches those of us who've never touched a keyboard in our lives. As the author ...

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Jazz: A History of America's Music (Hardcover)

Source: All About Jazz
May 2, 2010

Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns deserve far more than simple gratitude for bringing jazz to the limelight with this lavishly illustrated volume. The book features among its 500-plus pictures many of the previously unseen shots of musicians and venues glimpsed in Burns's 10-part documentary, Jazz. Continuing in the tradition of their critically acclaimed works, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns vividly bring to life the story of the quintessential American music--jazz. Born in the black community of turn-of-the-century New ...

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Have They Got a Tale for You in Ojai

Source: Michael Ricci
April 29, 2010

Performers gather for the 11th annual swapping of yarns at the Ojai Storytelling Festival, naughty bits included.

Old-fashioned storytelling may be a dying art in the age of YouTube, but the organizers of the 11th annual Ojai Storytelling Festival don't intend to let it go down without a fight. For the last 10 years, they have convened in the picturesque valley town's intimate Libbey Bowl to host what has become one of the genre's most well-known festivals. There in the ...

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Huntington Library Get's the Blues of Charles Bukowski

Source: Michael Ricci
April 29, 2010

Huntington Library to offer the first look at its Charles Bukowski collection with 'Poet on the Edge' exhibit The Huntington Library in San Marino, known as the home of Gainsborough's “The Blue Boy," made news four years ago with its acquisition of something a lot bluer: a cache of papers, books and memorabilia belonging to Charles Bukowski, the L.A. author known for hard living and hard-edged writing. This fall, the Huntington will offer the public its first look at material ...

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Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

Source: Michael Ricci
April 29, 2010

By Daniel Kassell Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong Terry Teachout Hardcover; 496 pages ISBN: 978-0-15-101089-9 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2010 Terry Teachout explained in the Afterward that he's the first jazz bassist to produce a fully researched biography prepared recently as an exercise in synthesis. The Prologue is a summary of Pops life, an essay titled “The Cause of Happiness," the ...

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