Positively 4th Street

I'm about halfway through Positively 4th Street and will read a few more pages at lunch today, but won't be able to finish it before tonight's meeting. It's a fun book for me because I grew up listening to not only the four singer-songwriters who are the focus of the book - but just about everyone the author mentions! My parents introduced me to The Weavers and Pete Seeger and Burl Ives (Big Rock Candy Mountain), but I "discovered" Joan Baez from a girlfriend in Junior High. From there it wasn't hard to find and listen to Bob Dylan, Mimi & Richard Farina, Eric Von Schmidt, Dave Van Ronk and many of the other folksingers of the
60s. Reading about them now is like time travel - taking me back to my teenage years, but with the perspective of experience and a new appreciation of these artists as people - talented, flawed and some of them still making music!

Potential Book for 2010

Of course, just when I think I've settled on the 10 books for next year another one comes to mind! I've had this book in the 'reading basket' next to my bed for several months. It's A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, & Martin Johnson Heade. The author is Christopher Benfey. By next year, it will probably be available in paperback. I'm thinking of pairing it with Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture by Michael Kammen. So I'm going to add it to the list and make these two books the September books, so we can try to read both of them over the summer!

Tentative Book Selections for 2010

I think I've come up with the 2010 reading list for the Arts & Culture Book Club! Like this year, I tried to include books that cover a broad spectrum of arts and cultures. For those couple of books whose titles are not obvious indicators of their contents, here are brief descriptions.

Thieves of Baghdad by Matthew Bogdanos is about the theft of art and antiquities from the Iraq National Museum during the American invasion.

The Painted Kiss: A Novel by Elizabeth Hickey is our only novel for 2010. It is the author's first novel and is the story of the relationship between Gustav Klimt and his young lover, "whose name he pronounced with his dying breath." (Publishers Weekly)

I have included a link to amazon.com in the book list, in case you want to check out the book reviews. Please let me know if you have any comments!

From Louis Armstrong to the 60s

Yesterday I finished reading the Louis Armstrong Book. I enjoyed it and learned a lot about jazz, music in general and music in the context of culture and geography. It really got me thinking. However, I have to say that I pretty much skimmed the last chapter, "Melody that Changed the World," because it was just too technical musically for my limited knowledge. But I appreciated the last chapter of the book ending with, "Out of their values and practices came the fruits of an expressive culture that are with us still." Since I started reading the book, I have added quite a few jazz songs to my iPod, including lots of New Orleans jazz and have a newfound appreciation for them and where they came from.

Now when I listen to Armstrong sing the lyrics of "Do you Know what it Means to Miss New Orleans" I have a much better sense of the place and people.

I have read just a few pages of Positively 4th Street, but I see at least one similarity shared by both books. That is, the authors trace the style of music they focus on back to the culture and people that produced it.

My parents listened to Louis Armstrong on 78s! I came of age listening to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the Farinas - on 33rpm records. Dylan's song "Positively 4th Street" and its references to his time in New York and in Greenwich Village speak more to my personal experience than does Louis Armstrong. But I enjoy listening to jazz, folk and many different musical styles. It reminds me how lucky we are to live in a time when we CAN listen to such a diversity of music - via, radio, records, CDs, iPods and other downloads and more.

Louis Armstrong & New Orleans

http://www.nps.gov/archive/jazz/Jazz%20History.htm

Here's a website I found that may be of interest for reading "Louis Armstrong's New Orleans." The author includes quite a lot of information about the geography - both physical and cultural - of New Orleans neighborhoods during Armstrong's time. This site includes walking tour maps that might be helpful in visualising his world.

Finishing "Faberge's Eggs"...

I enjoyed our discussion last night. It's always interesting to hear different perspectives on the same book. I especially appreciated Natalia's comments about the book being factual - but written from a western perspective. It's always good to be reminded to remember not only the point of view of the author - but our own cultural biases and history, as well.

I have already started "Louis Armstrong's New Orleans," and find myself transported to a time and place that is both familiar and foreign. I am not a musician, but I'm a "I know what I like" listener. I've always enjoyed blues and jazz, and this book is a great introduction for me into how that music developed and how it is performed. Despite some words and musical concepts that are new to me, I am soaking up the New Orleans atmosphere. (Louis Armstrong spent his later years in Queens, New York - not far from where I grew up!)

Louis Armstrong's New Orleans

In May, book club members can read either the Louis Armstrong book or
Positively 4th Street. The intent is to have people read one OR the other and come to the meeting to share perspectives on the impact that place has on artists and performers. New York in the case of Baez, Dylan and the Farinas and New Orleans in the case of Louis Armstrong. (If anyone wants to read both books, that would be great. I'm going to try......)

I've started Thomas Brothers' book, Louis Armstrong's New Orleans and am getting a real sense of the context in which to place Armstrong's life and music. Of course, he grew up in New Orleans and left, while the folksingers came to New York City from other places - that will be an interesting comparison for discussion.