Good morning blues - Basie´s autobiography

[EKE BBB]

Anybody read this Basie´s autobiography (as told to Albert Murray) published by Da Capo Press?

Just bought it, and I´m beginning it.... looks very, very interesting!

[wjd]

It is one of the best jazz autobiographies, very readable and with many great anecdotes.

[Hardbop]

I hate to be the fly in the buttermilk here, but I've got to respectfully disagree. The Basie autobio is one of the most notorious duds among jazz autobiographies/biographies, given the talent involved, i.e., Basie and Murray.

This one just falls flat and is dull, dull, dull. It reads like a laundry list of recording dates and what cities were visited in what year on what tour.

It proved to be such a dud that Albert Murray wrote an article after it came out trying to explain what went wrong.

There is a good Basie bio waiting to be written. If you want to read about Basie, check out Stanley Dance's "The World of Count Basie."

[bubber]

For once I have to agree with hardbop. I found Murray's Basie bio uninteresting and dull. Laundry list of tours, recording dates and concert is a fairly accurate description.