Remembering Bix, A memoir of the jazz age

Ralph Berton

ISBN 10: 0060103043 / ISBN 13: 9780060103040

Published by Harper & Row, New York, 1974

About this Item

Hardcover, brown cloth in publisher's non price-clipped dust-jacket. 428 pages. Signed and inscribed [twice] on front free end-paper by author to Dave [David Chertok], noted collector of jazz on film, from his private collection. Bibliography, Discography, Index. Contains photographs. Stated first edition, first printing. Remainder mark on bottom edge. A clean, square, unmarked copy with nice inscription. It is quite uncommon to find this book in collectible condition with author's signature. Very good+ association copy in very good dust-jacket. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.

Seller Inventory # 014209

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Remembering Bix, A memoir of the jazz age
• Publisher: Harper & Row, New York
• Publication Date: 1974
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060103043
• ISBN 13: 9780060103040
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good+
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Music: Jazz, Etc.

About this title

Synopsis

In this biography with a difference, Ralph Berton seeks to discover the influences, reveal the forks in the path of Bix's destiny, tracing the psychological odyssey of a legendary figure of the Jazz Age, an enormously talented artist universally loved and admired who yet could find nothing - not even his music, which he endlessly criticized - worth living for. Unlike the popularized versions of his life, the real-life Bix was a far more interesting character than any fictional projection, an enigmatic soul of depth, complexity and original psychic twists. It is this man whom we meet in Remembering Bix. For Ralph Berton, Bix was a boyhood idol, worshipped to the point of adoration. During the time Ralph knew Bix, he followed him about like a puppy, sitting in behind him on the drums, sharing his bed when Bix had no other, eagerly showing off as much as a 13-year-old can to his senior companion in the arts. Remembering Bix is a personal memoir, a pilgrimage to the author's boyhood, an age revisited, above all an appreciation from a fresh and very personal angle of vision of that gentle and rarest of artists of the Jazz Age, seen against the backdrop of the maddest time this nation ever lived room.

About the Author

Ralph Berton (1910–1993) wrote extensively on jazz, serving as an editor at Metronome and Down Beat magazines and as editor-in-chief of Sound and Fury. He was also a professor of jazz history at Cooper Union, Middlesex County College, and Bloomfield College.