Author: Maxine Gordon File Type: pdf Sophisticated Giant presents the life and legacy of tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon (19231990), one of the major innovators of modern jazz. In a context of biography, history, and memoir, Maxine Gordon has completed the book that her late husband began, weaving his solo turns with her voice and a chorus of voices from past and present. Reading like a jazz composition, the blend of research, anecdote, and a selection of Dexters personal letters reflects his colorful life and legendary times. It is clear why the celebrated trumpet genius Dizzy Gillespie said to Dexter, Man, you ought to leave your karma to science. Dexter Gordon the icon is the Dexter beloved and celebrated on albums, on film, and in jazz lore--even in a street named for him in Copenhagen. But this image of the cool jazzman fails to come to terms with the multidimensional man full of humor and wisdom, a figure who struggled to reconcile being both a creative outsider who broke the rules and a comforting insider who was a son, father, husband, and world citizen. This essential book is an attempt to fill in the gaps created by our misperceptions as well as the gaps left by Dexter himself. **Review An informative, well-paced, suitelike literary work (Eugene Holley Jr. Publishers Weekly) From the Inside Flap Who is Dexter Gordon? 1) A great musician of the highest level. 2) A great human being of the highest level.Sonny Rollins, legendary tenor saxophonist What began as a solemn promise to Dexter Gordon to finish writing the story of his life is now an extraordinary gift to those of us who are the fortunate readers ofSophisticated Giant. Maxine Gordons rigorously researched, jazz-inflected, genre-bending account of the many dimensions of this prodigious lifefrom small intimacies, musical and personal, to major social issues, such as racism, drugs, and mass incarcerationis an occasion to appreciate Dexters resounding musical genius as well as his wish for major social transformation.Angela Y. Davis, political activist, scholar, author, and speaker Sophisticated Giant tells a story from Buffalo Soldier to bebop, from Madagascar to Cuba! Maxine Gordon sheds light on the remarkable career and family history of Dexter Gordon, one of Americas most unique and misunderstood talents. When you talk about cool, Dex lived it!Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, author and legendary athlete At long last, the definitive biography of Dexter Gordon has arrived. Maxine Gordons thoroughly researched and engaging biography uses Dexters own voice as well as a chorus of jazz legends who riff on the musical changes in Gordons extraordinary life. Its all here, leaving no doubt about the truth of Dexter Gordons description of himself Im not just your ordinary B-flat.Wesley Brown, author and playwright Sophisticated Giant The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon, tells the story of the making ofRound Midnightwhere Dexter possessed as much genius as an actor as he ever had as a musician. Dexter understood, intrinsically, that for all of Dales problems, he was about creating something beautiful. Dexters awkward gait, his weary, cigarette-ravaged voice, and rarefied charisma were all perfectly matched to Dale Turner, the character he brilliantly portrayed inRound Midnight.Joe Morton, actor Long Tall Dexter was the tenor man Coltrane and I admired and wanted to be like when we changed from alto to tenor. We listened to everything he recorded. He and Sonny Stitt set the pace for the bebop tenor players.Jimmy Heath, composer, bandleader, tenor saxophonist This biography tells the story of a man whowas not only a tremendous musician, with a unique sound, the link between Hawkins and Coltrane, but one of the sharpest, funniesthuman beings I have ever met very educated and very hip.Bertrand Tavernier, French film director, screenwriter, and producer director of Round Midnight

Author: Sarah Vowell File Type: mobi From Publishers WeeklyRecounting the brief, remarkable history of a unified and independent Hawaii, Vowell, a public radio star and bestselling author (The Wordy Shipmates), retraces the impact of New England missionaries who began arriving in the early 1800s to remake the island paradise into a version of New England. In her usual wry tone, Vowell brings out the ironies of their efforts while the missionaries tried to prevent prostitution with seamen and the resulting deadly diseases, the natives believed it was the missionaries who would kill them they will pray us all to death. Along the way, and with the best of intentions, the missionaries eradicated an environmentally friendly, laid-back native culture (although the Hawaiians did have taboos against women sharing a table with men, upon penalty of death, and a reverence for royal incest). Freely admitting her own prejudices, Vowell gives contemporary relevance to the past as she weaves in, for instance, Obamas boyhood memories. Outrageous and wise-cracking, educational but never dry, this book is a thought-provoking and entertaining glimpse into the U.S.s most unusual state and its unanticipated twists on the familiar story of Americanization. (Mar.) br (c) PWxyz, LLC. From the bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates, an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn. Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight. Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup detat of the missionaries sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to whores, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode Aloha Oe serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade. With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all.