Swing, Bop, Dixie and Cool

...Call this, then, the quintessential Whitney Balliett, the cream of the cream, a collection that leaves no doubt about his strength...

...I'd go wherever the gig was— Hackensack or Brooklyn, or wherever —to make sure he didn't pawn mine...

...The effect was both confounding and exhilarating...

...For instance: "[Art] Tatum was a restless, compulsive player who abhorred silence...

...A merican Musicians brings together 49 piecesof his, nearly all of which first appeared in the New Yorker and have been part of five earlier anthologies of his work...

...As a critic he tends to be rather indifferent toward younger jazz musicians, particularly those of the rockinfluenced "jazz fusion" school...

...Balliett's piece on Zoot Sims is titled "Zoot and Louise," for here the interviewee-monologuist is Sim's widow Louise, the person who knew him best...

...Wives often figure prominently in these pieces...

...Those who love the music will love the book...

...In a note at the beginning of the book he calls them "biographical essays," and although that description fits some accurately, the subtitle, Portraits in Jazz, if less exact, better defines the rest...

...It all fits, and its inclusion emphasizes her role in Hall's career...

...To say that he is the best jazz writer around, therefore, is not to suggest he is the best jazz critic...

...Because Balliett frequently speaks to his subjects at home, he captures the domestic lives of people who might be thought to have none...

...Tatum, having died in 1956, was not around to tell his own story...

...American Musicians is a lovely book about jazz by a writer who is nonpareil at what he does...

...When you listen to Pee Wee Russell, Henry "Red" Allen and Red Norvo reminiscing while wives, children and grandchildren move in and out of the picture, you get a sense of these men as complete human beings who have had troubles and overcome them, who have made the bargains with life that we all must make in order to survive...

...They were both big women, and when they saw each other one of them would say, 'Look, I've got this brand new dress, but it's too big for me, so why don't you take it?' And they'd both break up...

...the piece on him is one of a number discussing the distinguished dead that might truly be called "biographical essays...

...His lyrical yet curiously precise descriptions cannot be surpassed...

...And the musicians harbor some curious notions...

...About Lester Young's complexity there was never any doubt...

...There are also essays on Fats Waller and King Oliver, among others long departed...

...Balliett, for example, spent a couple of days with the late Mary Lou Williams, a woman usually so shy she seemed almost tight-lipped, and she went on and on about her music, her personal history, her religion...

...I'mnotup to commuting...

...The portrait of guitarist Jim Hall, an exceptional man, begins with his wife Jane talking about her own life (she is a psychiatric social worker), how she met Hall, and what she thinks of jazz musicians...

...I'd have to move back to New York, and I don't want to do that yet...

...He concentrates his attention primarily on older players and on those firmly grounded in "classic jazz...

...The musicians talk...

...Stories involving difficult circumstances generally seem more wacky than sad...

...Clarinetist Sidney Bechet, especially, comes across as a complex, spikey individual—he did a year in a French prison for a shooting incident in Paris in the '20s—and not the sweet, genial, whitehaired black man who could always be counted on to say the right thing to a respectful interviewer...

...The proof of Balliett's pre-eminence is right here between the covers of this book...

...But Balliett shows us his soft side, citing times when the anger Young hid behind bis cool mask finally overflowed and he was reduced to tears...

...Balliett excels at the kinds of pieces he has decided to preserve with this volume...

...Why for Whitney Balliett...

...For the most part, he lets the subjects do the talking—and to that extent they are self-portraits...

...She opened up as she never had for any other writer...

...He used the piano's orchestral possibilities to the fullest, simultaneously maintaining a melodic voice, a harmonic voice, a variety of decorative voices, and a kind of whimsical voice, a laughing, look-Ma-no-hands voice...

...Louise Sims was recovering from serious eye surgery at the time of Balliet's visit, and she tells him, "The worst thing is not working...

...That in itself is noteworthy, since jazzmusicians are seldom very forthcoming or articulate about their art...

...I suspect it is because he has a measure of the same quality Studs Terkel is said to exude— "that feeling tone...

...Indeed, they emerge in all their dimensions...

...Balliet weaves them into observations from those who knew the subjects well and, where appropriate, fleshes them out with a bit of his own research...

...This house is so full of Zoot I can't bear leaving it...

...Good as he is, Balliett does have a weak- · ness or two...

...I'd be curious to know) has been artfully arranged into monologues that have the musicians talking about their lives, their music, and whatever else interests, annoys or excites them...

...His was pawned, I guess...

...In treating his favorites he also sometimes errs on the side of generosity...

...The bulk of this fine collection, however, consists of the self-portraits...

...Says French jazz critic Charles Delaunay of Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt: "Well, I knew what Django's dream was, because he told me so many times, 'If Louis [Armstrong] would hear me, he would take me to America where I would be the guest of Clark Gable and play for the Hollywood stars right by their pools.' " I could continue, but by now my point should be clear...

...It is a wonderful, warm obituary written shortly after the tenorman died of cancer...

...What is remarkable is that he brings us new material in the case of each musician he treats—including those like Jelly Roll Morton and Lester Young who have been written about so often before...

...Not at all, for the monologues are introduced— and from time to time interrupted— with wonderfully incisive comments and factual nuggets...

...Does this mean Whitney Balliett is no more than a skilled editor...

...Just take a look at Dexter Gordon's portrayal of the tenor saxophonist in Bernard Tavernier's film Round Midnight for a glimpse into an individual so outré that he was considered weird even by his fellow musicians...

...But they are not simply interviews...

...Listen to Art Farmer: "When I wasn't working, Miles Davis would rent myhornforSlOanight...

...Balliett takes great pains in his interpolations to tell us exactly what sort of music these men and women make...

...Only one other person is even in his class, Nat Hentoff, and he seldom takes up music anymore...

...He can be interesting on a basic human level even to those who, likemost New Yorker readers, care little and know less about the music...

...Information gleaned by the tried and true Q and A method (with the aid of a tape recorder...

...We are told, too, of the dedicated performer who lectured singer Sylvia Syms, "Lady Syms, if there is one guy in the whole house who is listening—and maybe he's in the bathroom—you've got an audience...

...Norvo relates an anecdote about his ex-wife Mildred Bailey and Bessie Smith: "Bessie was crazy about Mildred...

...She and Mildred used to laugh at each other and do this routine...

...But the dominant spirit of the book is happy, even joyful—as vibraharpist Red Norvo underlines when he declares, "The main thing is that jazz should be fun...

...Criticism is not really his bag...

...Reviewed by Bruce Cook Author, "The Beat Generation, " "Listen to the Blues" Nobody today writes as well about jazz as Whitney Balliett...