I remember jazz : six decades among the great jazzmen /

Rose, a friend and promoter of jazz for most of its history, presents a series of short vignettes of performers and personalities associated with the jazz world. In an unabashedly personalized and informal style, he depicts the uniqueness of each individual through anecdotes gathered from his friendships and associations with some of the more colorful and entertaining jazz figures. There is no attempt to correlate the stories and any factual, historical, or biographical information the book contains is purely coincidental. Recommended for general readers.-R.L. Greenhaw, Valdosta State College

For 60 years, Al Rose has lived and breathed jazz in New Orleans, New York, and around the world. A traditionalist who favors New Orleans jazz over the music's later forms, Rose has promoted concerts, hosted the syndicated radio show ``Journeys into Jazz,'' and befriended various jazz greats including Eubie Blake and Louis Armstrong. I Remember Jazz surveys Rose's lifetime in jazz through a collection of short vignettes. Although some of these stories concern the outrageous escapades of Jelly Roll Morton and other free spirits, many are more somber, detailing the hard-luck sagas of jazzmen who were never stars, who struggled with booze, or who somehow missed the big break. Rose writes with authority and affection. To be indexed. PLR. 785.42'0092 (B) Jazz music / Jazz musicians [CIP] 86-15307

New Orleans jazz historian Rose, author of the musky and beautiful New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album, sketches his personal memories of several dozen notable and less notable jazzmen whom he knew or supported through concerts, recording sessions, radio, TV, and movie promotions. Most are Southerners, mainly from New Orleans ""l'm talking about genuine, unhyphenated jazz--not modern, not progressive, not fusion. New Wave, blues, or swing. Just jazz. Only jazz is jazz."" Perhaps three-quarters of those he talks about are dead, with alcoholism seemingly their greatest occupational hazard. Among the famed, Rose's tastiest stories are those concerning pianist-composer Eubie Blake, who died just after turning 100. Euphoric Eubie was a great ladies' man, and neither of his marriages diminished his skirt-chasing. He demurred that they chased him and he couldn't resist them (""l been gettin' away with that act for 60 years""). Several of his girls committed suicide over him and two were killed by their husbands. ""'Listen. . .I wasn't foolin' with jail bait. These were grown up women.'"" Among other colorful folk Rose traded drinks with are Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Bobby Hackett, arrogant Sidney Bechet, Bunny Berigan, Wild Bill Davison, Jack Teagarden, Bunk Johnson, Earl Hines, Gene Krupa, Al Hirt and Dizzy Gillespie. The lesser knowns were not less loved. Rose himself is modest and warm, and at times hilarious, as when he and clarinetist Pee Wee Russell kept cornetist Bobby Hackett aghast with a deadpan tale about mild-mannered Bunny Berigan being jailed for beating his wife and throwing her down a dumbwaiter shaft. Always alive, sometimes quite moving in its triumphs over the color line. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.