W. Royal Stokes Living the Jazz Life

Living the Jazz Life - Conversations with Forty Musicians About Their Careers in Jazz

W. Royal Stokes

No music is as individual as jazz. And no writer is as deft at bringing out what is individual in each jazz artist as W. Royal Stokes. As a reviewer, feature writer, public radio host, and author, Stokes has spent three decades covering the jazz scene. Now he draws on that rich store of knowledge and friendship to introduce us to the jazz life.

Living The Jazz Life is less informative than some. This is surprising given the book's title and opening claim to reveal details from the lives of jazz musicians. Its two main problems are the comparitive anonymity of the modern-day musicians (e.g., Diana Krall and John Stubblefield) engaged in pillow talk with W. Royal Stokes between the covers, but also the lack of prudent editing that should have made the musicians' stories more tractable to the mortal reader. Instead, lengthy directionless personal histories fill page after page in a literal memory dump before the next entrant steps up to the bar to bend the bartender's ear. What could have been an insightful cross-referencing of shared origins, influences and experiences is left to the reader to pick themes from separate tales. The only concession to order is the bulking of players of the same instrument under the same chapter headings.

BUT, all is not lost, because armed with the Biographical Encyclopedia and humored by Jazz Anecdotes, this third book does provide a useful if not readily accessible portal to contemporary jazz musicians thereby filling a niche not fully plugged by the other tomes.