Piazza, Tom

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Preaching to the choir.
Why New Orleans Matters Book
Why New Orleans Matters
An Unproven Thesis
Beautifully written book about New Orleans' most unique and beloved cities

Why New Orleans Matters
Tom Piazza
Manufacturer: Regan Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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1 Dead in Attic

ASIN: 0061124834
Release Date: 2005-11-22

Book Description

Every place has its history. But what is it about New Orleans that makes it more than just the sum of the events that have happened there? What is it about the spirit of the people who live there that could produce a music, a cuisine, an architecture, a total environment, the mere mention of which can bring a smile to the face of someone who has never even set foot there?

What is the meaning of a place like that, and what is lost if it is lost?

The winds of Hurricane Katrina, and the national disaster that followed, brought with them a moment of shared cultural awareness: Thousands were killed and many more displaced; promises were made, forgotten, and renewed; the city of New Orleans was engulfed by floodwaters of biblical proportions -- all in a wrenching drama that captured international attention.

Yet the passing of that moment has left too many questions. What will become of New Orleans in the months and years to come? What of its people, who fled the city on a rising tide of panic, trading all they knew and loved for a dim hope of shelter and rest? And, ultimately, what do those people and their city mean to America and the world?

In Why New Orleans Matters, award-winning author and New Orleans resident Tom Piazza illuminates the storied culture and uncertain future of this great and most neglected of American cities. With wisdom and affection, he explores the hidden contours of familiar traditions like Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, and evokes the sensory rapture of the city that gave us jazz music and Creole cooking. He writes, too, of the city's deep undercurrents of corruption, racism, and injustice, and of how its people endure and transcend those conditions. And, perhaps most important, he asks us all to consider the spirit of this place and all the things it has shared with the world -- grace and beauty, resilience and soul. "That spirit is in terrible jeopardy right now," he writes. "If it dies, something precious and profound will go out of the world forever."

Why New Orleans Matters is a gift from one of our most talented writers to the beloved and important city he calls home -- and to a nation to whom that city's survival has been entrusted.

Customer Reviews:

Preaching to the choir........2007-02-05

As a Nola expatriate, I was really looking forward to reading this book. I was very disappointed. It rambled, almost as if Mr. Piazza was so overwhelmed with love for his city (which I totally understand) that he couldn't organize his thoughts beyond effusion. It's too much preaching to the choir. I had hoped this book would pull those in who don't understand why we want to rebuild, who advocate for letting this culture and magnificence disappear! Piazza talks about the great restaurants and the wonderful music and eclectic personalities... He says *what's* important but he never communicates quite WHY. Living in the Midwest now and having a hard time defending why my city deserves to be saved, I read the book with a mindset of "what if I'd never been there". I was hoping this book could reach them, the naysayers. It doesn't. It can't. It's too caught up in itself. This book doesn't say why New Orleans should matter to those who currently care less; it's just a love letter. I can't imagine it will sway anyone who doesn't already have the context of living or visiting to understand his love.

Chris Rose's book, "1 Dead in Attic" somehow manages to do a fantastic job of this, even though his love for the city is just as great. Rose is a columnist for the local Times-Picayune. If you want to know why New Orleans matters, read his book instead.

I'd also recommend "Very New Orleans" by artist Diana Hollingsworth Gessler. Interestingly, this book is a compilation of detailed sketches and brief descriptions that capture the vibrancy of New Orleans in an incredibly uplifting way. I found myself smiling as I went through, page by page, not only remembering things I'd forgotten, but thinking to myself, "Now THIS is why New Orleans matters!!"

Why New Orleans Matters Book.......2007-01-11

I was extremely pleased with the purchase of the "Why New Orleans Matters" book purchased through Amazon. Book arrived quickly and perfectly packaged.

Why New Orleans Matters.......2007-01-10

A beautiful sensitive depiction of the heart and soul of New Orleans. This book is truly a love poem.

An Unproven Thesis.......2006-09-11

The title appears to be a ripoff of Pete Hammil's book, "Why Sinatra Matters". A more accurate title to this book would be, "Why New Orleans Matters to Me". Almost all of the author's reasons are subjective. He likes the Mardi Gras Indians, the neighborhood restaurants and music clubs. So what? What is the objective significance of them? The author mentions but does not evaluate the objective effects of the high crime rate, welfare dependence and the political corruption. He also dodged the objective fact that before Hurricane Katrina 40% of city residents could not read and write and 50% refused to work. Does New Orleans matter to him because a majority of its residents are stupid and lazy? The truth is that New Orleans has mattered for one objective reason: its geographical location near the mouth of the Mississippi River. The U.S. cannot effectively compete in the global economy without a safe and secure New Orleans. If coastal erosion does not inundate the city, it will continue to matter. But this book will not.

Beautifully written book about New Orleans' most unique and beloved cities.......2006-09-03

Anyone who's loved New Orleans from near or far will love this short, but powerful, memoir about life in New Orleans before and after Katrina and why the United States must save her.

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Listen, Read, Listen Again ... And You Will Hear More Each Time.

Understanding Jazz: Ways to Listen
Tom Piazza
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Why New Orleans Matters

ASIN: 1400063698
Release Date: 2005-09-20

Book Description

“Jazz is primarily to be heard, to be experienced.”
–Tom Piazza, from the Introduction

Much more than just another history of this vital music and those who play it, Understanding Jazz is a multimedia master class and late-night jam session rolled into one–an indispensable guide to a deeper appreciation of jazz.

Jazz is America’s greatest indigenous art form, a musical hybrid whose origins are as mysterious, complex, and surprising as its evolution has proved to be. Written by Grammy award-winning author Tom Piazza and produced by the experts at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Understanding Jazz uses simple explanations and analogies to illuminate the basics of listening to a jazz performance: how to discern form, instrumentation, style, and intent.

Each of the book’s seven sections focuses on a particular aspect of the jazz vernacular, from the way individual instruments or voices come together yet remain distinct, to the spontaneous miracles of skilled improvisation, to the transcendent rhythmic qualities of swing and the enduring influence of the blues.

Specific points in the text are illustrated and reinforced on the accompanying CD in recordings that capture some of jazz’s most gifted musicians: Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Lester Young, Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others.

A unique celebration of the influence of jazz on American life, this book and CD are perfect for both jazz enthusiasts and beginning listeners alike, initiating them into the exciting world of this singular style of music.

Customer Reviews:

Listen, Read, Listen Again ... And You Will Hear More Each Time........2006-01-03

Tom Piazza took on a difficult subject. Explaining how to listen to jazz via the printed word can be a daunting task and the author's approach of selecting several classical jazz recordings for inclusion with the book on a "companion CD" is right on the mark. Piazza approaches each of the tracks individually, often providing stop watch-timed musical analysis--allowing the reader to first read and absorb the technical explanations and then playback the track and engage in focused listening exercises."Understanding Jazz: Ways to Listen" is geared towards musically-trained readers eager to add to their knowledge base the intricacies of jazz music--it is not a book for those without any prior knowledge of music theory and terminology. Piazza also succeeds in bringing to life the music through creative use of analogies, thus going beyond explanations of the discussed recordings. He also offers ample of "further listening suggestions." The only thing missing is a glossary containing the most commonly used musical terminology which is not always synonymous with the terminology used in classical music theory. Definitely worth checking out!

Average customer rating:

Essential
A really dreadful guide to compact discs...
the tourist point of view
Great guide for jazz beginners
I concur: it's the best

The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
Tom Piazza
Manufacturer: University Of Iowa Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Understanding Jazz: Ways to Listen

ASIN: 0877454892

Amazon.com

Arguments about what qualifies as jazz (let alone classic jazz) will rage well into the next millennium. Tom Piazza has floated his own definition--which is partly chronological and partly based on a few stylistic litmus tests--and then used it to shape this intelligent and individual guide. Considering both ensembles and soloists, he covers about 800 recordings, most of them made between 1920 and 1970. Although the heft of his book qualifies it as a reference work, Piazza never pretends to encyclopedic neutrality. On the contrary, he's a fiery advocate of the recordings he loves, and a chiding critic of those he doesn't.

Customer Reviews:

Essential.......2003-11-30

N.B. I've known Tom for several years, and consider him a friend. That said, I got his book shortly after I met him, and consider essential for anyone who either loves jazz, or wishes to learn about jazz.
I used it to construct a fantastic collection over the years. I literally built my pillars of Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker around his well-chosen recomendations, and have added a number of lesser well known favorites to my roster (Charles McPherson! Brew Moore!) My copy is dog-earred. I keep it next to my computer, and use it to decide which discs I'll next purchase from Amazon or my online music service. (This book is a dynamite companion to emusic.com, which has a huge amount of the Prestige/Riverside/OJC catalogue on line)> The first part of the Guide orients you with a brief history of how the music progressed from New Orleans joys forward. Throughout the whole book, there are citations to readily available records of what he discusses. Anything he cites that sounds particularly tantalizing will, believe me, get purchased. Tom's love and enthusiasm for the music shine through and he is a most persuasive salesman. (The RIAA should give him an award)!
There follows a detailed review of the role of various instruments in the ensembles.
Trust me-these recent posts have some sort of hidden agenda. But from the point of view of simply teaching you about the large topic of jazz-this is the book.

A really dreadful guide to compact discs..........2003-11-28

This book is enthusiastic and full of cliches. It's an extremely odd view of jazz history, largely discounting white musicians and modern jazz in general. The standard guide is still published by Penguin, which is much more knowledgable and open-minded.

the tourist point of view.......2003-11-07

In any books such as these, there will always be disagreements on ommissions and inclusions. I will not debate this.

That being said, it is quite clear that Piazza has a weak grasp of the fundamentals of the music. He is a tourist, not a scholar. So what if you want to see the other sights?

Piazza also practices an odious brand of Political Correctness. In his world, if you listen to the avant garde, that means you want African Americans to be noble savages.

Great guide for jazz beginners.......2003-06-24

I bought this book three years ago, and I still go back to it regularly. When I first read it, I owned half a dozen, or fewer, jazz albums. My collection has swelled since then, and most of the LPs and CDs I've picked up were recommendations from this book. I have not been disappointed yet.

Piazza's knowledge of jazz recordings, together with his clear, direct, and enthusiastic writing style, make this a joy to flip through. I can say I've truly discovered some outstanding music thanks to him and his book.

I concur: it's the best.......2003-01-28

Tom Piazza is both a jazz pianist and a writer, giving him a rare combination of insight and ability to express it. Musicians know that many renowned critics don't really know what they're talking about--if you don't play, you (usually) don't know. Piazza knows.

His book is divided into halves. The first half covers the recordings of the great jazz ensembles from dixieland through the 1960s avant-garde. (There's no coverage of 1970s jazz-fusion, the 1980s young lions, or later, which are too recent to be "classic.") The second half covers the recordings of the most important jazz soloists on each instrument over the same period. An advantage of this structure is that it gives an overall sense of history in a way that books like the All-Music Guide, organized alphabetically by artist, can't.

Piazza does have an ideological leaning. He is part of the current Wynton Marsalis/Stanley Crouch camp, which feels that much recent jazz should not be called jazz at all, because it is not based on the blues. The free jazz of the 1960s and the jazz-fusion of the 1970s are without merit to this camp, and this is probably why Piazza does not reach into the 1970s. (He does say, of 1960s free jazz, that "people who like this sort of thing like the following albums.") It's a mark of Piazza's excellence that while I do not belong to this camp, I still think his guide is the best for the period it covers. Fans of free jazz and jazz-fusion will want other books to supplement Piazza's guide, but Piazza's book should be the first purchase for your jazz library.

Blues Up and Down: Jazz in Our Time
Average customer rating:

an irrelevant book more akin to the ugly PCs of Rush Limbaug

Must Read

An outline for multiple books. Too sketchy for one.

Blues Up and Down: Jazz in Our Time
Tom Piazza
Manufacturer: St Martins Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 031216789X

Book Description

In these pages Tom Piazza, the award-winning author of The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz, chronicles two decades of upheaval in the jazz world--and presents a persuasive vision of the music's continuing role in our culture. A tour-de-force mixture of reportage, criticism, and essay, Blues Up and Down confronts the central questions facing the music today: Is there a conflict between innovation and tradition? Is there such a thing as "progress" in the arts? And what the stakes in the debate--for musicians, for critics, and for listeners? His answers are provocative and original, and his survey of the music, coming at a crucial time in its history, is fresh and exhilarating on every page.

Customer Reviews:

an irrelevant book more akin to the ugly PCs of Rush Limbaug.......2003-11-09

and perhaps with the same ears. to wit...
Mr Piazza thinks that avant garde music is primitive, not sophisticated. He needs his ears examined.

Even more ugly is the PC he brings to his discourse. To Mr Piazza, to like fusion and avant garde is to be a racist.

Must Read.......1999-07-14

If you want to know more about the state of jazz in the nineties, this book is a MUST READ!!! Incredible well-written and thoughtful.

An outline for multiple books. Too sketchy for one........1999-06-16

The only reason this gets 2 instead of 1 star is the one chapter that provides a well-supported critique (for an essay) of Collier's Ellington biography. That is the only part of the whole book worth reading and it is the only part exempt from the critique to follow.

The chapters are previously pubished essays that simply don't cohere and make up an aimless scheme of a book. The aim, purportedly, is to provide Piazza's conception of jazz's essence. The book is one big outline of a project for multiple books. Each chapter can be a basis for a stimulating book. I just think that Piazza doesn't feel like writing one so this is what you get.

The essays meander and drag on either because they are too offhand in delivery; too uncharitable towards their targets of critique (with occasional, strategic, contrived, and, based on my impression, disingenuous, bows to diplomacy); and too disparate to achieve the goal Piazza sets out in the introduction.

Also, I think I'm sick of the debate over Marsalis due to its shallowness and callousness. Regardless, this book is a reader's waste of time, energy, and money. I think Piazza is capable of writing a good book but he simply lacked the initiative to write one that is both well conceived and well executed

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A great, albeit quick, read!

A Snapshot of the King of Bluegrass

sequel please!!!

What a Waste!

True Adventures With The King Of Bluegrass

True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass
Tom Piazza
Manufacturer: Vanderbilt University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0826513603

Book Description

Jimmy Martin was just twenty-two years old when Bill Monroe asked him to join the Blue Grass Boys. That invitation was the start of a fifty-year recording career, recently celebrated with Martin's induction into the International Bluegrass Music Association's Hall of Honor. At age seventy-two, he still regularly performs with his band, the Sunny Mountain Boys. Yet the man himself remains an obscure figure, compared with other bluegrass greats, such as Ralph Stanley or the Osborne Brothers.

Fiction writer and music critic Tom Piazza couldn't understand why Martin wasn't better known. So, on assignment from The Oxford American magazine, he drove from his home in New Orleans to Nashville to find out. Although aware that Martin had "a reputation as a heavy drinker and a volatile personality," Piazza found himself pitched headlong into a world he couldn't have anticipated. Martin's mercurial personality drew the writer into a series of escalating encounters (with mean dogs, broken down cars, and near electrocution), culminating in a harrowing and unforgettable expedition, with Martin, to the Grand Ole Opry.

Piazza captured his visit with Martin in supple, electric prose, and the result, when it appeared in the Oxford American, quickly became a word-of-mouth sensation among musicians and fans alike. Included in this keepsake edition are a new afterword by Piazza, an essay on Martin's recordings, and a timeline of Martin's career. True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass is a funny, scary, and powerfully poignant portrait of one of the living legends of American music.

Customer Reviews:

A great, albeit quick, read!.......2005-12-04

I'm so tired of music biographies where the subject is either villainized or practically canonized; none of us are perfect saints, nor are we completely evil. That's why I always find it refreshing when a writer presents the true person, most of whom are a little of both. Piazza has done that here.

Martin is something of a tragic figure; a mad genius. In candid interviews, Piazza has found all the good in the man, as well as peeled back some of the bad. He shows that if Martin had been born in another era, or been a king of another genre, he would have been a hero, but in the holier-than-thou bluegrass scene, the hard-living Martin was considered something of a black sheep, despite his obvious brilliance.

This is a great book, and definitely one of the best music biographies ever written.

A Snapshot of the King of Bluegrass.......2004-04-02

Tom Piazza has written a piece which captures with photographic detail several hours spent in the company of the Mad 3-chord Genius (as Marty Stuart writes in his forward) and Self-Proclaimed King of Bluegrass, Jimmy Martin. This "book" is essentially a fleshed out magazine article, but it's a good one. Less than 100 pages and written in a style that moves right along while giving you a "you are there" first person sense, it's an enlightening way to pass an hour or two.

Mr. Piazza has a keen and insightful sense of Jimmy Martin's musical genius and place in Bluegrass History, and to me the most poignant moments in the book are when the writer is moving to shield or protect the intoxicated, loud-mouthed King of Bluegrass from injuring his already mussed reputation. As he observes, much of what makes Jimmy Martin "great" also dooms him to the edges of the limelight and that Grand Ol' Opry Membership that Jimmy Martin yearns for so badly will likely never happen, exactly for the reason of his unwillingness to back down or compromise.

This isn't a "biography" so much as a thumbnail sketch of who Jimmy Martin is framed in a skillful depiction of a few volatile hours spent with a prime example of the "Tortured Artist".

I can't help but wonder if a well-written first-person account of a weekend spent with Van Gogh would have been eerily similar.

sequel please!!!.......2002-04-03

What a great little book!

Marty Stuart's introduction is fabulous and makes me want to read his book as well.

This is one of the few books I've ever read where I'm audibly laughing. It is a hilarious, frightening, and sad ride. I just wish it was longer.

What a Waste!.......2000-12-07

Tim Piazza and Marty Stuart should have limited their ramblings to an article in Bluegrass Unlimited. Not enough here to make a book and certainly nothing we haven't heard before... The book covers the details of a couple of road trips but provides very little else. I was disappointed.

True Adventures With The King Of Bluegrass.......2000-10-07

Double thumbs up to Tom Piazza. Looking forward to a sequel. Love this Bluegrass Artist. A must read for Jimmy Martin fans. Thanks Tom for showing the sensitive caring side of this great artist who stands firm for what he believes in (his music).

Average customer rating:

an encounter with brother
Get into Delano's Head
uneven throughout but strong close
Tom Piazza's debut novel is alternately ironic and affecting
MY Cold War

My Cold War: A Novel
Tom Piazza
Manufacturer: Regan Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass

ASIN: 0060533412
Release Date: 2004-09-28

Book Description

A sharp, searching novel of an American son and the family he left behind — from a writer of rare breadth and human insight.

My Cold War is a critically acclaimed debut novel of extraordinary depth and range — the story of a man's alienation and attempts at reconnection with his family, and a rich exploration of the thorny implications of American popular culture.

At its center is John Delano, a professor of Cold War Studies and successful mass-market historian a la Stephen Ambrose or Ken Burns. Raised by an awkward, embittered father and a frustrated mother in a Levittown-style suburb on Long Island, Delano has made a name for himself as a gimmicky interpreter of Cold War America — a controversial but popular repackager of events like the JFK assassination for those who lived through them without noticing.

And yet, as the novel opens, Delano has reached an impasse: during a crisis of confidence, he shelves a major new book project in favor of a quest to drive to the Midwest and seek out his estranged younger brother. But when the trip ends in a sobering discovery that his brother has led a life of desperate transience, grasping at straws and scapegoats — he undergoes an epiphany that propels him back to the newly sacred ground where he and his brother were raised.

Long recognized as a writer of exceptional vision and unflinching candor, Tom Piazza has crafted a novel full of incident and argument, a book that speaks with depth and range about what it has meant to be American in our time.

Customer Reviews:

an encounter with brother.......2006-05-25

This is a story about the author and his life which focuses towards the end about an encouunter he has with his younger brother whom he hasnt seen in a long time. The result of the encounter is what he, as the older brother could have done differently had he been around some more to offer guidance and support. An emotional read.

Get into Delano's Head.......2005-12-31

If you enjoyed "My Cold War", I recommend "The Memory of Running" by Ron McClarty, "White Noise" by Don Delillo, and most anything by Richard Ford.

uneven throughout but strong close.......2003-11-20

My Cold War follows John Delano, a college professor of Cold War Studies whose focus is "surface and image" rather than what lies beneath--the "boring history stuff". We come across Delano shortly after his father's death, which has precipitated a crisis of career and family for Delano. He is on sabbatical for a book he cannot write, its cold war history meshing too muddily with his own more personal recollections of growing up in Long Island, his father's slide into mental illness, his eight-year estrangement from his younger brother Chris. Finally, Delano decides to drop the book and head out to Iowa to see his brother, whom he last spoke to when he told him to basically "get a life" after Chris called desperate for a place to stay.
The book has its uneven moments but they are outweighed by the long stretches of good moments. Piazza's post-war descriptions of Long Island suburbia are vividly sharp: the cookie-cutter houses, Johnny Carson on the TV, smoking pot, a long digression on Bob Dylan's shift to electric guitar. Delano's crisis of faith in his philosophy that image is all-important is handled well internally if brought out a bit obviously through a conversation with another faculty member. Several of the side characters, in fact, seem a bit weak as characters: his colleague, his wife, an old college friend, his brothers' friends in Iowa. They often seem as if they were created to fill a role--say a few lines, spark a plot action or a memory--then made to disappear. We see so little of them though that despite this being a pretty consistent weakness it ends up relatively minor in the novel as a whole.
The heart of the book belongs to Delano's memories of his family and his new-found desire to make contact with his brother, the former handled better than the later. The memory scenes and Delano's present-time responses to the memories are the strength of the book both in terms of evoking an emotional response from the reader and in the language which seems to sparkle in those scenes. The scene with the brother is handled a bit too quickly and too much through internal monologue-there was so much potential there that I would have liked to have seen more. The awkwardness, the pain, the mixture of anger and nostalgia are captured perfectly, just too glancingly. All of that, however, is made up for by the closing scene where Delano visits his hometown. The images and the language jump up to another level and lead to a beautifully written and heartachingly poignant close. The book is worth it I'd say just for the last few pages alone, though there is much to recommend it before one gets there. This is a quiet book, quietly moving, quietly captivating. It won't grab you with flashy writing or big action or larger-than-life or quirkier-than-real-life characters. And as mentioned, it has its weaknesses of character and plot. But what it does is hold your attention through voice and some beautifully precise images. A strong recommendation.

Tom Piazza's debut novel is alternately ironic and affecting.......2003-10-26

John Delano, hip professor at an effete New England college, is skilled in creating the "History McNuggets" that he is about to purvey via public broadcasting in JOHN DELANO'S COLD WAR --- once he's written the actual book. Which he hasn't. And may not, ever. Because the longer he ponders the Cold War's larger implications, the closer he comes to realizing that it never belonged to him.

What does belong to Delano is the midlife crisis he's experiencing --- 'suffering from' might be more accurate. After his old-school Italian-American father dies, Delano (whose Anglicization of his surname was an early attempt to disconnect from that father) finds himself unable to productively sort through the material for his Big Book. Part of the problem is that subject and self have become hopelessly entangled. Where does the Cold War leave off and Delano's Cold War begin? He can't decide, and won't let us do so, either.

MY COLD WAR opens with a scene both unsettling and totemic: young John's parents receive a visit from an old friend of his mother's who wants them to join the fervently anti-Communist John Birch Society. Piazza's memory and eye for details pin down his parents like half-dead butterfly specimens: "The house was decorated, like most of the houses I remember from that time, in a mix of styles in which the elements had been stirred up but not dissolved . . ." He writes, "The whole postwar Levittown middle-class home-decorating Esperanto that everyone seemed, somehow, to have learned."

As John Delano's youth dissolves into adulthood, the world as his parents understood it devolves into chaos, with a long literary riff on Dylan at Newport symbolizing the shift. Meanwhile, his father's descent into mental illness leaves John and his brother Chris rudderless, despite their mother's attempts to introduce her male friends into their lives. Now, in middle age, John believes that an attempt to reunite with his brother may be the spark that will ignite his comatose muse and bring him literary kudos.

When John arrives in Iowa, carrying his father's violin as a sort of peace offering, he learns that, like him, his brother has created a life for himself. Unfortunately, that life involves the white supremacist movement. In another unsettling and totemic scene, three of his brother's comrades try to intimidate John. Very quickly, the rest of John's life moves out of his control --- and leads him back to where it all began.

Several reviews of Tom Piazza's MY COLD WAR have noted that its conclusion is much deeper than its beginning. I wonder if this wasn't precisely Piazza's intent. Like a New Historicist critic who starts with a scrap of paper and interpolates an entire cultural milieu, Piazza has given us a protagonist whose fragmented life gets its own Kodachrome moment. That moment may not be perfect, but unlike the photographs of icons that Delano has lived with, it belongs to him alone.

--- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick

MY Cold War.......2003-10-13

Tom Piazza's long-awaited first novel does not disappoint. A New Yorker, MFA grad of Iowa's Writers Workshop, a jazz scholar and critic, a student of Frank Conner, and a writer with a keen sense of socio-anthrpology, Piazza has written a sensitive and substantive piece of fiction that reveals a sense of intimacy with all the above. He weaves strips of his own experience into a sad patchwork tale of a man seeking his place in the present and his relationship to the past. As a troubled professor of history, John Delano begins an odessy to find his own place only to discover that history and our perceptions of it are not static, but rather fluid like a blues riff that can set the band on an entire new course. Piazza challenges us to read slowly and contemplate while his descriptions permeate and lift the soul like the muted sound of Gordon Brown's trumpet. Read this book on a rainy afternoon when time has no meaning.

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How to Catch Clams by the Bushel!
Tom Schlichter
Manufacturer: Stackpole Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 081174020X

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fiction, people, melodies
Great American Personality Landscape

Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories
Tom Piazza
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0312167881

Book Description

Tom Piazza's short story collection Blues and Trouble, for which he won a James Michener Award, is the debut of an exciting and original new presence in American fiction. Set in Memphis, Florida, New York, New Orleans, and elsewhere, these twelve stories echo voices from Ernest Hemingway to Robert Johnson to Jimmie Rodgers in their powerful imagery and keen eye for the truth. A tough and haunting vision of a land where the social, emotional, and spiritual ground shifts constantly underfoot, Blues and Trouble is a work of both masterful craft and raw, rare beauty.

Customer Reviews:

fiction, people, melodies.......2002-09-03

a wonderful and original collection of tales that span the country looking deep into the hearts and lives of people who are waiting, or lost, or looking for something they secretly know they won't find. piazza is a renowned music writer, and whether explicit or not, these stories have a bluesy, riffy melody playing throughout them.

Great American Personality Landscape.......1999-04-18

A wonderful cadre of short stories, highlighting the day to day struggles of relationships caught with a keen eye and sharp wit. Especially enjoyable was the story of two college poets and the change of their relationship due to the nervous breakdown of one of them. A kinder Raymond Carver. Great read.

Blues and Trouble Twwelve Stories (inscribed)

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Blues and Trouble Twwelve Stories (inscribed)
Tom Piazza
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LF01IA

Average customer rating:

Setting the Tempo
Tom Piazza
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Amazon.com

Many jazz fans first learned about the music not only from listening, but from reading the notes on the backs of records. In "Setting the Tempo," Tom Piazza collects 50 liner notes, dating from 1940 to 1986. Here are such writers as Stanley Crouch (on pianist Thelonius Monk and saxophonist Booker Ervin); Amiri Baraka (on singer Billie Holliday and saxophonist John Coltrane); and Whitney Balliet (on singer Joe Turner and saxophonist Gerry Mulligan). This is writing that informs, often placing the artist in a historical context, as much as it energizes bringing to our attention nuances in the music that often make us hear it afresh.

Book Description

Since the introduction of the long-playing record, some of the best writing about jazz has appeared on the backs of record covers. Over the years, jazz writers and prominent jazz musicians have annotated record albums with background on the musicians and the recordings, historical context and musical analysis. These annotations, or "liner notes," provide a window on the recording process, as well as intimate anecdotes and personal views of the musicians that have an immediacy and warmth rarely found elsewhere--setting the tempo, in a sense, for the listener's appreciation of the music.

Jazz liner notes, both for new releases and classic material, comprise a rich and vibrant genre of jazz writing that has never been collected--until now. In Setting the Tempo, author and jazz authority Tom Piazza presents fifty of the finest and most distinctive notes from the beginning of the genre, in the 1940s, through the present. Among them are Duke Ellington's moving reminiscences of stride piano master James P. Johnson, brilliant impressions of John Coltrane by poet Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka); bass virtuoso and composer Charles Mingus's harrangue against his critics, composer Gunther Schuller's extrordinary story of locating Charlie Parker's alto saxophone teacher, and meditations on different meanings of freeedom in jazz by pianist Bill Evans and alto innovator Ornette Coleman. Stanley Crouch, Dan Morgenstern, Ira Gitler, and Ralph J. Gleason and other critics are also represented by some of their strongest work.

A mosaic history of jazz as seen through the occasions of its signal recordings and the sensibilities of some of its foremost observers, Setting the Tempo is one of the most lively collections of jazz writing ever assembled.

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