Gordon Jack is one of the jazz world's most skillful interviewers. He asks all the right questions and then gets out of the way, letting his subjects reveal themselves. What a pleasure to have all this material collected in one book!
Bill Crow, author of From Birdland to Broadway(1992, Oxford University Press) [Gordon Jack's] knowledge of the ... Read moreperiod and the recordings it produced is unsurpassed...I guarantee that any readers who thought they knew all there was to know about the thirty musicians featured in this book will be in for a surprise.
Alun Morgan, author of Modern Jazz: A Series of Developments since 1939 ...excellent book...Great humor appears throughout, whether in descriptions of characters like altoist Gene Quill or in quotes from well-known wits like Al Cohn or Zoot Sims.
Jazzreview.com
The book is interesting reading because every musician speaks his own mind. Many fascinating and humorous details surface along the way...This is an important publication because - to my knowledge - no other book treats the history of jazz in the 1950s this way.
Frank Büchmann-Møller
Jazz Special
...a useful source book. largely authoritative and dependable.
Jazz Review
The merit of such a book as this lies in the balance it strikes between the familiar and the unfamiliar. People such as Lee Konitz, Bob Brookmeyer and Bud Shank have been interviewed often whereas Don Ferrara, Gene Allen and Joe Dodge have spoken far less often. If anything, one might have liked more from some of these minor figures. But it's a job well done.
Jazzwise
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