Mrs. Toggle's Zipper by Robin Pulver

Mrs. Toggle's Zipper by Robin Pulver

Long before Martin Williams, Gene Lees, or Gunther Schuller, Roger Pryor Dodge was writing seriously about jazz. A ballet, vaudeville, and jazz dancer, Dodge turned his critical attention to the music in the 1920s, helping to build the respect jazz has long since achieved. Now, for the first time, the essays and reviews of one of America's first great jazz critics has been collected in one volume.
Hot Jazz and Jazz Dance gathers thirty years of Dodge's writing, from 1929 to 1958, offering a remarkable chronicle of the changing music and one writer's ever-growing appreciation of it. The classically trained Dodge came to jazz in the early 1920s; he quickly developed a love for the authentic, non-commercial sounds of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and scores of now-forgotten musicians. In these essays, we share a highly personal yet professional encounter with the music--in a moving profile, for instance, of Bubber Miley (the greatest trumpeter in jazz history--in fact, the greatest musician of them all), who died of tuberculosis at age thirty. He ranges across the musical spectrum, from the Cuban sexteto to the blues of Lead Belly. Dodge was alsoa professional dancer, however, and this collection contains many of his articles on everything from mambo to Nijinsky (the author owned one of the largest and most important collections of photographs of the great dancer's work, and donated it to the New York Public Library) to a short essay on the young Elvis Presley (without his having all the necessary elements that combine to make a great dancing talent, he does have the stance of a very great performer). In addition, this volume offers Dodge's significant writing on classical music, including a piece on Baroque playing styles.
Almost forgotten today, Roger Pryor Dodge was an essential force in making America's music critics take hot jazz and jazz dance seriously. A must for any jazz fan or student of modern culture, this collection deftly captures Dodge's excitement and critical insight.

Robin Pulver is the author of many acclaimed picture books, including many language arts titles such as Punctuation Takes a Vacation and Nouns and Verbs Have a Field Day. Her website is www.robinpulver.com. She lives in upstate New York.

Stephanie Roth Sisson is the illustrator of many picture and chapter books. Kirkus Reviews has praised her artwork as delightful and emotional. Her website is https: //www.stephanitely.com.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780027754513
ISBN 10	0027754510
Title	Mrs. Toggle's Zipper
Author	Robin Pulver
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Prentice Hall (a Pearson Education company)
Year published	1990-01-01
Number of pages	32
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.