by Arthur Taylor
As a drummer, Taylor has bopped with the best. Since the early '50s he has appeared on more than 200 jazz albums, many of them classics featuring Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell or Sonny Rollins. This book, previously published in Europe but just now available here, shows that as an interviewer, A.T. (as musicians call him) is just as good. He recorded these conversations with 27 prominent artists—including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Ornette Coleman, Nina Simone and Erroll Garner—mostly in Europe between 1968 and 1972. The setting is important. As saxophonist Johnny Griffin confesses, "It's a cinch that if I had stayed in America I would be dead by now. I was a stoned zombie when I left." Even more important is the fact Taylor is black. No white interviewer could have produced this book. Whether discussing drugs, black history, the record business or even amplification ("I don't think niggers need to play anything electric, because niggers are electric!" asserts pianist Hampton Hawes), the musicians' depth of feeling about their music and race and their place in the white world is disturbing and vastly illuminating, Ornette Coleman, for instance, says, "I was born in the black community, where the best thing to do is be clean and not let anybody know what your problems are. I have walked the streets wearing silk suits when I was hungry. I know that if you're clean, at least the dignity of being human is still there." (Perigee Books, $7.95 paperback)
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