Music Book Review: Beneath Missouri Skies - Pat Methany in Kansas City, 1964-1972 by Carolyn Glenn Brewer

Beneath Missouri Skies: Pat Methany in Kansas City, 1964-1972
by Carolyn Glenn Brewer (Music 781.65 Methany)

Guitarist Pat Metheny is one of the most famous jazz musicians in recent decades, and possibly the most well-regarded jazz musician in recent history to grow up so close to Nebraska. He was born and raised in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City, where he found an incredibly nurturing environment for growing into a life in jazz. While the Kansas City area is well known in jazz history as one of the nation’s most important centers for jazz in the 1920s and 30s, the main centers of jazz had mostly moved to NYC and Chicago by the 1960s when Metheny was an aspiring guitarist. However, what remained of the jazz heritage of Kansas City by the 60s really was remarkable. There hasn’t been much written about that scene, or biographies about Pat Metheny, for that matter, but that changed recently with the publication of “Beneath Missouri Skies: Pat Metheny in Kansas City, 1964-1972” by Carolyn Glenn Brewer, which you can borrow from Polley.

 

The story behind this book is very interesting unto itself: jumping ahead to the Author’s Note, which is placed after the main body of the text, we learn that author Brewer grew up with the Metheny brothers, and in particular had stayed in touch with Pat’s older brother Mike, himself an author and well-regarded trumpet player. All three had played in high school city bands together, gone to summer band camps together, and played together in the Lee’s Summit Unity Band. All of this makes Brewer an unusually perfect choice for writing this book: in addition to conducting lots of interviews for her research toward this book, she was present when a lot of the action happened in the first place. One of the challenges biographers always face in situations like this is simply finding all of the right people to interview: you don’t know what you don’t know, after all. But Brewer knew exactly who had to be included to make this book as thorough a portrait as possible.

The book is also a little unusual because of Pat Metheny himself: despite having won 20 Grammys, and being the only person to have won across 10 different categories, he remains a very modest artist. At first, he was uncomfortable with the notion that someone wanted to write a biography about him, and suggested that a book focus more on the many musicians he played with in his formative years. Ultimately, the book that Brewer created manages to do both, documenting the 60s Kansas City scene, highlighting many of Metheny’s collaborators, teachers and peers at the time, and profiling the beginnings of Metheny’s career in the center of them all. And it’s likely that Brewer was able to get particularly personal interviews out of most of her subjects, simply because they already knew her and considered her a friend—an outsider writing this book probably wouldn’t have been able to capture as much detail or warmth.

 

While “Beneath Missouri Skies” is a biography of Pat Metheny, these conditions make it unique: the contents of this entire book would typically be condensed into the first chapter or two of the usual artist biography. As a person who reads a lot of artist biographies, though, I found it to be a nice change of pace, being able to focus on a short span of time that doesn’t even reach a decade, and getting to know the people and places involved a little better than the fleeting mentions they would otherwise have in a typical biography. The pace is leisurely, the people are friendly, and that big Missouri sky reminds me of Nebraska, just a few hours away.

 

The beginning of the book takes place in 1964, and it marks two events in Metheny’s pre-teen years that led him to the guitar. The first was a landmark year for many young people of Metheny’s generation: seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. This performance led Pat to ask his parents for a guitar. He was already playing trumpet, and his parents weren’t enthusiastic about him taking up guitar, but eventually they let him buy one on his own from paper route money. Three days after the Ed Sullivan Beatles performance, the Miles Davis Quintet became the first jazz band to perform at the Lincoln Center Philharmonic Hall, and the recordings from their performance were made into two records, “My Funny Valentine” and “Four and More.” Metheny’s older brother Mike, a great trumpet player following in the footsteps of his father and maternal grandfather, picked up “Four and More,” and according to Pat, “Within the first five seconds of the needle touching that vinyl, my life was a different life.” By the time of the record release, it was early 1966, and Pat was already playing rock music in his own garage band, but jazz immediately became his passion.

 

Brewer discusses the musical traditions specific to the Lee’s Summit area, which included the Unity Band, a large-scale community band that played a variety of music from orchestral music to show tunes. The band performed every summer dating back to 1922, and people from all walks of life performed with them. Of note, many music students and band directors played in the Unity Band, creating lots of musical mentorship opportunities. As mentioned earlier, the author (who also went on to become a band director) and both of the Metheny sons played in the band. Pat in particular attributes a lot of his early musical understanding to band member Keith House, who was their trumpet soloist during Metheny’s tenure in the group. House was also the Lee’s Summit school district director of bands, and both his educational skill and his passion for music laid an excellent foundation for Metheny’s career from his earliest days performing in the brass section.

 

Summer band camps also helped to bring Metheny’s playing into focus. He remembers many of his teachers and fellow students as an important part of his musical development, and after camp, he stayed in touch with some students, and they all continued to play together. Pat’s earliest bands were formed through making these relationships, and being in a fairly small suburb meant that they often found places to perform publicly, too. And he had the good fortune to continue working with excellent educators at school—one of the big themes of this book, in fact, is arguably the importance of band directors in the lives of young musicians. These educators can truly inspire young performers to heights they may never have imagined themselves being capable of, and Metheny’s long career is a testament to the importance of this kind of quality preparation.

 

Generally, the book follows Metheny’s early musical life, frequently stopping for discussions with and about all of his collaborators. Some are simply regional influences, too: for example, there were several notable Plains states guitar players whose work influenced Pat’s early years, such as Ray Harris, Omaha’s Calvin Keys, and then Wichita-based Jerry Hahn (who was born in Nebraska as well). Hahn’s playing in the 60s was an influence on a lot of early jazz and fusion players, too, and he went on to become an important music educator. It’s incredible to consider this rich community of Kansas City-area musicians at the time, and it’s equally remarkable to consider that most of the activity in the book takes place while Pat is still in high school! There is a poignant moment toward the end of the book when older brother Mike returned home from his time in the Army Band and got a weekend of jazz theory from Pat—considering that Mike had been Pat’s first musical mentor just a handful of years before, it’s heartening that he was able to start returning the favor so quickly. Both brothers ultimately went on to have fantastic careers in jazz.

 

I could see this book appealing to a much wider audience than Metheny fans or jazz fans. It’s also a fascinating portrait of midcentury small-town and suburban life in Plains states. Though Nebraska doesn’t have the jazz tradition of Kansas City, one gets the feeling reading this book that it could just as well be Lincoln as Lee’s Summit. Midwestern readers will likely feel some familiarity with the camaraderie found among all of the musicians in this book, as well as the work ethic that kept them all learning and growing together.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Bill Frisell, Beautiful Dreamer by Philip Watson, The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music by Ben Ratliff, or Arcana VII edited by John ZOrn.)

 

( official Pat Methany web site ) | ( official Carolyn Glenn Brewer author web site )

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the Polley Music Library, located on the 2nd floor of the Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th & "N" St. in downtown Lincoln. You'll find biographies of musicians, books about music history, instructional books, sheet music, CDs, music-related magazines, and much more. Also check out Polley Music Library Picks, the Polley Music Library's e-mail newsletter, and follow them on Facebook!

Audiobook Review: Taxes and TARDIS by N.R. Walker

Taxes and TARDIS
by N.R. Walker (Hoopla Audio)

Brent Kelly is a self-employed San Antonio electrician who takes his tax info in to his accountant every year in a shoebox. But this year she is out for a prolonged illness and he’s now assigned to Logan.

 

Logan Willis, a soft-spoken guy originally from Britain, is your typical geek – black glasses, socially awkward, completely mystified by sports, but also a big Dr. Who fan. He’d initially thought the previous accountant had been exaggerating about the shoebox.

 

This would make a good Hallmark romance. A low-angst story – with one big misunderstanding – that you know will work out by the end. You watch the two figure it all out over Dr. Who, Torchwood, pizza, and pool, meet some of their friends, watch Brent rescue Logan’s sister when the electricity at her bookstore has an issue, and the epilogue is perfect.

 

Nick Russo, the narrator, does a fine job with both Brent’s soft Texas accent and Logan’s British speech. An easy, sweet romance at only 3-hours/9-min.

 

( official N.R. Walker web site )

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Audiobook Review: Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mothr and Daughter Talk About Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding) by Laura Dern and Diane Ladd

Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk About Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding)
by Laura Dern and Diane Ladd (Compact Disc 791.43 Der)

Award-winning mother-and-daughter actresses Diane Ladd and Laura Dern collaborate for this unusual autobiographical conversation. When Diane’s doctor gives her a life-threatening diagnosis of lung damage due to exposure to pesticides, one of his recommendations for an activity which could improve her condition is for her to to take walks to force her to breathe more deeply and expand her damaged lungs.

 

Daughter Laura Dern (from Diane’s brief marriage to fellow actor Bruce Dern), eager to get her mother exercising, proposes an arrangement — they will both take walks in Diane’s Santa Monica neighborhood and instead of focusing on Diane’s difficulties they will swap stories, share memories, and ask each other the kinds of questions that loved ones should get the answers to before it’s too late. Dern recorded their conversations during these walks, and although this audiobook is not the original audio (the two actresses recreate these conversations for this recording), you can still feel both the love and occasional friction between the two women.

 

While I really did enjoy this audiobook (the print edition also has multiple photo inclusions), this recording did, admittedly, feel a little “staged”. None-the-less, it was fascinating to gain some additional insight into some of the life events that shaped such significant performers — both have been divorced and lived as single mothers, both had similar insecurities, both have inhabited groundbreaking stage and/or screen roles, and both have developed into strong, independent women.

 

If you’re at all interested in either Diane Ladd or Laura Dern, enjoy reading about life growing up in the South, are fascinated by the world of stage or film/tv production, or are fascinated by the inner workings of mother/daughter relationships, you’ll enjoy this one.

 

( official Diane Ladd web site ) | ( official Laura Dern feed on Instagram )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Music Book Review: BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective by William L. Weir

BBC Radiophonic Workshop : A Retrospective
by William L. Weir (Music 781.546 Wei)

In the late 1950s, electronic music was still mostly the domain of academic specialists, not something that most average citizens had even heard before, but upon the start of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the sounds being produced in electronic sound labs started making their way into conventional radio and television programming in England. Much of their work was created as background mood music, but they produced a few themes, too, such as the “Doctor Who” theme, written by Ron Grainger and produced by Delia Derbyshire using the magical devices of the Radiophonic Workshop. That was 1963, and I think it’s fair to say that those sounds became a profound influence on what we all think of as “science fiction music” ever since.

 

There have been some more recent books written about some of the composers affiliated with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop like Derbyshire and co-founder of the Workshop Daphne Oram, but it’s been a while since any books addressed the overall Workshop. Fortunately, Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series has brought a little attention back to them with their latest book in the series, which covers the 2008 2-CD compilation of music they produced, which you can borrow from the Polley Music Library.

 

I think this might be the first time we’ve talked about a book from the regular 33 1/3 series, so let’s start with the general structure of these: each book discusses one album, typically by way of some context about the artist and where the record falls within their career, and often mentions other artists who have talked about the album being influential or otherwise important to them. They’re small books, slightly larger than a CD in size and typically around 150 pages in length. I think of them as really fun companions for reading while listening to the album in question, but they’re also generally good as short introductions to the artist, album, and even genre being discussed, too. We have quite a few of them at the Polley Music Library, covering a fairly wide range of pop, rock, hip-hop, alternative, and classical records.

 

This one for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is a little unusual, though: unlike the rest of the series, the book is addressing a compilation album. This choice is essentially a conceit to write about the music, history and influence of the Workshop more generally, which is a good idea for focusing on a group who were intentionally very behind-the-scenes for most of their existence. If one wanted to write about a single album by the Workshop that had a significant influence, their first record from 1968 (known as the “pink album”) would probably have been the best choice, but that would disregard how their approach and music continued to evolve in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. So it’s an unorthodox pick for this series, but it makes sense. Having said that, I do wish author William Weir could have picked a different compilation of the music, because this particular one is out of print and hard to find. It doesn’t even appear to be on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, or Hoopla. So if you want to listen along while you read, you’ll probably have to settle for other albums of the Workshop’s music instead, or more random songs available through streaming. For what it’s worth, library patrons can access 4 Workshop albums through Hoopla, so consider that option while you’re reading.

 

After a brief introduction in which Weir explains his choice of this compilation as our recorded point of discussion, he leaps into the days before the Radiophonic Workshop was founded. As it turns out, the foundation was fraught with internal struggles. Starting as early as 1957, BBC composer Daphne Oram had been sneaking back into her office late at night to put together unique new electronic sounds. If you recall our recent recommendation about the new Bob Moog biography, this era is before synthesizers were commercially available—Moog’s first modular synth didn’t arrive until 1964. Other synthesizers were still enormous devices only found in research university labs, and the BBC had nothing of the sort on hand. Still, Oram had a familiarity with the basics of how synth music and tape music were being made, and she was moving tape machines, oscillators, and filters of her own design onto the empty 6th floor of the building after hours, creating new sounds using the early electronic music techniques of the time, and returning the equipment to its normal locations before dawn. Upon showing her work to her management in the Music Department, she found that they weren’t particularly excited, but the Drama Department took her ideas in as sound effects and background environmental sound for their productions. With their help, and particularly that of their sound manager Desmond Briscoe, they produced a radio version of the Samuel Beckett play “All That Fall,” which was very well received. Late that year, the BBC made Oram their one-woman “radiophonic unit,” and on April 1st of the following year, the official Radiophonic Workshop opened with a small staff and some equipment.

 

The BBC was enjoying the inclusion of these sounds on television and radio programs, but in these earliest days, it’s funny to consider how they still had a certain degree of fear around electronic music. Staff were limited to 3 or 6 month assignments in the Radiophonic Workshop, lest the continued daily exposure to electronic sounds push them to the brink of sanity! Credit for productions of the Workshop was attributed to the Workshop itself instead of individual composers. Ultimately, Oram left her newly-invented Workshop in January of 1959 to open her own studio, where she produced music for advertising as well as her own serious music. She also invented “Oramics” on her own, a fascinating kind of synthesis based on drawing images that could be fed into her synthesizer to produce sound. In this part of the story, Weir makes what I think is one of the most important points of the book: while modern electronic music in this era was often considered to be a kind of off-putting music that audiences surely wouldn’t like, the reality is that it’s all about the presentation. Perhaps the abstract, alien sounds of early electronic music were a challenge for audiences in concert halls, but integrated into radio and television projects, they were very evocative.

 

One thing worth mentioning about the Radiophonic Workshop is how it provided opportunities for women in what was then a very male-dominated industry. While credit for recordings made at the Workshop was attributed to the workshop itself, over time we have come to know who many of the composers were, and they included founder Daphne Oram, Maddalena Fagandini, whose anonymous work with producer George Martin created one of the earliest electronic music singles, “Time Beat,” in 1962, influential composer Delia Derbyshire, whose contributions throughout the 60s dominated the Workshop’s sound, and Elizabeth Parker, the last standing composer at the Workshop when it was closed in 1998. These women contributed enormously to the popularization of electronic music internationally. It’s depressing to know that a composer as dynamic as Derbyshire, for example, was rejected applying for work at Decca Records before joining the BBC, simply because they had a policy against hiring women in their recording studios. The creativity and confidence they all showed through the Workshop helped to level the playing field for future generations.

 

As synthesizers gradually became more familiar to the public in the late 60s and throughout the 70s, it’s noteworthy that the Radiophonic Workshop mostly continued to use their own homemade gadgets and tape machine techniques to produce their music. As Weir notes, these early synths like the Moog tended to be based around playing on a fairly traditional keyboard, and the Workshop was more interested in the total freedom afforded them by using practices without traditional musical interfaces. This is probably one of the most significant reasons their work remained unique even as they entered eras where synth-based music started to become commonplace. Manipulating sounds on tape left them with more freedom, too — they could listen to sounds all around us — city sounds, environmental sounds, traditional special effects like footsteps — and transform them through editing tape or changing its playback speed. While sampling technology eventually evolved to the point that many electronic artists now include such practices in their work, the Workshop was a model for incorporating these once-arcane techniques into more contemporary music. But as time went on, the Workshop gradually transitioned away from tape and toward synths, as did the rest of the musical world. These new devices, which eventually became capable of doing much more than the simple synthesis of early days, gradually replaced both the need for tape techniques, and then the need for the Workshop altogether. Virtually anyone, after all, could make similar sounds now with a modern synth by the 90s.

 

But the impact of the work done by this pioneers lives on. They are largely responsible for the listening public getting used to hearing such sounds. While sometimes this doesn’t seem like a “musical pursuit” in the usual sense, Weir points out how deeply this influence could be ingrained: “These weren’t the sounds people heard when they attended a concert or put on a favorite record. It’s what they heard while doing pretty much everything else — gong to school, relaxing with family, driving their cars. By normalizing these sounds, the BBC gave others the raw material to take electronic music in a million new directions.”.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Switched On: Bob Moog and the Synthesizer Revolution by Albert Glinsky, or An Individual Note: Of Music, Sound, and Electronics by Daphne Oram.)

 

( publisher’s official 33 1/3 series web site )

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the Polley Music Library, located on the 2nd floor of the Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th & "N" St. in downtown Lincoln. You'll find biographies of musicians, books about music history, instructional books, sheet music, CDs, music-related magazines, and much more. Also check out Polley Music Library Picks, the Polley Music Library's e-mail newsletter, and follow them on Facebook!

Book Review: The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens; plus final Just Desserts meeting of 2023 is tonight!

The Mystery of Edwin Drood
by Charles Dickens (Dickens)

I have read nearly every book written by English author Charles Dickens, so I decided to make it a goal to read the few books by Dickens that I have not read in the coming year. I decided to start with Dickens’ last work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which was unfinished at the time of Dickens’ death at age 58 following a stroke. From the beginning of the book, it is apparent that this story is unlike anything else that Dickens has created due to its initial setting in an opium den with one of the main characters delirious from the effects of smoking opium from a pipe. Of all the books I have read, this novel is one of the darkest that I have read. Dickens spends more time with descriptive passages demonstrating the differences between dark and light, evil and good, and characters who demonstrate all of these. The main plot seems to be built around a beautiful young orphan who is engaged to be married to a childhood friend, Edwin Drood, an undeserving young man who doesn’t seem to know what he wants out of life. Both young people have guardians who have worked to prepare the couple for their upcoming marriage without checking to see if this is what they really want. There are several characters who seem to be in love with the young lady, named Rosa, who would gladly be willing to take Drood’s place. Conflict arises when the couple break off the engagement and young Drood goes missing. It appears that Edwin has either left the country or has been murdered by one of his rivals. Unfortunately, we will never know the outcome of this mystery since Dickens suffered a stroke and died while writing this book. I would venture to say that it is just as well that the book was not completed. The dark imagery, violence, drug abuse and racism that fill this book make this one of Dickens’ most complicated stories, and definitely not one of his best.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Bleak House, David Copperfield or A Tale of Two Cities , all also by Charles Dickens.)

 

( Wikipedia entry for Charles Dickens )

 

Recommended by Kim J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

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If you're a mystery fan, you're invited to join us for this month's Just Desserts meeting tonight, October 26th, at 6:30 p.m. in the 4th floor auditorium of the Bennett Martin Public Library downtown at 14th & "N" St. -- this mystery-themed discussion group meets on the last Thursday of each month, January through October. Tonight, in our 2023 season finale, we'll be discussing the life and works of classic American mystery author Dashiell Hammett. After this meeting, Just Desserts will take a year-end hiatus and then return in late January 2024.

 

Even if you haven't read anything for this specific discussion, you can still participate, and learn about great new mysteries to try! For more information, check out the Just Desserts schedule at https://lincolnlibraries.org/bookguide/book-groups/#justdesserts

Book Review: Red Bird Sings by Gina Capaldi and Q.L. Pierce

Red Bird Sings: The Story of Zitkala-Sa, Native American Author, Musician and Activist
adapted by Gina Capaldi and Q.L. Pierce, with illustrations by Gina Capaldi (j Biography Zitkala-Sa)

When Zitkala-Sa was 8 years old, over her mother’s objections she left the Yankton reservation with a group of Quaker Missionaries who were recruiting students for the White’s Manual Labor Institute in Indiana. She loved learning how to read and write, she craved learning music and violin–she excelled at the opportunities available to her at the school. But she also saw that even though the Quakers were well-meaning, they were blind to the true needs of Indian children. They didn’t see the harm in taking the children’s language and traditions from them. After she spent three years with the Quakers, she came home to find she felt she no longer fit in with her family and neighbors. She was loyal to the Yankton ways yet felt she no longer belonged, so she returned to the Quaker school. After her years of being a student at White’s Manual Labor Institute and continuing at Earlham College, she went on to teach at Carlisle Indian Industrial School and also published articles in magazines and books. She became an accomplished musician and orator who spoke out for her people. Even though her “English” education made her feel separate from her traditions and culture and family, she made it her goal to use these skills to help enlighten Anglo society to the story of her people.

 

Red Bird Sings is a collection of essays previously written and published by Zitkala Sa, edited and illustrated by Gina Capaldi, an award winning illustrator and author of children’s non-fiction. Even though the essays are said to be “semi-autobiographical”, they are put together in such a way that one really feels the torment of the young Zitkala-Sa—how can she negotiate her interests in learning the Anglo ways even as she realizes that her talents are pulling her away from her family and her roots?

 

Awards for Red Bird Sings: Gold Medal- Carter G. Woodson Award, National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS); Gold Medal, Moon Beam Award-Independent Publisher; Eureka! Honor Book, California Reading Association (CRA); Amelia Bloomer Book List-American Library Association (ALA); California Reading Association Booklist (CRA); SCBWI 2011 RAM Grant; California Readers 2013 California Collections: Elementary and Middle Grade lists.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Sa, Voices of the People by Joseph Bruchac, Finish the Fight: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote by Veronica Chambers or Stolen Words by Melanie Florence. Also, online: “Old Indian Legends” by Zitkala-Sa, Illustrated by Angel De Cora, a Winnebago painter, illustrator, Native American rights advocate, and teacher at Carlisle Indian School.)

 

( Wikipedia entry for Zitkala-Sa ) | ( official Gina Capaldi web site )

 

Recommended by Carrie K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

The Covenant of Water
by Abraham Verghese (Verghese)

This is about three generations of a family in India from about 1900-1970s. “The condition” is the unknown reason why so many people in their family tree have drowned. Characters realize how much their ancestors have sacrificed to improve the lives of their children and future generations. Faith works alongside the hope that scientific knowledge and medical treatments will save lives.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Pachinko by Min Jin Lee or The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng.)

 

( official Abraham Verghese web site )

 

Recommended by Jodi R.
Anderson and Bethany Branch Libraries

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD Review: The Band's Visit

The Band’s Visit
written and directed by Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin (DVD Band’s)

Having seen the touring company production of the stage musical The Band’s Visit at the Lied Center back in April 2022, I was curious to see the original 2007 Israeli film that served as the source material for the musical. I was not disappointed.

 

The Band’s Visit tells the story of when the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, from Alexandria, Egypt, ends up mistakenly stranded in the tiny Israeli desert town of Beit Hatikva, instead of the much larger city of Petah Tiqva, where they were scheduled to perform. Without a place to stay for the night, locals led by diner owner Dina take pity on the band’s members and agree to provide them with housing for the night, until they can catch the bus out of Beit Hatikva the next day. The events of that evening make up the bulk of this film — as different combinations of band members and locals end up pairing off for life-altering conversations and experiences.

 

Sasson Gabay is mesmerizing as the Lt. Col Tawfiq Zacharya, the proud, principled leader of the Band. His expressive face is filled with so many conflicting emotions — he was truly a wonder to watch. Ronit Elkabetz gives a brash yet vulnerable performance as Dina, the diner owner trapped in a small world. Khalifa Natour as Simon, the clarinet player and assistant conductor of the Band gives a very sensitive performance — his wordless scene as he realizes how he can complete composing his clarinet concerto is some superb acting.

 

All in all, The Band’s Visit is a powerful little film. Though much of it is in English, there is still some subtitling for some of the lines spoken only in the native Egyptian and Israeli tongues. As a huge fan of the stage musical version, I’ll have to admit that wish that there was a little more actual music in this original film, but it was wonderful seeing the inspiration for so many of the musicals pensive and soaring tunes.

 

Highly recommended!

 

(If you enjoy this, the stage musical adapted from this movie was spectacular, and featured a marvelous soundtrack, which we have in the libraries’ collection: The Band’s Visit.)

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations! 

Music Book Review: Beck: Every Album Every Song by Arthur Lizzie

Beck: Every Album, Every Song
by Arthur Lizie (Music 781.66 Beck)

Though he started out as more of a folk musician, Beck Hansen, more commonly known just as Beck, became popular for his blend of Americana roots music with electronic and hip hop sounds, exemplified by his first hit “Loser” in 1994, which became something of a Generation X slacker anthem. But a slacker he was not: Beck went on to produce music in a wide range of styles, including lots of pop music forms and several albums of folk music and ballads. His 14^th album, “Hyperspace,” came out in 2019. Despite all of this music, there hasn’t been a lot written about Beck’s music to date. There is a very cool book that’s long out of print called “Playing with Matches” that is about Beck and his grandfather Al Hansen, who was a long-time artist associated with the Fluxus movement. I remember really enjoying that book back in my music school undergraduate days, as Beck’s contributions to it help to explain the conceptual underpinnings throughout his work up to that point in the late 90s. But since then, it’s been literary silence.

 

Fortunately, we recently got a great new book in Polley called Beck: Every Album, Every Song by Arthur Lizie, and as the title suggests, it provides a nice critical examination of all of his records throughout his career. While the books in this series from Sonicbond Publishing aren’t biographies—author Lizie explicitly states that he avoids talking about Beck’s personal life in this book — the granular look at every record in a given artist’s discography does provide a lot of insight into their work. After a very brief introduction that covers the most essential background information about Beck’s early life and family — of note is his grandfather Al Hanson as mentioned earlier, and that his father David Campbell was also heavily involved in the music industry as a musician and arranger — Lizie jumps right into the core business of this book, which is taking apart every Beck studio album song by song. For readers who weren’t Beck superfans during his heyday in the 90s, you may be off to some surprises right at the beginning, as Beck released several lesser-known albums before his breakthrough “Mellow Gold” record. In fact, the year that “Mellow Gold” was released, three other folk-oriented records came out as well: “A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight,” “Stereopathic Soulmanure,” and “One Foot in the Grave.” However, Beck drew from these less polished albums for B-sides: those who bought his biggest single “Loser” sometimes got versions featuring the song “Totally Confused” from “A Western Harvest Field” as one of the B-sides (along with “MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack” from the 1993 album “Golden Feelings”), while “One Foot in the Grave” from the “Stereopathic Soulmanure” album became a regular part of his live sets, “one of his top-10 most performed songs” according to the author.

 

The song-by-song analysis in this book (as well as other books in this series) is fairly thorough. Most songs just get short mini-reviews of a sentence or two, while others that were more popular or that have known anecdotes connected to them sometimes include a few paragraphs up to a page of information. For folks who are completists, each album also features “related tracks” after the contents of the main album releases. These are often B-sides included with singles from the associated album, but other times they’re tracks that appeared on other compilation albums contemporaneously. For some of Beck’s early main albums, there are pages of these related tracks, and many are described as being just as interesting as primary album cuts. Having come across many of these songs over the years myself, I agree—some of Beck’s best work, especially in the 90s, was spread across lots of B-sides. He was incredibly prolific in those years, also drawing from songs that he’d written back to the mid-1980s, and as a rare mainstream artist to embrace various forms of recording at home from the earliest parts of his career, he turned out lots of interesting recordings.

 

Entries for each album begin with a short synopsis of the circumstances of their production, business machinations behind their release, and how they were received commercially and critically. From the earliest parts of his career, a kind of conceptual dichotomy becomes obvious in these descriptions: while Beck’s “main” albums released by major labels obviously do better in the commercial marketplace, he also receives some criticism for his tendencies toward satire and comedy. At the same time, while his “folk” albums on smaller labels certainly have their moments of levity, his strong songwriting and sense of balladry and lyrical insight seem more accessible to the critics on these less-produced outings. Even on his most raw recordings, he receives accolades from critics and other musicians for his harmonic intuition and a willingness to explore sadness in these songs, when “silly” and “surreal” applied more to his major label efforts.

 

Beck’s major-label albums of the 90s also included lots of samples, and Lizie does a great job of describing their origins and how they become important elements of the music. As an aficionado of Americana music, sometimes Beck’s borrowing from other elements of music is less literal than sampling, too, more in the tradition of jazz where artists have long built on familiar songs and turned them into new things. We see this in Beck’s discography in songs like “Girl Dreams” and “He’s a Mighty Good Leader” on “One Foot in the Grave,” building on songs by the Carter Family and Skip James, respectively, or even conceptually on songs like the hit single “Devil’s Haircut” that leads off his most commercially successful album “Odelay,” in which some of his imagery is inspired by the old “Stagger Lee” family of folk tunes.

 

Post-“Odelay,” the split between Beck’s previous commercial and folk songs starts to become less apparent. The “Mutations” album, for example, dropping between the major albums “Odelay” and “Midnite Vultures,” has more of a singer-songwriter feel than the records surrounding it, yet it’s considerably more cohesive than the earlier folk albums, and was tracked with his whole touring band in tow. And after “Midnite Vultures,” Beck released what many critics consider to be his best album, 2002’s “Sea Change,” which is a full album of very sad breakup songs, but very intricately produced like his other major-label records. Later records continued to combine Beck’s interests more coherently, too, gradually taking his overall style toward a modern pop sound. Although Beck’s level of fame seemed to level off and decline after the “Sea Change” era, Lizie faithfully documents all of the following albums, too, up to the current more recent release, “Hyperspace” from 2019. And he does a good job here—to be honest, I don’t think I’d find enough to say about some of the more recent Beck albums like “Modern Guilt” from 2008. His descriptions of the songs have me reconsidering a few of the albums that didn’t do much for me upon release, the sign of a good book.

 

At the end of the book, there are a few short sections that document Beck’s early recordings, mostly cassette demos that eventually found their way to the internet, compilations and live collections, some collaborations with other artists, and his work with other artists as songwriter, producer, or remixer. There are some other collaborations strewn throughout the book, too, primarily guest vocal appearances with other artists that are documented next to the Beck albums near the same release date. Ultimately, it’s a lot of data to wade through, probably not the ultimate format for attracting folks who aren’t superfans of an artist to get into a book, but for record collectors or ardent fans, there’s good stuff to find here, and good inferences to make about this body of work by considering it in total.

 

Overall, I think the data is pretty solid, too, though I did see at least one omission in the notes about the “Guero” album that made me consider the sources used in putting this together: Brad Breeck, a composer known these days for his music for “Gravity Falls” (and a fella I went to school with), did sound design for that album, and is listed on physical copies, but is apparently overlooked on the web resources used to gather all this information. So be aware that there could be the occasional detail missing. And though it wasn’t formally a recording, I was disappointed that there isn’t much said about “Song Reader,” Beck’s “album” from 2012 that consisted of sheet music of a new batch of songs rather than making a recording of them himself. As a music librarian, that’s an especially interesting project to me — this is how music was distributed before recording technology, after all — and I would count it as an album, albeit an unconventional one today. Those issues aside, if you’re hungry for reading about Beck, Every Album, Every Song will at least serve as a good appetizer until someone writes a solid biography.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Lived Through That: 90s Musicians Today by Mike Hipple, or Now is the Time To Invent!: Reports from the Indie Rock Revolution, 1986-2000 by Steve Connell.)

 

( official Beck web site )

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the Polley Music Library, located on the 2nd floor of the Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th & "N" St. in downtown Lincoln. You'll find biographies of musicians, books about music history, instructional books, sheet music, CDs, music-related magazines, and much more. Also check out Polley Music Library Picks, the Polley Music Library's e-mail newsletter, and follow them on Facebook!

Book Review: Grace From the Rubble: Two Father's Road to Reconciliation After the Oklahoma City Bombing by Jeanne Bishop

Grace From the Rubble: Two Fathers’ Road to Reconciliation After the Oklahoma City Bombing
by Jeanne Bishop (976.6 Bis)

This book walks you back through the events of the April 19, 1995 bombing and aftermath of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City through the eyes of two parents — the father of one of the victims and the father of Timothy McVeigh, the bomber. This is considered the deadliest act of homegrown terrorism in U.S. history with the killing of 168 people including 19 children.

 

The author reiterates all the events of that day and the search for survivors, re-igniting all the feelings one had that day, so be prepared. We also follow the fathers as they reconcile how their children were part of that day.

I thought this would be the story of how the fathers met shortly after the bombing and how they came to recognize that each was a victim. Instead, the fathers didn’t meet until much later, and by then they each had reconciled their losses, and McVeigh’s father learned the other father did not blame him.

 

Overall, this was an interesting story of behind-the-scenes of two of the victims as they try to move on with their lives.

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris and Michael Emberley

It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health
by Robie Harris and Michael Emberley (j612.6 Har (2009 edition) and/or j612.661 Har (2021 edition))

It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health is geared towards pre-adolescents who are eager to learn about their bodies, sexual activity, puberty, and the myriad other mysteries that they are facing as they are maturing. When I did a quick look at a review, written by someone who is opposed to the general concept of book banning, but still found themselves challenged by things in this book, I was provoked to take a look at it for myself. That review contained only a few pictures, and those were the little cartoons of couples engaging in sex. I couldn’t help but agree with the reviewer wondering, “Is this necessary?” But after looking at the whole book and seeing those images in context of other information; I feel this is a great book. The kind of book that it would be good to have on your shelf without a lot of fanfare, to just have for when the kids were ready to look at it.

 

The library owns two editions — the earlier, 2009 edition, has fewer pictures of same sex couples.

 

( official Michael Emberley feed on Instagram ) | ( official Robie Harris web site )

 

Recommended by Carrie K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Music Review: Some Like It Hot (Official Broadway Cast Recording) by Marc Shaiman and others

Some Like It Hot (Official Broadway Cast Recording)
music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman, and a book by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin (Hoopla Music, and hopefully on CD eventually)

The 1959 film Some Like It Hot, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, is considered by many film critics and fans to be among the greatest films ever made, a certainly one of the best Comedy films of all time. This stage musical, which opened on Broadway in 2022, is scheduled to close before the end of 2023, and features much of the same plot as the film, but has been expanded to explore issues of racial disparity and gender identity.

 

Joe (Christian Borle) and Jerry (J. Harrison Ghee) are best friends and musicians, trying to break into a big-name club in Chicago during prohibition. Though do they receive a break, they then witness a gangland slaying and have to go on the lam to avoid being rubbed out by the mobster whose club they were performing in. Desperate, they decide to impersonate women, and join the all-girl band Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopaters, leaving Chicago and traveling by train to California. Joe becomes Josephine, and Jerry becomes Daphne. Joe falls for Sugar Cane, a young woman with dreams of California stardom. When they reach San Diego, the Syncopaters are booked to perform at the glamorous Hotel Coronado, owned by quirky eccentric millionaire Osgood Fielding III, who immediately finds himself attracted to Jerry’s alter-ego Daphne.

 

Sue, Sugar Cane and Jerry/Daphne are all portrayed by actors of color in this production, and some of the new songs refer to the societal hurdles they face as musicians and performers. Jerry also finds himself far more comfortable in the skin of Daphne than he does of himself, and Osgood reveals that he likes Daphne, no matter who s/he is. The arrival of the pursuing mobsters leads to chase sequences and the revelation of Joe and Jerry’s actual identities…but it’s all okay in the end.

 

Featuring music by Marc Shaiman with lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman (both of whom did the music for the musicals Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can and the film Mary Poppins Returns), this musical is filled with rousing song-and-dance numbers as well as more introspective, pensive songs. The musical opens with the fast-paced “What Are You Thirsty For?” and “You Can’t Have Me (If You Don’t Have Him)”. I particularly enjoyed “At the Old Majestic Nickel Matinee”, “Let’s Be Bad”, “Dance the World Away” and “Ride Out the Storm”. And, of course, the title song “Some Like It Hot” is really catching as well. Personally, I enjoyed listening to this on CD, with a booklet that included extensive liner notes that helped explain what’s going on.

 

This is definitely a 21st Century take (with updated societal views) on a 64-year-old film masterpiece. Both are excellent in their own separate ways. I’ve been a fan of actor Christian Borle for many years, and while he does a terrific job as Joe/Josephine, it is J. Harrison Ghee who steals the show as Jerry/Daphne, and won the Tony Award for Best Lead Actor in a Musical.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the original classic film starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, or Hairspray by the same creative team as this musical.)

 

( Wikipedia entry for the Some Like It Hot musical )

 

See Donna G.’s review of the film Some Like it Hot in the March 2011 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Music Book Review: Anatomy of a Song, an Anatomy of 55 More Songs, both by Marc Myers

Anatomy of a Song (2016) and Anatomy of 55 More Songs (2022)
by Marc Myers (Music 781.64 Mye)

These 2 books are a nostalgic treasure trove of details about influential and iconic pop and rock songs from the 1950s-1990s. They are based on Myers’ Wall Street Journal column of the same title, which he defines as a subjective “oral history.” The first of what is now a two-volume ‘set’ looks at 45 songs released between 1952 and 1991 and the second covers the years 1964-1996. Each song is looked at in light of its effect when released, and over time. Myers interviewed dozens of singers, musicians, composers, and producers to supplement the brief history and overall impact of the songs. Each song’s entry is accompanied by an album cover or a marketing or candid photo of the performer/s. Many of the entries go into great instrumental and technical detail about the recordings, so some of it may be over a musical layman’s head. Not only are these books a carefully curated historical record of American popular music of the latter half of the 20th century but they provide an opportunity to fondly recall music that was significant culturally and/or personally at certain points in one’s life. Just a few of the songs profiled are: Rocket Man, Good Vibrations, Truckin’, The Gambler, Chapel of Love, Sundown, Heart of Glass, and Time After Time.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the 100 Best-Selling Albums series.)

 

( official Marc Myers web site )

 

Recommended by Becky W.C.
Walt Branch Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD Review: Confess, Fletch

Confess, Fletch
(DVD Confess)

I’ll have to admit, the two 1980s Fletch movies starring Chevy Chase and I.M. Fletcher are among my “guilty pleasure” movie favorites. Chase is so over-the-top “wacky” as con man/investigative journalist Fletch in those two films that his comical performance kind of overwhelms the stories in Fletch (1985) and Fletch Lives (1989).

 

This new 2022 film, both starring and produced by Jon (Mad Men) Hamm, takes Gregory McDonald’s second Fletch novel, Confess Fletch (1976), and updates it to our modern era, but manages to keep much of the style and tone intact. Hamm is far more subtle than Chase was at bringing Fletch to life, but that works in his favor. He doesn’t need outrageous costumes or larger-than-life fake personalities to ingratiate Fletch with the characters he’s interacting with — his Fletch is simply slick and fast on the uptake. In this film, Fletch returns from Europe to find a dead woman in the luxury loft apartment he’s been leant by a friend. Fletch quickly becomes the #1 suspect in the eyes of the pair of homicide detectives investigating the case, and his efforts to locate a stolen art collection are hampered by his needs to come up with ways to shake his police tail.

 

Hamm is absolutely terrific in this, but he’s not the only one. Kyle MacLachlan is fun as a germophobic bad guy, Roy Wood Jr. and Ayden Mayeri as detectives “Slo Mo” Monroe and Griz provide a lot of comic relief, Lorenza Izzo as Fletch’s new Italian girlfriend, who sets the case in motion, is a firebrand, and Marcia Gay Harden (currently killing it on the CBS drama So Help Me Todd) is amusing as the Countess de Grassi.

If you’re at all a fan of the original Fletch novels by McDonald, you should appreciate this new film. Here’s hoping it was successful enough to inspire another!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the two earlier Fletch movies, starring Chevy Chase Fletch and Fletch Lives, or any of the eleven Fletch novels by Gregory McDonald, published between 1974 and 1994 — the earliest are the best.)

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!