What the Blues Was

      Mingus had always known that that was what the blues was : music played to the dead, calling them back, showing them the way back to the living.

excerpt from
But Beautiful : A Book About Jazz
Geoff Dyer
1991

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Andres Chaparro

A Real Place

    It is a real place and for much of the century it has provided a global home for millions of people. It is a republic with a simple name : Jazz.

But Beautiful

Geoff Dyer

1991

         https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/880915-but-beautiful-a-book-about-jazz

High Casualty Rate

    "Anyone interested in Jazz is struck very early on by the high casualty rate of it's practitioners." Parker himself went on :"If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn."

excerpt from
But Beautiful
Geoff Dyer
1991

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Charlie Parker

Listened to the Loops

           Like the time he'd dashed into Minton's out of the pouring rain and seen this kid playing tenor, making it wail and wriggle around like the horn was a bird whose neck he was trying to wring. Breathing heavy, dripping rain on the floor, he listened to the loops and knots of sound tying and untying themselves.

excerpt from
Geoff Dyer
But Beautiful
1989

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Berthold Faust

Nocturnal Jazz

A gorgeous and lyrical collection of nocturnal Jazz reveries.

The New Yorker

                                         http://geoffdyer.com/books/but-beautiful/

At Some Time

      At some time all cities have this feel ; in London it's at five or six on a winter evening. Paris has it too, late, when the cafes are closing up. In New York it can happen anytime ; early in the morning, as the light climbs over the canyon streets and the avenues stretch so far into the distance that it seems the whole world is a city .......

Geoff  Dyer

But Beautiful ; A Book About Jazz

1991

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Jay B Wilson

Quiet Isolation

        Paris has it too, late, when the cafes are closing up. In New York it can happen anytime ; early in the morning as the light climbs over the canyon streets and the avenues stretch so far into the distance that it seems the whole world is a city ; or now as the chimes of midnight hang in the rain and all the city's longings acquire the clarity and certainty of a sudden understanding. The day coming to an end and people unable to evade any longer the nagging sense of futility that has been growing stronger through the day, knowing that they will feel better when they wake up and it is daylight again but knowing also that each day leads to this sense of quiet isolation.

But Beautiful -

A Book About Jazz

Geoff Dyer

1991

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Gianni Renati

But Beautiful

     Rain began to fall and soon a storm was raging silently around him. Hail drilled the noiseless streets. He saw the welcome lights of a liquor store, the yellow rain of taxis gliding silently down the street, quieter than a silent movie where every frame is filled with the din of chase. New York was probably the noisiest city on earth and he could hear nothing.

But Beautiful

Geoff Dyer

1991

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Herb Snitzer -

Lester Young