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Overview
Ask Me Now explores the relationship between the language of music and the music of language with 20 conversations on jazz and literature. Writer, editor, and saxophonist Sascha Feinstein gathers a variety of artists, poets, musicians, fiction writers, essayists, playwrights, and record producers for discussions on the elusive but engaging relationships between jazz and literature.
Featured artists include central figures of the Black Arts Movement such as Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, Haki R. Madhubuti, and Sonia Sanchez as well as distinguished music critics Gary Giddins, Dan Morgenstern, and Eugene B. Redmond. Winners of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry Yusef Komunyakaa and Philip Levine, outstanding jazz musicians Bill Crow and Fred Hersch, and several writers who cross literary genres: Hayden Carruth, Cornelius Eady, David Jauss, William Matthews, Lee Meitzen Grue, John Sinclair, and Al Young all contribute their thoughts to the book.
Synopsis
Ask Me Now explores the relationship between the language of music and the music of language with 20 conversations on jazz and literature. Writer, editor, and saxophonist Sascha Feinstein gathers a variety of artists, poets, musicians, fiction writers, essayists, playwrights, and record producers for discussions on the elusive but engaging relationships between jazz and literature.
Featured artists include central figures of the Black Arts Movement such as Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, Haki R. Madhubuti, and Sonia Sanchez as well as distinguished music critics Gary Giddins, Dan Morgenstern, and Eugene B. Redmond. Winners of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry Yusef Komunyakaa and Philip Levine, outstanding jazz musicians Bill Crow and Fred Hersch, and several writers who cross literary genres: Hayden Carruth, Cornelius Eady, David Jauss, William Matthews, Lee Meitzen Grue, John Sinclair, and Al Young all contribute their thoughts to the book.
Rain Taxi
An outstanding sourcebook ...plunges deliciously into the borderland it espouses.
Editorials
Choice
"In looking at the relationship between jazz and literature, these interviews take up, among other things, the nature of jazz and its frequent neglect in the US.... [T]he book offers many original revelations from creative individuals who have had long experience in the field—musicians, critics, scholars, and record producers—and provides an abundance of information about poets inspired by specific musical pieces and musicians being inspired by works of poetry. The conversations with jazz critic Gary Giddins and his mentor Dan Morgenstern alone make this book worthwhile... Recommended." —ChoiceAmerican Book Review
"No matter how much one might know about jazz and the ways contemporary writers make use of the music, this book is a find and a pleasure to read." —American Book ReviewForeWord
"In Ask Me Now: Conversations on Jazz & Literature..., saxophonist and English professor Sascha Feinstein gathers a stunning variety of musicians, poets, and novelists to discuss the engaging interactions between jazz and literature." —ForeWordMetro Spirit
"... convey[s] the power of language within a framework of artistic expression that is both scholarly relevant and readily accessible to readers...." —Metro SpiritJazzwise
"The interviewees cover a wide range from jazz-aware poets to literature-aware jazzers...many of the litterateurs not only have genuine enthusiasm for the music but seem to know an awful lot about it...Feinstein’s agenda is all about proving that poets have a right to draw on jazz for inspiration." —Brian Priestley, Jazzwise, August 2008— Brian Priestley
Popular Music and Society
"Ask Me Now is an excellent and engaging collection. I would recommend this book to anyone who wanted to learn more about jazz, about writing, and about the connections between writing and music." —Popular Music and SocietyNight Lights Blog WFIU
Ask Me Now poses its questions and its myriad of possible answers with an improvisational grace.
Bloom
Feinstein's gracious, respectful-but-at-ease approach serves him well across the broad swath of these interviews.
Rain Taxi
An outstanding sourcebook ...plunges deliciously into the borderland it espouses.
David Metro Spirit
...[O]utstanding...brilliant...a beacon of light for the literary and musically inclined . . .
—Y.J. Edward Sumerau