Roy Eldridge, Little Jazz Giant

"Roy Eldridge, Little Jazz Giant is the first biography of the spectacular trumpeter, Roy 'Little Jazz' Eldridge, whose style is universally recognized as the all-important link between the playing of Louis Armstrong and the achievements of modernist Dizzy Gillespie. Roy's daring harmonic approach and his technically awesome improvisations provided guidance and inspiration for countless jazz musicians, but he was also a star performer in his own right, whose recordings as a bandleader, and with Gene Krupa and Artie Shaw, gained him a durable international reputation. The indignities he experienced and overcame during the 1940's while working in otherwise all-white ensembles proved he was as bold a social pioneer as he was a performer." John Chilton, who knew Eldridge for many years, presents a picture of a fiery yet sensitive individual, who never shunned candour and was at his happiest when playing the trumpet. New light is shed on the various occasions when Eldridge unwillingly became entangled with gangsters in New York and Chicago, and there are revealing details about Eldridge's uneven working relationship with Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie.

Publishers Weekly

Sixty years ago, Roy Eldridge possessed one of the hottest chops in jazz. A fast and daring soloist, his trademark move was flitting all over the horn's upper register like an acrobat. And though he played on some key swing records such as "After You've Gone" and "Rockin' Chair," both with Gene Krupa's Orchestra his true forte was playing live. In this first biography of "Little Jazz" Eldridge, Chilton reminds readers that the risk-taking Eldridge inspired a young Dizzy Gillespie to create the revolutionary style called bop. Yet Eldridge never dug the modern sound, and from the late 1940s until his death in 1985 his playing was increasingly old hat. Unfortunately, Chilton's narrative isn't the classic tale of a self-made man going from obscurity to fame and, painfully, back to obscurity. Instead, it's a dull run through Eldridge's many performances and recordings, from his start with traveling carnival and circus bands to his last days at Ryan's Club in New York. Chilton does find some great quotes underscoring Eldridge's skill: e.g., Louis Armstrong: "And there's no use wondering how high Roy can go on his trumpet, because he can go higher than that." But the author ignores Eldridge's private personae, thus never really bringing him to life. On his childhood, Chilton writes, "There was no question of a cruel stepmother making Roy's life a misery," and leaves it at that. Late in the book readers learn that Eldridge's wife and daughter were the "central figures" of his life, yet Chilton only introduces them a few times in passing. (June) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

John Chilton divides his time between being a professional jazz trumpeter and writing books on jazz. In 2000 he won the British Jazz Award for Writer of the Year. His books include Billie's Blues (on Billie Holiday), The Wizard of Jazz (on Sidney Bechet), and Let the Good Times Roll (on Louis Jordan). Both his Who's Who of Jazz (Storyville to Swing Street) and his Who's Who of British Jazz have been hailed as the best reference works of their kind. Down Beat magazine calls Chilton "a master of the craft of research."