What are you currently reading?

[Sharilyn]

Re: What are you currently reading?

In the middle of Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz

[Leo Lakio]

Re: What are you currently reading?

People continue to ask me why I am learning Hawaiian and I have no answer except that I like it.

Just look 'em in the eye and say, "why aren't you?" Or I suppose you could simply say, "why not?"

[U'ilani]

Re: What are you currently reading?

I'm still reading Stephenie Meyer's The Host. It's taking me forever to get through all 650 or so pages because, frankly, it's boring. But I am determined to finish it if it's the last thing I do. I keep getting off track, though, by picking up some really worthless romance novel at the library to read, and then finally returning to The Host (which might be romance but isn't worthless seeing as how Ms. Meyer got a $600k advance on this book ).

[Ron Whitfield]

Leo...

...how was The Producer?

[U'ilani]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Just finished today The Richest Season by Maryann McFadden. This is one of those "women's books" that's meant to be along the vein of Jodi Picoult or Sue Miller. I found it to be just so-so perhaps because I could not relate at all to the protagonist, a corporate housewife. However, it's gotten excellent reviews on Amazon, so some of you might really enjoy it.

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Leo...

...how was The Producer?

Heavy on the earlier jazz years of his career, largely to emphasize his efforts to break the color barriers in the music scene during the Big Band era. His later work with Dylan, Springsteen & Stevie Ray Vaughan were sailed through a little faster.

But any books that have insight on the inner workings of musicians, producers and the industry will intrigue me - everyone brings their own formulas to the table, and comparing how it used to be done with how it gets done now is fascinating.

Also on the "soon to read" stack: Ashley Kahn's history of Impulse Records, "The House That TRANE Built."

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Thanx, both sound like good reads.

[leashlaws]

Re: Leo...

Heavy on the earlier jazz years of his career, largely to emphasize his efforts to break the color barriers in the music scene during the Big Band era. His later work with Dylan, Springsteen & Stevie Ray Vaughan were sailed through a little faster.

But any books that have insight on the inner workings of musicians, producers and the industry will intrigue me - everyone brings their own formulas to the table, and comparing how it used to be done with how it gets done now is fascinating.

Also on the "soon to read" stack: Ashley Kahn's history of Impulse Records, "The House That TRANE Built."

Leo - I hope I may address you as that for this message. If you've not read "Lush Life " a biography of Billy Strayhorn I highly recommend it. I just blazed through it as i chronicled his career and working with Duke Ellington and unfortunately his sad life. It's very very good.
Author is David Hajdu published 1996

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Leo...

Leo - I hope I may address you as that for this message. If you've not read "Lush Life " a biography of Billy Strayhorn I highly recommend it. I just blazed through it as i chronicled his career and working with Duke Ellington and unfortunately his sad life. It's very very good.
Author is David Hajdu published 1996

I haven't read it yet, but it's definitely one I want to. I've read Hajdu's "Positively 4th Street," about the early days of the Greenwich Village folk scene, with emphasis on Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mimi Baez Farina & Richard Farina. Thanks for the reminder.

[leashlaws]

Re: Leo...

I haven't read it yet, but it's definitely one I want to. I've read Hajdu's "Positively 4th Street," about the early days of the Greenwich Village folk scene, with emphasis on Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mimi Baez Farina & Richard Farina. Thanks for the reminder.

I just thumbed through my ancient paperback of this and saw a note I'd written "chromatic modulation" I bet I didn't know what that meant and was going to look it up also "parallel 9" - do you know what these mean?

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Leo...

I just thumbed through my ancient paperback of this and saw a note I'd written "chromatic modulation" I bet I didn't know what that meant and was going to look it up also "parallel 9" - do you know what these mean?

Yeah - but I don't think I could do justice in explaining them. In really basic terms, the first involves modulation without the perception of a "pivot" chord; the latter would, I assume, be about parallel ninth intervals.

[leashlaws]

Re: What are you currently reading?

Thanks I'm not musically technical.......My only attempt was to play a viola
and I did well for a year just listening and then playing back,: I never learned how to read music and freaked out when our little elementary school orchestra was supposed to participate in a regional concert. When they handed out the
music I almost died and subsequently quit.

[Leo Lakio]

Re: What are you currently reading?

My musical training is largely informal - mostly self-taught, can play a number of instruments by ear, absorb a lot from other musicians who explain theory, etc. I grasp a lot of theoretical concepts in the gut, but not so much in the head.

BTW, the Freberg bio is a fast read; I'm more than halfway through, and I generally get only a half-hour of reading time in each day. Tutusue - have you ever read it? Your life and experience would probably lead you to shake your head in agreement with some of his anecdotes.

[leashlaws]

Re: What are you currently reading?

O.K. I'll get back to topic. I've been re-reading "Conversations with Wilder"
by Cameron Crowe (1999). I so love Billy Wilder's movies and can practically recite many of them by heart. This is an amazing collection of the conversations Crowe had with Billy beginning in 1995. The photos, anecdotes and stories of the great films is just riveting and keeps you mesmerized.
I thought I'd lost it in the past years and suddenly found it again in one of
my book areas. Definitely a must for the film buff.

[Honoruru]

Re: What are you currently reading?

I am currently in the middle of The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa. This is turning out to be one of his better novels. In part, it is about obsessive love (is there any other kind?) that spans decades and continents, beginning in the 1950s and (at the half-way point, where I’m now at) through the 1980s.