Jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and bassoonist Garvin Bushell (1902–1991) performed with many of the twentieth century's greatest jazz musicians—from Fletcher Henderson, Fats Waller, and Cab Calloway to Eric Dolphy, Gil Evans, and John Coltrane—during his remarkable career that spanned from 1916 to the 1980s. Although best known as a jazz soloist and sideman, Bushell also played oboe and bassoon with symphony orchestras and was a highly regarded instructor of woodwinds. In Jazz from the Beginning, Bushell vividly recounts his musical experiences, featuring candid assessments of the legends with whom he performed as well as eye-opening accounts of the early days of jazz and the racism that he encountered on the road. Based on a series of interviews conducted by jazz scholar Mark Tucker, these memoirs provide a colorful account of Bushell's extraordinary life and career as well as an important record of seventy years of America's musical history.

Jazz From The Beginning

Biographies & Memoirs

Bushell, Garvin

Arts & Literature

Da Capo

Few musicians can boast careers as long and productive as that of jazz instrumentalist Garvin Bushell. In Jazz from the Beginning, Bushell vividly recounts his musical experiences and reflects on some of the major personalities who shaped the history of jazz. Bushell's memoir vibrates with the excitement of being a part of the evolution of jazz. He began his career as a teenager, playing clarinet in a circus band. In the 1920s, he played gigs in rowdy Harlem cabarets and was a member of the Sam Wooding ensemble, one of the first black musical groups to tour Europe, Russia, and South America. In the 1930s, he performed with the big bands of Fletcher Henderson, Cab Calloway, and Chick Webb. In the 1950s and 1960s he participated in the Dixieland revival and in the modern experiments of Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane. Bushell also recalls with candor the scarring experiences of racial prejudice he encountered while touring America and Europe. Mark Tucker has carefully compiled Bushell's memoirs from a series of thirty-one taped interviews made in the summer of 1986. His text preserves Bushell's warmth and personality and provides scholars and music lovers alike with a critical analysis of African-American music and an important record of seventy years of American musical history.

Jazz from the Beginning (The Michigan American Music Series)

Arts & Photography

Tucker, Mark

Music

University of Michigan Press

Jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and bassoonist Garvin Bushell (1902-1991) performed with many of the twentieth-century's greatest jazz musicians - Fletcher Henderson, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Eric Dolphy, Gil Evans, and John Coltrane - during a remarkable career that spanned from 1916 to the 1980s. Although best known as a jazz soloist and sideman, Bushell also played oboe and bassoon with symphony orchestras and was a highly regarded instructor of woodwinds.

Univ of Michigan Pr

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