Search - Paul Ellington, Fats Waller, Fletcher Henderson, Art Tatum Bix Beiderbacke :: That Devilin' Tune: A Jazz History, Volume 2 1927--1934

Not really a "history", but.....

Michael Engel | Southampton, MA | 03/15/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"First the good news: there's a lot of great music on these discs that you won't find anywhere else. And whatever else one might say about the selections, they certainly represent an amazing variety and they are wonderful to listen to.



But this is no history of jazz. Indeed, it's not clear at all what Lowe considers jazz to be, since the collection includes what most people would call blues, folk, ethnic, country--a whole kitchen sink full of old music. That wouldn't be so bad if Lowe bothered to explain himself. But his rambling forty or so pages of notes are a disordered and idiosyncratic mess of random opinions--especially negative, patronizing criticisms aimed at those music historians he disagrees with. And there is absolutely no information whatsoever about the selections--no explanations of why he included them, no notes about the artists, no truly coherent discussion of their place in the history of jazz.



In a few words, this is a lot like his CD set of popular music history; in fact, this might have been better titled Popular Music: Part II. It's worth buying for the music, but don't expect to gain much insight or knowledge on the title subject.



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