Description
Book SynopsisWritten in tightly constructed rhymed quatrains, this is the first biography of internationally acclaimed Texas jazz trumpeter Kenny Dorham. Beginning in 1963 with Dorham's recordings in Denmark, this book-length poem traces the story of the Texan's career performing with the greatest musicians of the bop and hard bop eras in jazz history.
Trade Review“To call this work on Kenny Dorham a labor of love is an understatement. Dave Oliphant has taken even the most mundane details of this great jazzman’s life and turned all of it into poetry.” —Krin Gabbard, author,
Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture“With an astoundingly unique structure of line length and rhyme, Dave Oliphant has incorporated and turned into poetry a vast and impressive knowledge of jazz. The text and its deeply researched factual information and, at times, nearly Shakespearean and Spenserian richness of language will long provide and provoke both pleasure and scholarship.” —David Ray, author,
Music of Time: Selected and New Poems“You'll want to have your Dorham vinyl records or CD reissues close by to listen anew to the sounds the poet calls forth.” —Joe W. Specht, author,
The Women There Don't Treat You Mean: Abilene in Song
