Advertisement for Myself: The paperback edition

As I’ve mused before (though only twice), what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t indulge in a little self-promotion?

So let me announce that my book, 1959: The Year Everything Changed, is now out in paperback from Wiley & Sons.

As the subtitle suggests, the book covers everything about the era’s transformations—in politics, society, culture, science, and sex. But readers of this space may be especially interested in the chapters on music: the origins of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, the rise of Ornette Coleman, the globalization of Dave Brubeck, the roots of Motown.

I won’t be so indulgent as to quote the raves and hosannas that greeted the book on its hardcover publication a year ago. But please go to my website, where you can read all about them, order copies with a click (and, incidentally, get linked to this blog, among other things).

COMMENTS
John Atkinson's picture

"1959" is indeed excellent reading, Fred.

JPF's picture

I'm just wondering whether there is anything new in the paperback edition, which wasn't in the hardcover? One can buy a new copy of the hardcover edition on Amazon for about half the paperback price.Some reviewers of the book on Amazon pointed out a few factual errors in the hardcover edition; have these been corrected in the paperback?

Fred Kaplan's picture

There were about a dozen typos or small factual mistakes in the hardcover edition; all of them, to my knowledge, have been corrected in the paperback. There are also a different set of blurbs on the back cover, these taken from actual reviews as opposed to advance comments. Otherwise, it's the same. One thing, though, that I'd like to say on behalf of all brothers and sisters toiling in this field: Sales of 2nd-hand books (the only kind that cost half as much in hardcover as in paperback) pay no royalties to authors.

riwood's picture

Congratulations, Fred, "1959" is a wonderful and enjoyable book. I have learned a lot from it.

I was intrigued to learn about Alan Ginsberg’s statement that Howl’s cadences were inspired in part by a recording of Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet solo on “I can't Get Started” (page 33 of the paperback edition). As you point out in note 33 on page 256, this was quoted as a JATP side, and later Ginsberg said that the solo might have been by Illinois Jacquet, suggesting that he was uncertain about the instrument, but remembered a distinctive solo.

As you note, the one Jazz at the Philharmonic recording of the tune "I Can't Get Started", is from a 1946 concert at the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Gillespie does not play on this tune (Al Killian and Howard McGhee play trumpet), and Jacquet does not appear either. There is, however, an extended Lester Young solo that is quite inspirational. Maybe that was the source.

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