Four Jazz Lives

A new and retitled edition of A. B. Spellman’s long-out-of-print Four Lives in the Bebop Business which brings a classic work on jazz back to life, and shines a light on four musicians who’ve finally gotten their due.

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This new and retitled edition of A. B. Spellman's long-out-of-print Four Lives in the Bebop Business brings a classic work on jazz back to life, and shines a light on four musicians who've finally gotten their due.

In 1966, at the height of the avant-garde and the year of the first edition, the subjects of Spellman's interviews for the book—Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Nichols, and Jackie McLean—were considered too subtle, complex, or difficult, certainly far from the comfortable melodies of more mainstream artists. Nearly forty years later, in the new edition, Spellman notes the capriciousness of the jazz industry and writes of darker cultural currents, "the most sinister of which is the gross indifference with which America receives those aspects of Afro-American culture that are not 'entertaining.'"

Now that the world has caught up to the talents of Taylor, Coleman, Nichols, and McLean, Four Jazz Lives not only celebrates their musical genius but reminds us again of the permanent place they occupy in the pantheon of jazz greats.