by Geoff Dyer (Author)
Lester Young fading away in a hotel room; Charles Mingus storming down the streets of New York on a too-small bicycle; Thelonius Monk creating his own private language on the piano...In eight poetically charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skilfully evokes the embattled lives of the players who shaped modern jazz. He draws on photos and anecdotes, but music is the driving force of But Beautiful and Dyer brings it to life in luminescent and wildly metaphoric prose that mirrors the quirks, eccentricity, and brilliance of each musician's style.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
Published: 10 May 2012
ISBN 10: 0857864025
ISBN 13: 9780857864024
Book Overview: 'A copy ... ought to be on everybody's Desert Island' Independent
Prizes: Winner of Somerset Maugham Award 1992. Shortlisted for John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize 1992.