Product Description

Troubled urban neighborhoods and jazz-club havens were the backdrop of Gerald Majer's life growing up in sixties and seventies Chicago. The Velvet Lounge, an original hybrid of memoir, biography, and musical description, reflects this history and pursues a sustained meditation on jazz along with a probing exploration of race and class and how they defined the material and psychic divides of a city. With the instrument of a supple, lyrical prose style, Majer elaborates the book's themes through literary and intellectual forays as carefully constructed and as passionately articulated as a jazz master's solo. Throughout the work, issues of identity and culture, art and politics achieve a rare immediacy, as does the music itself.

In portraits of Jimmy Smith, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Sun Ra, and others, Gerald Majer conveys the drama and artistry of their music as well as the personal hardships many of them endured. Vivid descriptions and telling historical anecdotes explore the music's richness through a variety of political, social, and philosophical contexts. The Velvet Lounge, named after the famous Chicago club, is also one of the few works to consider the music of such avant-garde jazz musicians as Fred Anderson, Andrew Hill, and Roscoe Mitchell. In doing so, Majer builds a bridge from the traditionalist view of jazz to the world of contemporary innovators, casts a new light on the music and its makers, and traces connections between jazz art and postmodernist thought.

Present throughout Majer's spirited encounters with the worlds of jazz is Majer himself. We hear and appreciate the music through his individual sensibilities and experiences. Majer recounts growing up in racially divided Chicago -- his trips to the famed Maxwell Street market, his wanderings among its legendary jazz clubs, his riding the El, and his working in a jukebox factory. We witness his awakening to the music at a crossroads of the intimately personal and the intellectually provocative.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1738380 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-15
• Released on: 2005-09-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
"Greatest Reads of 2005":

"...a quietly visionary autobiography, the story of a life and a complex, ugly/beautiful city."

---Brian Morton -- Sunday Herald (Scotland UK), November 27, 2005

"[A] virtuoso writer, wrapping the reader in lush descriptions...encountered like music, letting it wash over you..."

--Elizabeth Hoover -- Chicago Tribune, November 20, 2005

Review

"Interesting descriptions of the jazz scene emerge--most notably in the chapter on the Velvet Lounge." -- Library Journal

"His descriptions actually make you want to hear again--or listen to for the first time--the music described." -- Ken Waxman, jazzword.com

"A quietly visionary autobiography, the story of a life and of a complex, ugly/beautiful city." -- Sunday Herald

"Far closer to capturing the experience of listening to music than any jazz book you've read this year." -- Matthew Lurie

"He is a virtuoso writer, wrapping the reader in his lush descriptions of concerts." -- Elizabeth Hoover, Chicago Tribune

"A quietly visionary autobiography, the story of a life and of a complex, ugly/beautiful city." -- Brian Morton, Sunday Herald (Scotland)

"A deeply moving memoir in tune with the rhythms of jazz music itself and its influence on American society." -- James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review

"A deeply moving memoir in tune with the rhythms of music itself and its influence on society." -- James A. Cox

"This book is a rich evocation of the important legacy of modern jazz in Chicago." -- Library Journal April

"Masterfully crafted." -- Marsha Walker, Multicultural Review

Review

"Gerald Majer's propulsive, rhythmic essays celebrate the history and spirit of jazz. Like a seasoned improviser, he varies and syncopates his delivery, casting rim-shot fragments against long, slalomlike sentences -- pushing, probing, and staying on the run through fast-track narrative and lyric measure. The prose fluidly shifts between earthy vernacular and reflective mood swing. And yet Majer's technical gifts as an essayist never betray or eclipse the emotional heart of these engaging, memorable meditations." -- Sascha Feinstein, author, Misterioso; editor, Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature

Customer Reviews

A deeply moving memoir in tune with the rhythms of music itself and its influence on society
The Velvet Lounge: On Late Chicago Jazz is a memoir of author and English professor Gerald Majer's experience growing up in sixties and seventies Chicago, amid troubled inner city neighborhoods and jazz-club oases of lightning-beat sound. Contemplating both jazz itself and issues of identity, culture, art, race, and politics, The Velvet Lounge captures both a wistful look at the big picture and vibrant memories of star music players such as Jimmy Smith, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Sun Ra, and more. A deeply moving memoir in tune with the rhythms of music itself and its influence on society.

A fine book, with a poetic approach and style
Writing about free jazz this book shows passion and freedom in its own style of writing. I really enjoyed the poetic, improvisational approach the writer followed. It was like he was riffing with words and stories. It's more literature than history or reportage, though there's tons of descriptions of musicians and music in Chicago--Sun Ra, Roscoe Mitchell, Ed Wilkerson, Jr, Maghostut Malachi Favors, etc. Very intense and powerful writing, like a song.

Ok I don't really have the book yet...
But Gerald Majer was my English professor back in undergrad at Villa Julie College, and I wanted to give him props for publishing a book! When I was going through school, he was still working on it, and I remember the hard work he put into it. Congrats Dr. Majer, good luck with everything!

Becca