From Birdland to Broadway

Bill Crow, journeyman bass player, superb storyteller, and author of the successful Jazz Anecdotes, here narrates many moving and delightful tales of the pioneers of modern jazz whom he played with and was befriended by. This is an enthralling account of four decades of a life in jazz, from Crow’s first days in New York City as a wet-behind-the-ears twenty-two year old from Washington State to his days as a professional jazz bassist playing with some of the greatest musicians the world has ever known. In a humorous and often intimate anecdotal style, he recounts this exciting era, an explosive time when the intermingling of two generations of jazz musicians–classic masters like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman, and the new school of jazz genius like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk–created inimatable sounds that dazzled the ear. Whether relating stories of his 1955 trio with Marian McPartland (named “Small Group of the Year” by Metronome), or playing with the Gerry Mulligan quartet at venues like Storyville in Boston and Harlem’s Apollo Theater (where they appeared with Dinah Washington), or his tour of the Soviet Union playing with Benny Goodman (whose constant mistreatment made the band miserable but provided some good stories), Crow presents a marvelous portrait of the jazz world with an “insider’s knowledge and a musical pen.”