More Than the Music

More Than the Music features twenty-seven unique jazz stories—stories that came about through my own experience. Most of them began so long ago, even as far back as the 1950s during my teenage years. In those days, jazz was still the new kid on the block, at least on my block. It was something most people knew nothing about—including me—so I watched, listened, and learned. By the time I reached New York City in 1967 and began aging out of my twenties, many of the people who had previously just been names on records or in books were now people I had met, worked with, and were getting to know on a personal level.

I’ve picked out thirty-one terribly talented and fascinating music-oriented men and women with whom I had more than a simple working relationship; these were people who helped shape my life, some in significant ways. Once, they were all well-known—some only in the music world, others far beyond it. Their stories are detailed in twenty-five chapters from when time moved a little slower—before we were bound by TikTok’s clock or 280-character tweets—because, once upon a time, we weren’t always in such a hurry.

I have purposely mixed it up. While most were jazz musicians, others came from different worlds: a CIA director (Edwin M. Ashcraft), a famous movie star (Clint Eastwood), a noted poet (Allen Ginsberg), a famous industrialist (Sherman M. Fairchild), a legendary talent scout and social activist (John Hammond), a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and academic (Mel Powell), and the world’s foremost music festival producer (George Wein). And yet, it was the music that brought all of us together, and I consider myself very lucky to have known them.