Madam, – How unexpected and refreshing to find An Irishman’s Diary on two days last week casting a spotlight on two great jazzmen – Miles Davis and Lester Young.
We read about Miles fashioning perhaps the greatest of all jazz albums, Kind of Blue, over two days of improvisations back in 1959, and of "Prez", who "barely breathed into his horn" and spoke a language all his own.
Books about musicians can engender a deep nostalgia – perhaps none more than Geoff Dyer's But Beautiful, invoking humour and pathos alike in anecdotes about Miles David, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Ben Webster and Bud Powell, among others. Keith Jarrett has described it as the best book on jazz he has read. I commend it to readers of An Irishman's Diary who enjoyed the recent offerings by Kevin Stevens and Frank McNally.
– Yours, etc,
Madam, – I greatly enjoyed Kevin Stevens’s Irishman’s Diary of March 4th contrasting the recording methods of Miles Davis and U2. Miles Davis had a close association with Palle Mikkelborg, the brilliant Danish trumpeter, composer and arranger who worked with Miles on the 1989 album
Aura
, which was recorded in Denmark.
He also composed, arranged and played music for the royal wedding in Copenhagen Cathedral in 2004. This year he celebrates a half-century as a professional musician.
– Yours, etc,