Excerpt from OCEANS OF TIME
and a few photos from the book
Thanks to The Nation for running the introductory chapter of Oceans of Time: The Musical Autobiography of Billy Hart.
This is appropriate, for Billy and I hired Shuja Haider—who works at The Nation—to edit, and it was Shuja’s smart idea to move this very material to the beginning for an introduction. (I originally had it later in the book.) Shuja also came up with most of the chapter titles.
In addition to Shuja, we had major help by Scott Douglass, who transcribed many hours of interviews, did fact-checking, and supplied fabulous footnotes. (Scott also writes at the vital Commonwealth of Jazz.)
At the eleventh hour, further details and fact-checks were supplied by serious music maven George Korval.
The Haider-Douglass-Korval brain trust is highly recommended.
A unique feature of the book is an appendix where 22 drummers comment on Billy Hart:
Kush Abadey, Nasar Abadey, Barry Altschul, Jeff Ballard, Johnathan Blake, Obed Calvaire, Terri Lyne Carrington, Billy Drummond, Peter Erskine, Bill Goodwin, Hyland Harris, Eric McPherson, Allison Miller, Lewis Nash, Adam Nussbaum, Bobby Previte, Jorge Rossy, Damion Reid, Vinnie Sperrazza, Nasheet Waits, Lenny White, & Jeff Williams.
I really loved working on this section, it was just great to hear all these wonderful drummers talk about Billy.
The book is illustrated by photos from Billy’s personal collection.
Purchase Oceans of Time here.
Ordered my copy. Can’t wait! I plan to use it during my public interview of Julian Priester this month at the Seattle Jazz Fellowship.
Reading musicians' comments about a musician is interesting and often instructive. I remember particularly enjoying the comment sidebars in Art Pepper's STRAIGHT LIFE, and the views on Charlie Parker and Bud Powell in Art Tay.lor's NOTES AND TONES: MUSICIAN TO MUSICIAN INTERVIEWS. There's a fascinating set of interviews, BIRD: THE LEGEND OF CHARLIE PARKER. To be sure, it's been a while and I've forgotten most of the content, remembering just snippets.
I don't recall dscussions in these other books about aesthetics and technique. Perhaps your book's drummer comments include such discussions. I'll have to have a look —