Mitchell & Ruff: An American Profile in Jazz. Este artículo no está disponible.Mitchell & Ruff: An American Profile in Jazz

208 pages. Highly recommended-Library Journal In this account of the world adventures o f two splendid jazz artists, Bill Zinsser has given us one of the most exciting books about America's original art form that I've ever read. It's a revelation.- Studs Terkel Since 1955, Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff have been playing, teac hing, and sharing jazz around the U.S. and around the world. William Zinsser, on e of our finest chroniclers of American life, tells their story as he travels wi th the duo to China, to Davenport, Iowa, to New York City, and-with Willie Ruff- to St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, where Ruff journeys back to the roots of Weste rn music in order to understand jazz's musical legacy. Zinsser also accompanies Mitchell and Ruff as they visit their hometowns in Florida and Alabama. We list en as the two men tell of growing up in small towns in the American South of the 1930s and 40s; as they tell about the teachers, community leaders, and family m embers who believed in two young black men with talent but no formal musical tra ining; as they tell of their struggles, their perseverance, and their ultimate s uccess. Jazz is indeed a uniquely American musical tradition, and there are no better guides to this inspiring art than Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff. [This is a] thoughtful, adept, and satisfyingly unusual book of reportage.Though its contents are entirely factual, it concerns lives that give the sense of being b ut fatefully, imaginatively, arranged, and it constantly suggests improvisation- that is, 'something created during the process of delivery,' as Mr. Ruff explain s the term to the Chinese.He also tells them improvisation is 'the lifeblood o f jazz.' William Zinsser's book reminds us that improvisation is the lifeblood o.…