Kansas City Lightning, Stanley Crouch
Kansas City Lightning, Stanley Crouch
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Kansas City Lightning
The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker

Author: Stanley Crouch

Narrator: Kevin Kenerly

Unabridged: 9 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/01/2014

Synopsis

Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker is the first installment in the long-awaited portrait of one of the most talented and influential musicians of the twentieth century, from Stanley Crouch, one of the foremost authorities on jazz and culture in America.Throughout his life, Charlie Parker personified the tortured American artist: a revolutionary performer who used his alto saxophone to create a new music known as bebop even as he wrestled with a drug addiction that would lead to his death at the age of thirty-four. Drawing on interviews with peers, collaborators, and family members, Kansas City Lightning re-creates Parker's Depression-era childhood; his early days navigating the Kansas City nightlife, inspired by lions like Lester Young and Count Basie; and on to New York, where he began to transcend the music he had mastered. Crouch reveals an ambitious young man torn between music and drugs, between his domineering mother and his impressionable young wife, whose teenage romance with Charlie lies at the bittersweet heart of this story.With the wisdom of a jazz scholar, the cultural insights of an acclaimed social critic, and the narrative skill of a literary novelist, Stanley Crouch illuminates this American master as never before.

About Stanley Crouch

Stanley Crouch has been writing about jazz music and the American experience for more than forty years. He has twice been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, for his essay collections Notes of a Hanging Judge and The All-American Skin Game. His other books include Always in Pursuit, The Artificial White Man, and the acclaimed novel Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome. Since 1987 he has served on and off as the artistic consultant for jazz programming at Lincoln Center and is a founder of the jazz department known as Jazz at Lincoln Center. The president of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, he is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a regular columnist for the New York Daily News.

About Kevin Kenerly

Kevin Kenerly, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, earned a BA at Olivet College. A longtime member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has acted in more than twenty seasons, playing dozens of roles.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nancy on January 17, 2014

Super book about one of my ultimate favorite jazz musicians. "What he gave the horn, it gave back. What it gave him, he never forgot." The ultimate reading day for me includes the following: rain (which we get a lot of down here in the south), a cup or two or three of strong black coffee (no pods --......more

Goodreads review by Michael on November 14, 2016

I honestly get annoyed by Crouch sometimes (especially his dismissiveness here: [URL not allowed]) and his overbearing editorial influence on Ken Burn's Jazz TV show ([URL not allowed]) but when he is writing about music he loves and musicians he respects, he is har......more

Goodreads review by John on September 20, 2014

Here's a telling thing that showcases in miniature what's nutty about this book: about 2/3 of the way through, Crouch mentions that one step in Charlie Parker's development as a serious (obsessive, really) saxophonist is that he began customizing his metal mouthpieces and shaving down his reed -- an......more

Goodreads review by Andre on December 08, 2013

This book both fascinates and frustrates. It's fascinating in that context is richly provided and Bird is thoroughly situated in the era of his time. The Kansas City of Bird's time is thoroughly unpacked so that the reader gets a full understanding of the environment that Bird was navigating. We foll......more

Goodreads review by Carl on November 29, 2013

Kansas City Lightning not only takes us inside Charlie Parker's life, but into the world of jazz, circa 1930's and 40's. Stanley Crouch's ending is a surprise because he stops in the middle, just as Parker is hitting it big in NYC. At first I felt a little cheated. Hey, this is only half a bio. Then......more

Quotes

“Kansas City Lightning succeeds as few biographies of jazz musicians have…This book is a magnificent achievement; I could hardly put it down.” Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

“It takes a lifetime of passionate engagement to write with the intensity and depth of Stanley Crouch…The results are insightful, profound, and wholly original…This a must-read, not just for jazz fans, but for anyone interested in American possibilities.” Wynton Marsalis

“A portrait of the young Charlie Parker with a degree of vivid detail never before approached…[Kansas City Lightning is] a deft, virtuosic panorama of early jazz…This is a mind-opening, and mind-filling, book.” Tom Piazza

“This is a memorable book…Stanley Crouch takes us deep into places most of us can only imagine—including into the heart of the mysterious split-second alchemy that takes place nightly on the bandstand.” Geoffrey C. Ward, National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author

“[A] riveting, long-awaited book…Here is Bird making his watershed discoveries before he fired his own lightning bolts.” Gary Giddins, National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author

“The soul of Stanley Crouch joins the soul of the legendary jazz legend…Crouch re-creates ‘the Bird’ with his writer’s talents at their peak and the result is magical.” Huffington Post

“It’s a book about a jazz hero written in a heroic style…a bebop Beowulf.” New York Times

“Award-winning Crouch takes a deep look at [Parker’s] rich life.” Denver Post

“Social and cultural critic, columnist, and MacArthur Genius Crouch offers a mix of impressionist strokes, historical facts, and context in his masterful Charlie Parker bio.” New York Post

“Meticulous and steeped in local lore…Feel[s] as urgent as a blast from Parker’s saxophone.” Kansas City Star

Awards

  • New York Times Editor’s Choice
  • AudioFile Best Audiobook of the Year
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