Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1999
Abstract
That's why his book is an intriguing combination of autobiography, sermon, and manifesto. Love's mission is not only to recount his life's many memorable moments, but also to lament the present state of jazz in America (particularly the weak music scene in Omaha, a city that between the 1930s and 1960s boasted of world class musicians and a thriving club scene), and the "whitewashing" of jazz which he considers to be black music. "If my anger seems excessive," he writes, "consider that Elvis Presley became the biggest star in the history of show business and was referred to as the king of rock and roll while many thousands of great Afro-American folksingers and musicians with thousands of times more talent than Presley wallowed in comparative obscurity."
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 19:4 (Fall 1999). Copyright © 1999 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln