August Random: Get Your Groove On

August Random Cat: Get Your Groove On:



Rhode Island (where I live) is the smallest state in the US, located on the eastern coast. It’s only 1,214 square miles – approximately 48 miles x 37 miles with a big bay that cuts through the middle. And we’re the second most densely populated. But in the summer, here, we have lots of great music, most of it less than an hour away.

The Newport Music Festival is a two-week, twice a day, classical music festival performed in the various historical mansions in Newport. (https://www.homestratosphere.com/newport-rhode-island-mansions/ ) There’s also the Newport Jazz Festival, the Newport Folk Festival, the University of RI has a chamber orchestra music festival (which will be virtual this year), the RI Philharmonic plays a concert on one of the beaches in the state, the county fair has country music each night during the two-week fair, a local ranch has a zydeco weekend, there’s usually a drum and bugle corps competition the night before the oldest continuous July 4th parade in the country, and local bands in almost every town play each week.

And there are ethnic festivals on the weekends which each have music: the Italian festival, the Polish festival, The Portuguese festival, etc. (plus there’s more) You could probably go to a concert of some type every night all summer if you wanted to. But this year, most (if not all) of them have been cancelled.

So - let’s get our groove on this month and read a book that has something to do with music:

Maybe a biography/autobiography/memoir about an artist/musician/composer:

Me by Elton John
Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren
Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy by Mike Love
Mozart, the man and the artist, as revealed in his own words by Mozart, compiled by Friedrich Kerst (VivienneR gave this 5 stars back in May)
The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz
Eva Cassidy: Songbird by Rob Burley

Could be about a musical location or instrument:

Grand Opera: The Story of the Met by Charles Affron
Fifty Years at the Grand Ole Opry by Myron Tassin
The Saga of the Sydney Opera House by Peter Murray
Andre Previn’s Guide to the Orchestra by Andre Previn
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by T.E. Carhart

Or some fiction with a reference to music:

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
A Song I Knew by Heart by Bret Lott
The Master Butcher’s Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

So how will you get your groove on this month?

And - don’t forget to update the wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2020_RandomCAT#2020_Random_CAT

I had thought of this idea way back last fall when we were planning the Cats for 2020. Little did I know then how little music there would be this summer.

Anyway …. Here are a few books that I’ll be picking from:

The Speed of Sound by Eric Bernt
The Music Teacher by Barbara Hall
A Song I Knew by Heart by Bret Lott
Eva Cassidy: Songbird by Rob Burley

Love this theme! I hope to read What to Listen For in Music by Aaron Copeland.

As my big concern these days is the number of series that I am working on, I will use August's RandomCat to read from my series, I have a few choices, and will read at least one of these:

When the Music's Over by Peter Robinson
Crossroad Blues by Ace Atkins
Funeral Music by Morag Joss

Love this theme! I was going to read The Master Butcher's Singing Club for another challenge earlier in the year, but never got to it. I'll try again in August if the library loan system is in full gear. I expect it will be.
Also I will look for Something Wonderful or Songs of America although I'm not really in the mood for the last one right now. I'll see what comes in via the library. Hopefully I'll get to all three and then some.

Nice theme! The book on my shelves which came to mind first was Saving Mozart by Raphael Jerusalmy (which was a BB a few years ago from someone in this group).

Interesting theme. That'll take some thinking about.

Oh, what a great theme--July = pictures/art and August = music!

I loved both >1 dudes22: The Piano Shop on the Left Bank and >6 Jackie_K: Saving Mozart.

One non-fiction that I highly recommend is Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa by Haruki Murakami. Murakami, better known as a novelist, is an avid collector of recordings, and this book is a series of Murakami's conversations with conductor Ozawa about recordings, performance, and the life of the artist.

I have lots to choose from on my shelves, including biographies of Handel, Bach (several), Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Mendelssohn.
I also have some books with related musical titles:
A Song of Sixpence by A. J. Cronin;
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig;
Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (fictionalized account of an opera singer); and
The Lady of the Camellias by Alexander Dumas fils, which is the story of La Traviata.

I will probably read Song of the Lark, and if time permits The Life of Mendelssohn by Peter Mercer-Taylor

>8 kac522: - I'm making a note of the Seiji Ozawa book. He was the musical director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (which is only an hour or so up the road) for 29 years.

Ok, I'm hoping for Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter for this. I have other options, as well, if something happens and I can't get my hands on the audio.

Next up for me in Bill Moody's mystery series featuring jazz pianist Evan Horne as sleuth, is Looking for Chet Baker. The mystery plot is never strong but that's ok, I just love the series and the music.

Coincidentally I am planning to read a bunch of my brother's music books in August. He's suggested that I read what he has in the following order:

This Is Your Brain on Music, by Daniel J. Levitin
How Music Works, by David Byrne
The World in Six Songs, by Daniel J. Levitin

I also have Inside Conducting, by Christopher Seaman, on the shelf from the library... I borrowed it back in March... :D

Lots of possibilities here.

My online reading group is reading the Odyssey next month, which of course would originally have been sung.

Farewell My Concubine by Lillian Lee which has a Peking Opera singer as the main character.

Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey (title)

The Countertenor Wore Garlic by Mark Schweizer (next up in a mystery series with a choirmaster as the detective)

A Song for Nero by Thomas Holt (title)

I plan to read Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Y. Davis which I have had since December 2017.

>9 dudes22: If I recall, there are links to some of the recordings discussed in the book on Murakami's website, so that you can hear what's being discussed.

Yes--I found it: http://www.harukimurakami.com/resource_category/playlist/absolutely-on-music

If I finish up with classes before the end of August, I have Bel Canto on my TBR.

I would suggest The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers. And another one that comes to mind that I haven't read Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

>17 Kristelh: My book club read Musicophilia at the end of 2018. Very interesting if a bit heavy going in places

Oh, this is wonderful! I have a musical category that needs to be filled up...

This is a great topic! I remember when we were discussing the CATs and the topic of Music came up. Thank you, this is one of my faves!

>16 luvamystery65: I really loved Bel Canto!

I'm somewhat at a loss, which surprises me! I'll have to dig more deeply into my shelves -- I'm sure I must have something that will work!

>16 luvamystery65: - >21 christina_reads: - I didn't think of Bel Canto before but that would workout well for me as I was planning to read it next month anyway. I hosting my RL book club in Nov and that's one of the books I'm considering.

After searching my shelves, I'm thinking of reading Masks and Shadows by Stephanie Burgis. One of the main characters is an opera singer.

I am reading Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans which includes information about food, people, places and of course music!

This is a fun theme! I'm wishing I had not yet read Bel Canto or The Master Butcher's Singing Club, two of my all-time favorite novels. I don't really want to reread either of them just now so I'm still perusing my shelves (which is so fun).

All of these are on my wishlist so I'd have to acquire one of them (oh darn):

Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks

>25 EBT1002: - I read The Secret Chord a couple of months ago and really liked it.

I'm planning on Grace Notes by Bernard Laverty.

>26 dudes22: thanks -- I'll keep it on the list although I'm thinking I might read On the Come Up which would double for AlphaKIT. Of course, I might read both of them!

>21 christina_reads: & >25 EBT1002: Good to know you both loved Bel Canto. I found an audio of it on Hoopla so I will listen to it earlier in the month on my commute to work.

>22 dudes22: Will be nice to have company on my read. :-)

I'm working through my ROOT books (on my shelves unread for over a year) and found three that fit this challenge:

Sandy and the Rock Star by Walt Morey
Music and Musicians by Peter S Ruckman
A Legend of Wolf Song by George Stone

I'm well into David Mitchell's Utopia Avenue and will do my best not to finish it before August begins!

I'll have to wrack my brains for this one. Not sure anything is leaping out at me right now.

I read and really enjoyed Masks and Shadows by Stephanie Burgis for this CAT. Several of the main characters are musicians, and the climactic scene takes place at an opera. The composer Franz Joseph Haydn even makes an appearance! If you like historical fantasy with romance and intrigue (and, of course, opera), I definitely recommend this one.

Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter / Loretta Lynn
3.75 stars

Originally published in 1976, this is country music star Loretta Lynn’s autobiography.

She’s pretty old-fashioned, but of course that could also just be that she’s a product of her time. I loved her “storytelling” style – it read like chatting with a friend as she tells stories of her life. I was not as interested in the other celebrity stories, and was more interested in her home life. Some interesting celebrity tidbits, though: I didn’t know Chrystal Gayle was her sister; she and Patsy Cline were friends; she felt badly for Olivia Newton John when people were “against” her winning country music awards because she wasn’t from Nashville.

I liked the first half of the book much better, as it focused more on her home life – growing up poor, her father working in a coal mine; marrying at 14-years old... Sissy Spacek was perfect to narrate the audio! So, overall, I’m rating it good (3.5 stars) with an extra quarter star for Sissy Spacek.

Although the music wasn't very joyous, Funeral Music by Morag Joss, actually fit this theme quite well as the main character was a professional cellist. I always enjoy reading this author, but this was not one of my favorites by her.

I'm going to go ahead and count this music book for the RandomCAT: Any Night of the Week: A D.I.Y. History of Toronto Music, 1957–2001, by Jonny Dovercourt.

I read The White-Haired Girl, a Chinese opera libretto (yes, I read it in English translation!). The opera is based on a revolutionary-era folk tale and is set in the Hebei province of China.

My sister bought a few books for her library and one of them was a detective story complete with audio CD and the story reworked as a musical: Wer hat Angst vor Mister Werwolf?. Such a fun surprise!

The Band that Played On / Steve Turner
3.25 stars

This book tells the biographies of the eight musicians on the Titanic. They were split into two groups on board, playing in different areas of the ship, but it seems that they joined together to play on deck as the ship sank.

I usually like biographies, but this one had eight. That’s a lot, and it was a small amount of information on each one, so as we continued on in the book, it was easy to forget who was who. It was more interesting once they boarded the ship to read about that. Much is speculation, including what songs were played, but that part was still more interesting to me.

The book continued on after they died with some information on their families, regaining any items found (though only three of the musicians’ bodies were recovered), and stories of (in one case) the father not acknowledging an illegitimate child (and therefore any compensation money should come to him, not to his son’s girlfriend and child); I can’t remember now if it was the same family (I think it was), but a sister who was mentally unstable and played a nasty “joke” on the rest of her family (that was one I believe I’d already heard about).

Overall, I’m rating it between ok (the biographies) and good (the disaster and aftermath).

September RandpmCAT is up a few days early because we're heading out to go RVing tomorrow.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/323250

>40 majkia: Have fun!!

I am listening to the full cast audiobook of Amadeus from L.A. Theatre Works.

I am reading Rock Your Way To Happiness by Al Lucia a book about associating positive thoughts to favorite songs.

For this challenge (music) I ended up reading The Real Patsy Cline by Doug Hall. I had planned on reading Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Davis, but decided to hold that one off for the October NonfictionCAT since it would be more of a study for me. I enjoyed most of this short book about Patsy Cline; I'm familiar with some of her music, and enjoyed reading about her choosing and singing it. Also, the lyrics to some of her most popular songs were included in the text. Much of the description of Patsy's career was told by those who worked with her, but Mr. Hall wove these memories together seamlessly. I did find the comments after Patsy's untimely death to be hagiographic. The book included sections briefly identifying all the people who commented on Patsy, a timeline of her life, and a chronological listing of her records. Numerous photographs were also included.

I've finished Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, about an opera singer and other people at a birthday party who are taken hostage by a group of terrorists.

I just finished listening to The Music of What Happens a YA lgbtq romance/coming of age

>45 dudes22: I hope you enjoyed it, I thought it really very good.

>48 Helenliz: - Oh I did.

>45 dudes22: & >48 Helenliz: Bel Canto has been languishing on my shelf for far too long - I really need to get to it!

>50 DeltaQueen50: you have such a treat in store

I read Amsterdam by Ian McEwan because it came up as a book with music. This story is about two men at the height of their careers and one of them is a writer of symphonies. He is writing a symphony for the millennium. It is also about friendships. And also about euthanasia, thus the title. Lots of musical terms are used. It was also a look at the creative process of writing music.

I've read another music book, the recently published* Me & Patsy by Loretta Lynn in which Loretta Lynn describes her friendship with Patsy Cline. Although they only had about two years together, they became close friends and helped each other with their careers. Patsy was a mentor for Loretta. The book gets a bit repetitious at times, but describes a valuable friendship and a lot about the country music industry, especially in the 1960s.

*April 7, 2020

My choice was next in the Evan Horne series Looking for Chet Baker by Bill Moody 4★.

The story of Chet Baker's fatal fall in 1988 from an Amsterdam hotel windowledge is well-known so there was not much else to be detected or discovered by jazz pianist and occasional detective Evan Horne. What he found himself looking for was his academic friend Ace Buffington, who went missing while researching a book he was writing about Chet Baker's demise. Ace had asked Horne to accompany him on a research trip to Amsterdam, a request that was declined, although Horne was going to be playing in the same city. Miffed at the rebuff Ace got out of a tight spot by mentioning Horne's name before taking off back to California, thus putting his friend in a dangerous jam with Baker's Amsterdam drug dealers who never forget a debt owed.

The mystery in Moody's novels, especially this one, is not the main attraction, but the talk about jazz and jazz musicians is a big draw and is what I find most interesting and appealing. Moody is a jazz musician and music critic so knows his subject thoroughly making this series a pleasure to read.

Hope you all enjoyed getting your groove on this month. Lots of great books read.

I'll be posting late, I've had trouble getting a book from the library.

I'll be posting late too - my chosen book is still staring at me, unopened (luckily it's pretty short, so once I start I should complete it pretty quickly).

And that's it read! Raphael Jerusalmy's Saving Mozart, about a dying Jewish music critic at the start of World War 2, given the opportunity to subvert a Mozart festival that had been appropriated by the Nazis as another propaganda tool. It was very good, and a quick read too.

Forgot to record that I finished Bach: Essays on His Life and Music, Christoph Wolff (1991). It took several months to finish, as each of the 32 essays were in great detail and some extremely technical. Wolff is a recognized Bach scholar; that said, I think some of these would have worked better as presentations rather than essays--hearing the music, rather than just reading about it. The beginning and ending essays were the best shedding light on Bach’s family, life and legacy.

What comes across in every essay, however, is that nothing Bach wrote was by chance, by fluke. Every note was carefully and precisely placed. And how more than any other composer of his time, Bach studied and incorporated the music of other great composers, both those before him and his contemporaries.