1929: A Novel of the Jazz Age

(Paperback)

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"A rip-roaring, entertaining image of a bygone era that deserves Pulitzer consideration. " - Kirkus Reviews . By 1929, the brief, brilliant career of Bix Beiderbecke--self-taught cornetist, pianist, and composer--had already become legend. From the summer of '26 at Hudson Lake, Indiana, when his genius blazed forth with a strange, doomed incandescence, Bix's career tragically reflected the chaotic impulses of a country suddenly awash in wealth, power, and a profound cynicism. Shy, elusive, inarticulate, Bix was beloved by both the raccoon-coated campus crowd and the men who nightly played alongside him. He is still celebrated in a yearly festival in his hometown of Davenport, Iowa. And that is where the novel begins, Davenport and the Bix Fest. Then it travels back in time to focus on the highlights of a meteoric career: a Capone-controlled nightclub in 1926; the grueling cross-country to urs with Paul Whiteman's "Symphonic Jazz" orchestra; the disastrous Whiteman trip to California to make the first all-color talkie musical; the stock market crash of 1929 that finds Bix in an asylum, victim of the era's signature product, bootleg gin; and finally, Bix's dying efforts to combine his piano compositions into a suite that would be the pinnacle of his life's work and his evocation of his time and place. Colored by some of the age's most popular characters--Maurice Ravel, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Clara Bow-- 1929 brilliantly illuminates a period in history, personified in the gifted, compelling, and melancholy figure of Bix Beiderbecke.

Reviews

"Frederick Turner's 1929 would be one of the most remarkable novels published in any year of our time. I found the book a stunning performance of grand dimension. The writing is beautifully controlled and elegant, giving ever greater tension to the often lurid and violent contents. Historically, I can think of no finer portrait of an American artist and his times."

Author Bio

Frederick Turner has authored and edited many non-fiction titles. He has written articles for the Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune, and he is a frequent contributor to the Travel section of the New York Times. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.