Jazz Generations

Until recently, the West Coast jazz scene occupied an unjustifiably obscure place in jazz history. Yet, in the heyday of jazz, the Los Angeles Central Avenue scene was a mecca for Hollywood stars and other jazz buffs who wanted to hear the music of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Mingus, and Chico Hamilton. The Central Avenue Sounds Research Project at UCLA has done much to ensure that Central Avenue is recognized, along with Harlem and New Orleans, as the birthplace of jazz.

Buddy Collette -- a key figure in American jazz since the early 1940s -- is unusual in that, while based on the West Coast, he won a truly international following. Collette worked closely with Mingus, went on to join the Chico Hamilton Quartet, and later played with Thelonious Monk and Gil Evans. He has run his own quartet for thirty years while also writing, arranging, and playing film scores.

In Jazz Generations, Collette recounts his close friendships with other jazz greats and gives brief but illuminating portraits of Parker, Paul Robeson, and Frank Sinatra. He also shares an insider's look at the world of the studio musician -- particularly his years on the "Groucho Marx Show" -- and gives important accounts of the racial integration of the musicians' union and of the watts riots in the 1960s.