The Jazz Masters. Setting the Record Straight.
Peter C. Zimmerman
324 Pages
ISBN: # 978-1-4697-3743-1
University Press of Mississippi
2020

There is nothing quite like an interview for immediacy and intimacy. While some people are willing to talk endlessly about themselves, you sometimes find they have nothing to say. Then there are those who say little but turn out to be intriguing. Those, you want to interview. Of course, they may be reticent. So, a good interviewer asks the right questions and can establish rapport with his or her subject. It is not easy. If it were, we would have a lot more books like this one. And would know a lot more about what makes working jazz musicians—and not just stars—tick, although stars abound in these interviews.

Peter Zimmerman's title, The Jazz Masters. Setting the Record Straight., is a bit of a spoiler. And a bit of misdirection too. For the past forty years, the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master "is the highest honor that our nation bestows on jazz artists...a select number of living legends who have made exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz." For example, in 2022, the recipients were