Jazz From The Beginning

Jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and bassoonist Garvin Bushell (1902–1991) performed with many of the twentieth century’s greatest jazz musicians—from Fletcher Henderson, Fats Waller, and Cab Calloway to Eric Dolphy, Gil Evans, and John Coltrane—during his remarkable career that spanned from 1916 to the 1980s. Although best known as a jazz soloist and sideman, Bushell also played oboe and bassoon with symphony orchestras and was a highly regarded instructor of woodwinds. In Jazz from the Beginning, Bushell vividly recounts his musical experiences, featuring candid assessments of the legends with whom he performed as well as eye-opening accounts of the early days of jazz and the racism that he encountered on the road. Based on a series of interviews conducted by jazz scholar Mark Tucker, these memoirs provide a colorful account of Bushell’s extraordinary life and career as well as an important record of seventy years of America’s musical history.