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9781574419696

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Reviews

""On the Way to the Sky highlights Bob's musical characteristics but also deals with the man as a whole. It will be a welcome addition to my personal library.""--Richard DeRosa, director of jazz composition and arranging at UNT ""I always felt that Bob should be considered a seminal jazz composer. Brookmeyer's big band conducting was very innovative, and this has had a great effect on current jazz orchestra leaders who have written music that requires a lot of cuing. Stephans's book is worthy of attention from the most curious jazz lover to the hardcore music historian. I think anyone who takes the time to read the book and follows Stephans's clear and careful explanations of the individual recordings will be greatly entertained and enlightened. Bob is truly beyond category as an innovative performer, composer, and educator, and On the Way to the Sky compassionately tells his story.""--Michael Patterson, Emmy- and Grammy-award-winning composer and professor of composition / film scoring at NYU ""Bob Brookmeyer performed, recorded, and wrote for the best in the world of jazz but unfortunately never achieved the name recognition or status among the general public that many of his peers did. Fortunately for us, drummer/author Michael Stephans has helped to rectify this neglect with his new book, On the Way to the Sky. Michael's account of Bob's life is told with love and a thorough understanding of his subject based on over thirty years of friendship and musical collaboration. Bob's mark on any performance, recorded or live, was always indelible. His sound was one of the most recognizable of any jazz artist, and his compositions and arrangements--even the very earliest ones--have withstood the test of time.""--Joe La Barbera, composer and author of Times Remembered: The Final Years of the Bill Evans Trio

Author Information

Michael Stephans has led three distinct but interrelated lives. He holds a PhD and two master’s degrees, has taught at three prestigious universities, and is currently faculty emeritus at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. A prominent jazz musician, Michael has performed and recorded with a wide array of jazz artists, including Bob Brookmeyer, Bennie Maupin, Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, Alan Broadbent, and many others. Michael is also an author of two nonfiction books, Experiencing Jazz: A Listener’s Companion and Experiencing Ornette Coleman: A Listener’s Companion, and three books of poetry and fiction.

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