April is National Poetry Month
Marsalis, Wynton. Jazz
ABZ: An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits. Illustrated by Paul Rogers.
Cambridge, MA: Candlewick, 2005.
Extraordinary hardly covers it
for this creative combination of poetry and painting. Structured as an alphabet book, it is also an introduction to
the great jazz artists of the twentieth century in words and stunning
portraits. For each letter of the alphabet, Marsalis has written a poem in
praise of a jazz musician, from Louis Armstrong to Count Basie all the way to
DiZZy Gillespie. For each musician, Marsalis has chosen a different type of
poem: an ode for Jelly Roll Morton, a lyric poem for Billie Holiday, a sonnet
for Sarah Vaughn, and so on. Some are easy to read, others quite difficult.
Explanations of the forms appear at the end of the book, as do biographical
summaries of each musician that will give readers basic facts to help them
decipher some of the more obscure meanings or references in the poems.
Originating from the desire of artist and illustrator Paul Rogers to celebrate
the jazz musicians he’s admired all his life, this book is a fittingly creative
tribute to those musicians and the creative art form that is jazz.
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