Cover of You Can't Steal a Gift

You Can't Steal a Gift

"You Can't Steal a Gift is about the impact of American racism on America's greatest gift to the world of music - jazz. In a work that combines memoir, oral history, and commentary, Gene Lees has crafted minibiographies of four great black musicians whom the author knew well - Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Milt Hinton, and Nat "King" Cole. Lees writes of them, "All are men who had every reason to embrace bitterness...and didn't."" "When Lees left Montreal to become the music and drama critic of the Louisville Times in 1955, he was shocked by the racism and segregation he found in the United States. In jazz he found a community of like-minded souls who freely shared their gifts with all lovers of music, regardless of race and condition."—BOOK JACKET.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 269 pages

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  1. Jazz in Black and White Shares race, jazz musicians, USA
  2. Natives and Strangers: A Multicultural History of Americans Shares race, USA, history
  3. The Power of the Zoot Shares race, USA, history
  4. Bitter Freedom: William Stone's Record of Service in the Freedmen's Bureau Shares race, USA, biography

“If you want more of the same (biography about race), start with these.”

  1. A nation of strangers
  2. The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940
  3. Television in black-and-white America
  4. Begin Again

“If it was the race that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Race in America
  2. The classic slave narratives
  3. No Difference in the Fare
  4. The 5 O'clock Band

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Why New Orleans Matters
  2. Boston Boy: Growing up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions
  3. The Birth Of Bebop: A Social And Musical History
  4. How to Listen to Jazz