6.0 x 9.0. 400 pgs. 31 B&W photograph section. (2006) Paper 978-0-472-03360-7 $24.95T  Available Add to Cart Search this Book's Content About the Book Praise Look Inside Series Jazz Perspectives Subjects African-American and African Studies / Biography / Music--Jazz

Someone to Watch Over Me
The Life and Music of Ben Webster

Frank Büchmann-Møller

Winner of the 2007 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Certificate of Merit for Best Research in Recorded Jazz Music

The definitive biography of the great tenor saxophonist Ben Webster

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Praise for the Book

"[Büchmann-Møller] presents an extremely comprehensive chronicle of Webster's musical life and much of his personal life . . .  [If] you want to find out more about one of jazz's most distinctive voices, Someone to Watch Over Me is a rich resource."
---All About Jazz

"[a] painstaking reconstruction of Webster's personal life and musical career …. [Büchmann-Møller's] account of Webster's final days in Europe, based largely on newly translated documents and interviews … provides some of the most valuable and poignant material in the book."
---Downbeat

". . . contains a wealth of lore and fact. . . . Admirably researched, informative, and lucidly and lovingly written. . . . [T]he type of book the reader is likely to take down from the bookshelf time and time again. . . ."
---Ellingtonia

". . . thoroughly researched and comprehensively annotated. . . .Buchmann-Moller's comments about the recordings Webster made as he progressed are intelligent and even-handed, without hyberbolic blather, and he does not shy away from his subject's dark side. . . . what does come through is a genuine admiration and affection for his subject, who emerges from these pages as a complete human being. . . ."
--Cadence magazine

". . . a compelling read that will likely remain the definitive life of the tenor giant."
---David French, JazzTimes

"Frank Büchmann-Møller gives us detailed and sometimes shocking glimpses into the artistic and private world of the volatile and charismatic Ben Webster, a man who loved to laugh and was easily moved to tears. Had he lived to read this, I think Webster would have both roared and wept with approval."
---Dave Frishberg, jazz musician

"Büchmann-Møller admirably captures the fierce and the tender aspects of both Ben Webster's music making and his personal life."
---John Chilton, musician and author of Let the Good Times Roll: The Story of Louis Jordan and His Music, The Song of the Hawk: The Life and Recordings of Coleman Hawkins, Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz, Roy Eldridge: Little Jazz Giant, and Who's Who of Jazz: Storyville to Swing Street

"The man and the music, both ranging from rough to tender, come fully to life in this warm and definitive work."
---Dan Morgenstern, Director, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University; author, Living with Jazz (Pantheon Books)

". . .an impressively detailed portrait . . ."
---Jazzwise