Now's the Time

by Larry Strauss

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0972370676
• ISBN13: 9780972370677
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Kearney Street Books
• Length: 170 Pages

Customer Reviews

Historical Detective with a Beat

If you're interested in jazz and down for a wild ride, saddle up. Didi Heron, this book's young and alienated jazz trumpet player, takes the reader on a hero's (in this case heroine's) journey in search of a vanished musical tape. It's a recording of her jazz piano father's last gig before he died twenty or so years back. The present is now 1976 as Didi sifts through clues, cities, and her father's fellow musicians from long ago. Along the way, we learn a great deal about jazz history and the telling stories that help us to better understand the legendary 1950's jazz greats. We also get to see the more downbeat side of that world which took its toll on families and friends. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey and found Didi's character refreshingly honest if not always likable. The prose is spare, pacing quick tempoed, characters colorful, and the mystery at the heart of this novel keeps you turning the page. Definitely a good pick for that next long flight or a lazy day at the beach.

the real search

When Didi sets out to locate the tape of her father's great last performance, she isn't sure what she'll find. At first she questions people who remember him and might know where the tape is. After a while, she begins to see beyond the glamour and the loss. She learns to judge these people who shared and overshadowed her father's past. Finding out about his world helps her play along with him inside her mind. There's music on every page, but the real quest is larger than that. Anyone who has lost their father will join right in as the hunt for the tape turns into a discovery of the man and the spirit and moves beyond simple admiration to become a search for the creative life.