Sweet Music in Harlem

by Debbie A. Taylor

Book Overview

An African-American boy unintentionally brings together all the neighbourhood's jazz musicians for a magazine photograph.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1584301651
• ISBN13: 9781584301653
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Lee & Low Books
• Length: 28 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.8" x 10.7"
• Age Range: 6 to 9 years
• Grade Range: Grades 1 to 4

Customer Reviews

I loved the sense of community

To think that this story was inspired by a picture on a t-shirt the author's husband wore! Creative story, wonderful illustrations that underscore jazz music and the way it flows. I loved the sense of community that is revealed as C.J. searches for his uncle's hat. Both the story and the illustrations pop with warmth and color and flow soulfully together making their own sweet music.

41/2* Scrapple From the Apple

In the late 1950's, new "Esquire" photographer Art Kane photographed 57 great jazz musicians standing and sitting on the staircase and sidewalk of a Harlem greystone. I own the poster reprint, and I enjoy looking at such legends as Coleman Hawkins, Mary Lou Williams, Thelonious Monk, Gene Krupa, Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, Maxine Sullivan, Gerry Mulligan, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie sticking his tongue out at Roy Eldridge, the great and unassuming Count Basie sitting on the curbside next to some neighborhood kids, and there, on the 5th row from the top, cigarette dangling, Mr. Charles Mingus. There's been a lot written about this famous photo, but that's another book... Debbie Taylor dips into the legend, and dabbles pieces of it throughout her loving portrait of an older jazz musician and the nephew who looks up to him. "C.J." is an aspiring clarinetist living with his Uncle Click, a semi-retired trumpet player who still jams at the "Midnight Melody Club." Click hears that a photographer from "Highnote" is taking his picture, but can't find his "snappy black beret." (It doesn't matter, I suppose, that the black beret was not a staple of trumpet players in the decades in which Chick would have played.) C.J. launches a search through Harlem hangouts looking for the signature hat. C. J. loves his self-deprecating uncle ("Back then, I played the meanest trumpet in Harlem. Now all I do is lose things."), and runs to various Harlem hangouts-a barber shop, a café, and the "Midnight Melody Club," achieving three main results: Finding various other personal items that Uncle Chick lost, meeting some of Harlem's musicians, and informing the latter about the photo op. occurring soon at Click's place. The great fun here is spotting the real musicians among the fictional ones portrayed by illustrator Frank Morrison. There's Dizzy and Duke Ellington at the barber shop owned by the fictional "Big Charlie Garlic," whose barber coat makes him look like a zoot-suited bopper. At the "Eat and Run Diner," we see Lester Young and Billie Holiday (curious that they're not sitting together), backgrounded by a NYC horizon of crammed brown buildings. At the club, C. J. finds his uncle's lost bow tie (but not his beret), prompting a singer's comment," He's forgetful, but when Chick blows his trumpet the wallpaper curls." There's a nice, almost rhythmic quality to Ms. Taylor's repeated verbal riffs. At every stop, someone compliments Uncle Chick, and comments on C.J.'s musical potential: "We're saving a spot for you here," says a drummer, "without losing the beat." "I reckon you'll be joining us in a few years." The denouement is exiting and dramatic, as the neighborhood musicians (Lester Young and Diz are both in this book as well as the original picture) gather on the stairs outside Chick's place for the photographer, and Chick not only finds his beret, but gives C. J. a new trumpet. The book is colorful and energetic, and Debbie Taylor keeps the st