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Jive-Colored Glasses: A Memoir That Tells How A Jazz Critic Got That Way

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He's been a music journalist, a broadcaster, a teacher, a labor union flack and political operative. The constant through it all has been jazz—jazz as subject-matter, jazz as medicine, jazz as soundtrack, jazz as soulmate.
A jazz memoir combined with personal stories, Jive-Colored Glasses tells how critic John Goodman came to jazz as a child from a privileged background and how jazz radically changed his life.

Jive-Colored Glasses was published July 8 on Amazon in paperback and ebook versions. It jumped to #5 in Amazon's Best Seller List (for Jazz Musician Biographies). Sales continue strong. See the reviews at the book's Amazon page.

One reviewer called John “a perennial freelancer, partly because he's too much of a cranky freethinker to settle down into one, mind-dulling jive job. He's been a music journalist, a broadcaster, a teacher, a labor union flack and political operative. The constant through it all has been jazz—jazz as subject-matter, jazz as medicine, jazz as soundtrack, jazz as soulmate.”

The themes are work, women, money and music—and how the author met (or ducked) the challenges of each. The book presents an informed and highly personal look into jazz history and culture, particularly of the period 1950-1980. Music referenced in the text is hyperlinked to YouTube and other sources so the reader can hear it immediately (ebook version).

About the Author

John Goodman is also the author of the acclaimed Mingus Speaks (2013, University of California Press), 1972-74 interviews with the great bassist-composer: see mingusspeaks.com. He holds a Ph.D. and taught English in New York at NYU and City College during the Vietnam years. John wrote the music column for The New Leader, a notable small leftish monthly, for four years and then did jazz, classical and rock reviews for Playboy for nine years.

Interviews with the author can be arranged, and excerpts are available.

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