Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Jazz Odyssey: The Global Lives of Booker T. Pittman

Jazz Odyssey: The Global Lives of Booker T. Pittman

Borge, Jason

Hardcover

Series: American Made Music

Biographies GeneralMusiciansBlack American Studies

ISBN10: 1496860713
ISBN13: 9781496860712
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: Dec 3 2025
Pages: 278
Weight: 1.19
Height: 0.75 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Booker T. Pittman (1909-1969) was a jazz saxophonist and clarinetist who played with greats like Louis Armstrong and Count Basie in the 1920s and 1930s. The maternal grandson of Booker T. Washington, Pittman was tremendously talented and ambitious like his famous grandfather. After starring in local jazz scenes as an alto saxophonist and clarinetist in Kansas City, Harlem, and Paris, in the late 1920s and mid-1930s, Pittman boarded a ship to South America and remained there until his death in 1969. In Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo, he became a fixture of casinos and nightclubs, a pioneer of the South American musical diaspora, and a formative figure of several jazz scenes. He also struggled mightily with drugs and alcohol, and on more than one occasion disappeared into the Brazilian and Uruguayan backlands. Ultimately, though, he returned to sobriety, stability, and the spotlight, fulfilling his potential in Brazil in the 1950s and 1960s.

Jazz Odyssey: The Global Lives of Booker T. Pittman combines accessible music analysis with global cultural history, while telling a compelling story of a figure whose life spanned some of the most celebrated--and also some of the most obscure--chapters in jazz history. Based on extensive archival research but written for the general audience, Jazz Odyssey will appeal equally to jazz fans and scholars, as well as readers interested in a fascinating family saga that includes the stories of Pittman's wife Ofélia and stepdaughter Eliana, who is herself a notable singer and actress.

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