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Playing the Changes
Milt Hinton's Life in Stories and Photographs
by Milt Hinton, David Berger and Holly Maxson
Foreword by Clint Eastwood
384 Pages, 11in x 9.5in
"2009 Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research" by ARSC (Association for Recorded Sound Collections)
Legendary African American jazz bassist and photographer Milt Hinton (1910-2000) tells his compelling life story and illustrates it with more than 260 of his photographs, exquisitely reproduced in this collectors' edition.
Hinton's stories--witnessing a lynching as a child in Mississippi, working for Al Capone, breaking the color line in the recording studio--are equal to his celebrated photographs: capturing life on the road with Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday at her last recording date, and personal and professional views of icons such as Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Dizzy Gillespie, and Barbra Streisand. Playing the Changes draws from Hinton and Berger's earlier Bass Line, but differs significantly from that 1988 classic. Milt's narrative takes up where the earlier story left off, and more than 140 new photographs augment 115 of his best-known images. It also boasts a CD of Milt telling stories and performing music, as well as a discography and filmography.
In 1955, when he was fourteen, David G. Berger asked Milt Hinton for bass lessons--thus beginning a friendship and professional partnership that would last more than forty years. Berger, though, did not follow in his friend's footsteps to become a professional musician; instead he completed a doctorate in sociology and taught at Temple University for thirty years. In 1979, Holly Maxson began organizing Milt's photographs for the first book. Maxson and Berger co-direct the Milton J. Hinton Photographic Collection, and in 2002 they completed their award-winning documentary about Milt's life, Keeping Time: The Life, Music and Photographs of Milt Hinton.
...revealing and rewarding.
--American History
Playing the Changes is a permanent vividly multi-dimensional contribution to jazz history by "The Judge" Milt Hinton--a singular creator of that history.
--Nat Hentoff
[R]eveals the foundations of both music and American life. It's essential reading for anyone who really wants to be hip.
--Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The book confirms why Milt was everybody's favorite and one of the finest gentlemen and musicians I have ever known.
--Dave Brubeck
To the jazz collector [t]his book is both an indispensible history and a delightful volume to dip into.
--Jazz Journal
Beautifully produced, this is essential for jazz fans and for any library with jazz-related collections. Highly recommended.
--Library Journal
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