Ascension: John Coltrane And His QuestIt is the summer of 1976 and Salvo Ursari, a man of retirement age, is walking on a taut wire strung between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center, almost fourteen hundred feet above the city. Far below him in the gaping crowd stands his wife, Anna, to whom he has made a solemn promise: This wire walk will end his career. In this daring moment, Steven Galloway opens his riveting novel about Salvo Ursari, whose life begins in 1919 amid a Transylvanian boyhood inhabited by gypsy folklore and inspired by the bravery of his persecuted people. Salvo's story moves irresistibly from a tragic fire that envelops his family, to street life in Budapest, where he learns the skills of a wire walker, to the carnivals of Europe and the competitive world of the American circus. Most fulfilled when living with paradox, Salvo feels safest while performing startling feats of balance on a wire high above the dangerous world; and most endangered if performing above a net. With compassion, warmth, and blazing originality, Ascension combines jaw-dropping storytelling, and fantastical symbolism with mesmerizing detail of Romany and circus culture, and an unforgettable walk with the amazing Salvo Ursari. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - BooksForDinner - LibraryThingThe spiritual side of Coltrane and his music come through in this bio... all written in context with the times he was living in, the civil rights struggles of the 60's,. etc... good work. *Read this ... Read full review
ASCENSION: John Coltrane And His Quest
User Review - KirkusAn adulatory account of the musical achievements of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Most musicologists would agree that Coltrane (1926-67) was a seminal force in contemporary jazz, but this comparison ... Read full review
Contents
Traneing In | 8 |
In the Tradition | 22 |
Workin | 34 |
Sheets of Sound | 48 |
Giant Steps | 65 |
Equinox | 81 |
The Quartet | 95 |
World Music | 109 |
Pursuance | 160 |
Ascension | 162 |
Meditation | 187 |
Out of This World | 201 |
After the Trane | 223 |
epilogue | 271 |
selected discography | 277 |
A Love Supreme | 133 |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Ascension: John Coltrane And His Quest |
| Author | Eric Nisenson |
| Publisher | Da Capo Press, Incorporated, 2009 |
| ISBN | 0786750952, 9780786750955 |
| Length | 298 pages |
| Subjects | › › Music / Genres & Styles / Blues |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |