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. |
Contents
Traneing In | 3 |
In the Tradition | 17 |
Workin | 29 |
Sheets of Sound | 43 |
Giant Steps | 60 |
Equinox | 76 |
The Quartet | 90 |
World Music | 104 |
A Love Supreme | 128 |
part two Pursuance | 155 |
Ascension | 157 |
Meditation | 182 |
Out of This World | 196 |
After the Trane | 218 |
epilogue | 266 |
selected discography | 272 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
African album artist Ascension audience avant-garde Ayler ballads band basic bass bassist became become began Bill Evans Bitches Brew called career Charlie Parker chords classic club Coltrane played Coltrane's Coltrane's death Coltrane's music conception create critics Despite Dolphy drummer drums early Ellington Elvin Jones explore fascinating Favorite Things feeling Fifties free jazz fusion hard bop harmonic hear heard Hendrix horn ideas improvisation increasingly influence innovative instrument jazz musicians jazz scene John Coltrane Kofsky least listening live Love Supreme lyrical Marsalis Meditations melodic Miles Davis Miles's Mingus modal modern jazz Monk never night Ornette Coleman Pharoah Sanders Philly Joe pianist piano piece players Prestige quartet quest quintet recorded rhythm and blues rhythm section rhythmic rock saxophone saxophonist screams seemed session sextet sheets of sound Shepp shrieks simply Sixties solo soloist Sonny Rollins soprano spiritual style tenor Trane trumpeter trying tune Tyner young