Gerber, Alain
Deux Petits Bouts De Bois
"Alain Gerber is not only one of our great contemporary French writers, but also a great jazz historian. He is the author of some thirty books on jazz, the editor and creator of The Quintessence collection of boxed sets for Frmeaux & Associs, and above all an amateur drummer. As Philippe Baudoin recently told me, there are two types of jazz historian-journalist: those who play the music, and those who don't. So Alain Gerber is threefold. So Alain Gerber is triply relevant in helping us to understand, often with humour, the art of rhythm and drums in jazz, and in encouraging us to savour the subtleties and prowess of Kenny Clarke, Jo Jones, Andr Ceccarelli, Christian Vander, Aldo Romano, Roy Haynes, Max Roach, Georges Paczynski, Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, Baby Dodds, Gene Krupa, Connie Kay and even Ringo Starr. It offers a real support to our emotions, that of a documented imagination that provides us with many keys and opens up varied perspectives, to appreciate and understand what has revolutionised the music of the twentieth century, namely the history of rhythm. Patrick FRMEAUX"