The Stardust Road charts Hoagland Carmichael's journey along the way to composing some of the greatest standards ever written. But that, whilst important, is only part of the story.
Running parallel with this are his ups and downs, his memories of the so-called Jazz Age that are, arguably, more authentic than anything F. Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote. Hoagy was there, playing in bands, discovering and trying to uncover the mystique of jazz.
There was no Berklee or Julliard, not even a workshop at the yet to be invented Jazz Coop - you learned by listening to Louis or King Oliver on record or, if it berthed nearby, on a riverboat. Bix did that too and Hoagy's story is peppered throughout with memories of Bix from the day he first heard him until the day he died.
The narrative's chronology is ragged, nonexistent and yet, that makes it all the more readable! You can almost taste grandma's apple pie, visualise the clothes and sigh at Hoagy and his then girlfriend's failed attempts to carve their initials on a campus tree which was probably just as well as they both ended up marrying someone else. If the tree is still there it would surely be a tourist attraction!
The now incomprehensible Hoosier humour of the age may be just that - incomprehensible - but it can't diminish the privilege of discovering what went into the DNA of one of the greatest songwriters ever. Like his friend and occasional collaborator Johnny Mercer, he didn't need a chorus line of Broadway beauties to write a good song - he just did it.
Stardust Road was published in 1946. Twenty years later, Carmichael wrote a second autobiography which, I gather, is a more chronologically annotated tome - Sometimes I Wonder - which updated his career. It's on the shelf so maybe I'll give it a whirl but... Lance
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