Saga of the Book Tour
Part 4 Finale
Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon
June-November 2019
This saga began in October 2018 in Austin, Texas and ends on November 14, 2019 back in Newark, NJ. I travelled a total of 62,389 miles. Yes, sixty-two thousand three hundred and eight nine miles. Was I exhausted after that year? I should have been, but I was invigorated and inspired to begin my next book. I received two writing fellowships, one in Provence at the Dora Maar House and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Women’s International Study Center. Then came the virus and plans have changed but I am grateful to be quarantined in a beautiful place on Long Island with time to write and read and reflect. Well, that’s the plan but the days are becoming weeks and months. I am thinking of all the people I met in that year and hoping they are all staying well and safe. What I did have to recover from after the book tour was eating fried chicken everywhere. I saw a video of Killer Mike with the title “Living Black.” I decided that I would only eat in Black owned restaurants on the book tour and give talks in Black owned bookstores when possible. There were some healthy Black owned places like Vegan Soul in Oakland (excellent), Fengfit Foods in Cleveland, Detroit Vegan Soul, but most of the time it was fried chicken, potato salad, greens, and cobbler for me. In Detroit, it is always the Clique for breakfast for grits and Gus’s World-Famous Fried Chicken in Los Angeles, Kansas City, Detroit, and St. Louis. I have my sister/friend Imani to thank or blame for introducing me to Gus’s. She always has the best food advice. Of course, it is not her to blame for me going way overboard with fried chicken. At the end of the tour, I did a ten-day Ayurvedic Fast that helped me get back to healthy eating. I also rested for those 10 days and reflected on a remarkable year.
On June 25, 2019, I went to Cleveland, Ohio for the Tri-City Jazz Festival. Terri Pontremoli has always supported my work and she was waiting to host me at a book talk. There was a screening of Round Midnight and then “Talk Tent” and a great concert tribute to Bobby Womack and lots of very nice people and very good food.
On July 19, 2019, we took a road trip to Eastport, Maine for a book talk at the Peavey Memorial Library and a screening of Round Midnight at the Eastport Arts Center. We had haddock almost every day and took a boat trip to the Bay of Fundy. It was vacation and book work combined and a visit with Helen, one of my oldest friends.
On August 3, 2019, we went to the Newport Jazz Festival where I had a book talk with the legendary impresario George Wein. He had told me how much he liked the book and had invited me to Newport when the book was first published. We had guest passes to all the concerts and got to hear Dee Dee Bridgewater and Buika and hang out with old friends who came from Paris for the Festival.
George Wein, Newport, August 3, 2019
On August 31, 2019, we went to one of my favorite cities, Detroit, for the Jazz Festival and for a book talk at Book Beat, an independent bookshop. I stayed with my friend Camille and we ate breakfast at the Clique where they have some delicious grits and the friendliest service. I did continue my fried chicken quest with Gus’s. The Detroit Jazz Festival is free and outdoors and is one of the great jazz events in the world. I took a day to visit the crypt where Aretha Franklin is interred. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Aretha. I could not go to Detroit without paying respect to her.
On September 8, 2019, I had a book talk at the 440 Gallery in Brooklyn hosted by Joy Rosenthal and Darryl Alladice. It is a small but enthusiastic group of artists and writers who support the arts seriously. It was a memorable day.
On September 11, 2019, I went to Winston-Salem, NC. I had never been there before and was very pleasantly surprised by the gracious people who invited me there and then took me on a road trip to High Point, NC, to visit the John Coltrane home. There was a book talk in the Footnote Café and then a screening of Round Midnight in High Point. The visit to the Coltrane Home and meeting the people who work to preserve it was a memorable event. They are doing great work there and are very devoted to their mission and to the music.
Coltrane Family Home, High Point, NC
On September 25, 2019, I went back to Washington, DC for a book talk at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) with jazz historian and poet Reuben Jackson. It is always fun to be with my old friend and to visit DC.
On September 29, 2019, I flew to San Francisco and then arrived in Monterey for the Jazz Festival. If I had to choose one event of the year that made me realize how lucky I am, it would be this book event with Angela Davis. It was as if I had dreamed the moment when I was sitting on a stage talking about the Dexter biography with a woman who I have admired and respected since the days when we protested her arrest and incarceration in NY in the Women’s House of Detention in 1970. Angela asked the best questions and made the most thought-provoking comments about the book. She had bought a copy of The Ginger Man to try to understand why that book was always with Dexter. There were good questions from the audience and the talk was followed by a musical tribute to Dexter organized by Marcus Shelby.
Angela Davis, Monterey Jazz Festival
After Monterey, I went to Mills College on September 30, 2019 to give a talk on Jazz and Civil Rights. I had met the President of Mills College in February and Beth Hillman invited me back to the College and then on a trip with the students to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama. This trip was life changing to say the least. We walked across the Pettus Bridge where Dr. King had walked with protesters in 1965, site of Bloody Sunday. We visited the Montgomery State House where the docent had been on the Montgomery march with Dr. King. We visited the National Museum for Peace and Justice (known as the Lynching Museum) which is overwhelming in its power and which speaks to the past and the present in such a loud and clear voice.
The students were moved and were also angry about what they thought they had not learned about the sacrifices people made for civil rights. They discussed what they could do going forward and were profoundly changed by being there, as was I.
On October 8, 2019, I went to St. Louis, Missouri to give a talk at the Jazz Book Club, a very knowledgeable group of jazz fans and readers who came ready with questions and pages marked with post-its to the talk. I stayed in a lovely hotel with original artwork ate some delicious food in Black-owned restaurants. The following day I gave a talk at the Schlafly Library and then went across the river to East St. Louis, Illinois to visit Miles Davis’ boyhood home and meet the director Lauren Parks. The home has been restored and is a community center for teaching and training. The trip to St. Louis and East St. Louis was lovely in all ways.
On October 21, 2019, I took a train to Maine to visit Bates College and then Bowdoin College. The talks went very well and the students were enthusiastic and the professors were welcoming and kind.
The next trip was to Madison, Wisconsin on October 28, 2019. I have been to Madison several times and my hosts had arranged a mini-residency for the book release. We laugh because was seems like 3 events becomes 9 in Madison. I gave a talk at the University of Wisconsin, went to dinner with the Jazz Consortium, went to a Jazz Club, talked at the Senior Center, two high schools, the Odyssey Project. The Jazz Consortium is a group of dedicated jazz fans and they don’t miss a beat. We had a great time and I am always glad to go to Madison.
Coda Club Jam Session Lesson
On November 4, 2019, I took a train to Boston to attend a screening of Round Midnight and give a book talk for the Cambridge Jazz Society. Larry Ward and Deena Anderson were fabulous hosts and we had a great dinner and a lively event.
The final event of the one-year Book Tour was back in Newark, New Jersey on November 14, 2019. At Clement’s Place, there was a screening of Round Midnight and a book talk in a room filled with serious Newark jazz fans and hosted by Wayne Winborne, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies and a serious Dexter Gordon fan. I have been going to Newark for 40 years now since my son Woody’s Grandmother still lives there and I visit her as often as possible. Cameron from McNally Jackson Books came with me to sell books as he had done since that first book talk in 2018. It was a fitting finale to an unforgettable year.
Thank you to all the presenters, hosts, bookstores, restaurants, hotels, professors, jazz fans, book readers and mostly to my friends who came out and supported Dexter’s biography and the book tour. In this difficult time when we are unable to be out listening to music and living our lives as we did before the virus, we can reflect on the kindness of friends and family and know that their love and support is the most important part of life.
Onward and sigue la lucha. Maxine