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(More customer reviews)Alec Wilder was a prolific composer in a variety of musical genres, from jazz and popular songs to formal or "classical" music spanning the greater period of the twentieth century. Hard to categorize, Wilder's music reflects his playful nature and flexibility. With song titles like "Neurotic Goldfish", and the admiration of musicians like Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and Marian McPartland, Wilder has some unusual opinions and doesn't hesitate to share them. Taking the urge one has to tell people what one has always thought but didn't dare say, he turns to the art of the letter in order to let his readers snoop into his intimate thoughts and "secret" observations.
His memoir, "Letters I Never Mailed," is a sneaky and subtle pleasure to read -- a clever composition by a man who wrote music and words with equal parts lyricism and whimsy. Wilder presents sidelong glances into his somewhat mysterious personal life in the form of letters he never mailed to various people who touched his life. He tells-without-telling the reader about the importance of each of his ersatz confidants, cleverly revealing hints here and there about the scandalous tidbits that make a memoir fascinating without making it trashy or cliché. Wilder writes with startling frankness about his confused sexuality, about his frustrations with racism, and even his own insecurities as a composer. Letter after letter portrays with sensitivity and charm a portrait of an unusual man in a rapidly changing world.
Reading this book is like coming across a delightful stash of surprisingly honest and entertaining observations from a favorite uncle.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Letters I Never Mailed: Clues to a Life by Alec Wilder (Eastman Studies in Music)
Letters I Never Mailed: Clues to a Life, by Alec Wilder, in a new, annotated edition with introduction and supplementary material by David Demsey, foreword by jazz pianist Marian McPartland, and photographs by Louis Ouzer.Alec Wilder is a rare example of a composer who established a reputation both as a prolific composer of concertos, sonatas, and operas, and as a popular songwriter (including the hit "I'll Be Around"). He was fearsomely articulate, and had a wide and varied circle of friends, ranging from Graham Greene to Frank Sinatra and Stan Getz. Letters I Never Mailed, hailed at its first publication (in 1975, by Little, Brown), tells the story of Wilder's musical and personal life through "letters" addressed to various friends.In it, he shares his insights-and sometimes salty opinions-on composing, musical life, and the tension between art and commercialism. This new, scholarly edition leaves Wilder's original text intact but decodes the mysteries of the original through an Annotated Index that identifies the letters' addressees, a biographical essay by David Demsey as an Epilogue, and photographs by renowned photographer, and lifelong friend of Wilder, Louis Ouzer.David Demsey is Professor of Music and Coordinator of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University and an active jazz and classical saxophonist. He is co-author of Alec Wilder: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press) and has contributed to The Oxford Companion to Jazz.
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