  | Full Text Reviews: School Library Journal - 03/01/2014 Gr 2–6—The true story of jazz musicians Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson is told in deep blues and gold with splashes of red throughout. The lyrical prose infuses the book with the spirit of jazz ("Benny blowing /bleating /breathing /music /into Benny's clarinet.") The illustrations are realistic and reminiscent of Jerry Pinkney's God Bless the Child (HarperCollins, 2003), yet the watercolors seem to blur together at times and swing like the music that Teddy and Benny play. The biographical back matter will give readers more insight into all of the musicians mentioned and shed light on how a love of music helped the two break down color lines.—Krishna Grady, Darien Library, CT - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2014 Pages and spreads alternately trace the lives of clarinetist Benny Goodman and pianist Teddy Wilson from their childhood introduction to music education, through their early years playing in segregated groups, to their early studio recordings in an integrated trio, and finally on to their ground-breaking live performances as a racially mixed jazz band. Cline-Ransome keeps the rhythm rolling with verse that follows the musicians’ experience, tracing them from separate growth to the shared stage. Goodman had his roots in Chicago: “All sweet/ All dance/ All white/ All the way to New York” while Wilson came up from the South: “All hot/ All rhythm/ All black/ All the way to New York.” The text suggests, and the endnotes amplify the point, that the initial Goodman/Wilson studio collaboration wasn’t exactly a high point in racial rapprochement; it took awhile for Goodman to agree to bring his integrated trio (and then a quartet) into public view. Once Goodman, Wilson, Gene Krupa, and Lionel Hampton debuted on stage in 1936, however, there was no turning back: “The stage was hot/ The dance floor was hotter/ The music was hottest.” James Ransome’s paintings, with the deep shadows and dramatic illumination of stage lighting, catch the musicians at their most joyous, fairly glowing with the delight of playing with talented peers. End matter includes deeper biographical information on the featured musicians, a timeline of their careers, and brief bios of other jazz masters of the period. Pair this with Peter Golenbock’s perennial favorite, Teammates (BCCB 4/90), for comparison with the way barriers were broken on a very different field. EB - Copyright 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Booklist - 06/01/2014 While a young Benny Goodman was growing up on the West Side of Chicago during the Roaring Twenties, Teddy Wilson was in Alabama, listening to Fats Waller. Music was a part of both boys’ lives: Benny played the clarinet; Teddy was a piano player. This title tells their stories on alternating pages until they meet in New York City. Benny’s clarinet is blowing “all sweet / all dance / all white.” Teddy’s playing is “all hot / all rhythm / all black.” Initially, the duo jams and cuts records, but the musicians don’t play together onstage: “Audiences weren’t ready for a black-and-white band.” The endnotes tell a different story: it was Goodman, worried about his career, who didn’t want to go onstage with Wilson until disappointed audiences walked out. Nevertheless, this introduces an important event in a snappy text that swings. Ransome’s line-and-watercolor pictures also flow with movement and color. Kids drawn in by the story of the young artists will go on to ponder the history. - Copyright 2014 Booklist. Loading...
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