Tiger Rag: A Novel Hardcover – January 1, 2013

I wrote a paper on the origins of jazz when I was in high school, so this book really resonated with me. The author painted a vivid picture of the time and really set the tone so you could almost hear Buddy Bolden playing his cornet. Not crazy about the ending and the big mystery about what happened to the last known recording of Bolden left me a bit empty (that’s why I couldn’t give this five stars)... but it’s quite a page turner.And I can’t get the sound of the Clemson University marching band playing the “Tiger Rag” after a touchdown! LOL!

I wanted to like Tiger Rag by Nicholas Christopher much more than I did. One for the shallow reason, that has one of the more striking covers and was calling for me to read it and secondly the story of Charles "Buddy" Bolden the band leader musician who is often credited with creating jazz music and is still so widely respected despite being institutionalized for schizophrenia at around 30 years of age. Like Robert Johnson the great bluesman who came after him, Bolden is a myth and a legend and it seems his story is waiting to be fleshed out. Writers as well known as Michael Ondaatje and I hoped that Christopher would succeed.It starts out well with the reader sitting in on a recording session of Bolden and his band. It seemed as if we would be given real insight into Bolden with him first beginning to slip into psychosis:"He filled a tin cup with red whiskey and wandered into the bedroom sipping it, the fumes filling his head. When he met his wife Nora, she told him he moved like an alley cat. slow then fast then slow. Always in rythm. But lately he had been freezing at odd moments, startled by movements--darting shadows, flickers of light--that he caught out of the corner of his eye. He soon realzied that no one else saw them. And that each time it required more willpower to regain his bearings. Most nights he was afraid to be alone. He imagined he was like a ship spinning, unsteerable, as it neared a whirlpool."With Bolden spinning toward the whirlpool the recording session is finished with three cylinders recorded. From this promising start, we moved to anesthesiologist Dr. Ruby Cardillo who is traveling with her daughter, Devon, a jazz pianist to New York City. Cardillo's life is falling apart with a recent divorce and she is falling apart with it and like Bolden spinnng closer to the whirlpool. The novel slip slides from Cardillo to the tale of Bolden and the three recorded cylinders.I quite love a book which shifts from a modern story to one of a historical mystery, but that admit it is not easily done. There were bits and pieces of this novel that fired my imagination and tied to my heart, but there were others which had no impact. The relationship story of Cardillo and her daughter left me less than thrilled, perhaps it felt a little too touchy-feelie, I'm not sure.I really loved the story of Bolden's trombonist Willie Cornish, who kept one of the cylinders for him. He was a man of great sensitivity and loyalty.I think this is an interesting novel and for those that like a shifting story this may be appealing.

This is a book that has two narratives that happened 100 years apart. It’s about the origins of jazz the soul of jazz New Orleans white magic knowing the truth, being able to be who you really are and so many other things.

What a special novel....ever hear jazz playing in the background of a restaurant....or while walking down the sidewalk in town? If this is not a normal occurrence for you, this book will take you there. The story of Buddy Bolden is one of great magnitude. It takes place during two time periods, the 1910s and 2010 (current times). It follows the life of Buddy Bolden and other jazz greats, while having a side mystery story along with it. Great prose, great attention to detail, very true to the Times,and the New Orleans landscape. Loved it!!! Highly recommended!!Christopher Berry

This was the most beautifully written book. As I was reading it felt as though I right there in the moment. Thank you for your wonderful writing. I recommend this book to everyone who enjoys reading a wonderfully written book.

This is a great book, beautifully written in a way that clearly manifests the author's poetic talent. The interweaving of two seemingly disparate stories is masterful. The Buddy Bolden story has been of interest to me ever since I started listening to and playing jazz trumpet in the early 60's. There is always that haunting question: "What did this musical genius sound like?" We'll never know unless that fabled recording does show up someday. The parallel story of Ruby and Devon is a counterpoint that promises redemption for the mother, whose life is unraveling, and the daughter, whose future becomes more hopeful and purposeful by the end of the book. This is not so much a book about jazz but, rather, a book about people who struggle for fulfillment despite difficulty, bad luck, and hardship. I disagree with those who claim parts of the novel are contrived. You'll find all kinds of seemingly contrived and coincidental events and relics in most families, when you look back. And, the further back you go, the more a mystery one's roots seem to be as family history merges with myth. This is something Christopher obviously understands and expresses so beautifully.

Tiger Rag is a compelling jazz mystery. Christopher presents two parallel stories: a speculative tale of what happened to the three wax cylinder recordings of Tiger Rag by musician Buddy Bolden, and the road trip of an estranged mother and daughter reconnecting with family history. Along the way we get engrossing tales of New Orleans in the early 20th century, and the surprising connection between Buddy Bolden and road trippers. Good stuff.

This novel links the past and present through an intertwined story about the great cornetist Buddy Bolden and his only known recording, c. 1905, and how it relates to a modern-day dysfunctional mother and daughter. The author moves the story back and forth from the past to the present, and he does so quite skillfully, managing to unravel disparate histories and weave them together. The Bolden line is the stronger story, and the mother-daughter line needed fleshing out, I thought. The ending seemed a tad contrived, but it didn't diminish too much from the story as a whole. If you enjoy jazz and want to learn about a bit of its roots, you can't go wrong with this book.

Mit gro0em Interesse bin ich in den Text eingestiegen. Das flaute dann zunehmend ab, weil einfach nichts passierte, mich das Hin-und Her der Musiker nur langweilte. Mich interessiert es eben nicht, wo und was gegessen wird und wer in welchem Puff mit wem vögelt. Was Wachswalzen sind und wie sie funktionierten hätte ich gern gewusst. Die Beziehungen von Musikern untereinander und ihr Leben mit Musik,beschrieben zu bekommen hatte ich gehofft. Ixch brach die Lektüre ab und fand das Buch nur enttäuschend.

Das Buch beschreibt in einer ersten Ebene sehr gut den Jazz und seine wichtigsten Akteure in New Orleans um 1900 - bis 1930 und in einer zweiten Ebene die Aspekte einer bestimmten Gesellschaftsschicht in der heutigen Zeit - fussend auf der ersten Ebene.