“In addition to being the very definition of enlivening swinging, Dizzy Gillespie- whom I knew well – was also an invaluable teacher and humanist. All of Dizzy is here in this book, Music is Forever, by Dave Usher and Berl Falbaum.”
—Nat Hentoff, jazz critic for JAZZed Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and author of At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene
“This book is a major contribution to our knowledge about Dizzy Gillespie, particularly his work in the early 1950’s when he had a partnership with Dave Usher in the Dee Gee Record label. Many areas of background are fully fleshed out for the first time, and at the center of the story is the strong bond of friendship between an entrepreneurial Jewish kid and an African-American trumpeter eleven years his senior. Even when Dee Gee failed, due primarily to an error in judgment by Usher- he trusted someone he shouldn’t have- the friendship continued, and Usher offers us a very personal view into the life of one of America’s best loved entertainers and jazz musicians.” —Alyn Shipton, writer, broadcaster, jazz historian and author of Groovin’ High, The Life of Dizzy Gillespie
“In the jazz community, it is general knowledge that Dizzy Gillespie and Dave Usher were close. Dave’s book discloses the depth of their friendship and the extent of their professional partnership, he tells the story with warmth, humor and detail that further illuminate not only the great trumpeter’s genius but also his humanity.”
—Doug Ramsey, author of Take Five: The Public and private Lives of Paul Desmond and Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers
In Music Is Forever: Dizzy Gillespie, the Jazz Legend and Me, Dave Usher, white and Jewish, tells the story of how he, at age 14, met the jazz giant, a black man who practiced the Bahá’i Faith, and forged a 50-year friendship. During those years, Dave Usher helped produce Dizzy’s records, and traveled the world with him. Dave Usher had two parallel careers and he tells the story of his 50-year friendship with the late jazz great, Dizzy Gillespie, while pioneering and becoming a world renowned expert on oil and hazardous material control, in his new book, Music Is Forever: Dizzy, the Jazz Legend, and Me.
His friendship with Gillespie, the creator of bebop, was forged in 1944 when Usher was 14 and lasted until the jazz trumpeter died in January 1993. In a story never told before, Usher describes the brother-like relationship he enjoyed with Gillespie as well as the partnership between Gillespie, the musician, and himself, a jazz producer. Usher relates funny stories as well as sad ones, and how he traveled the globe with Gillespie, producing some of the world’s greatest jazz music. He also chronicles how he worked with other great jazz musicians, including Ahmad Jamal, Ramsey Lewis, Thad Jones, Sonny Stitt, Toots Thielemans, Shelly Manne, Joe Kennedy, Shorty Rogers, Willie Dixon, Nat Pierce, Stuff Smith, J J Johnson, Conte Candoli, Frank Rosolino, Annie Ross, and many others. Usher made the first recordings of artists Jackie Wilson and Little Willie John.
In the book, Usher also describes how his company, Marine Pollution Control (MPC) pioneered cleaning up oil spills throughout the world, becoming such an expert that President George H. Walker Bush called upon him to help clean up the millions of gallons of oil that Saddam Hussein spilled into the Persian Gulf during “Desert Storm” in 1991. He also carried out assignments for the United Nations.
In 1967, Usher founded MPC, an internationally renowned environmental services company, the first such company in the Great Lakes region and one of the first in the world. MPC assisted in cleaning up many of the world’s major oil spills, including the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. Usher also was the founder and president for many years of the Spill Control Association of America (SCAA.) He also founded and served as president of the International Spill Control Organization (ISCO) and worked with the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO.) As a founding member, he helped establish the American Salvage Association (ASA) and served as president for the Hazardous Materials Control Research Institute in Washington, D.C., and was president of the Liquid Industrial Control Association (LICA.)
DAVE USHER “MUSIC IS FOREVER”
Writer: DAVE USHER
Title: MUSIC IS FOREVER
Dizzy Gillespie, the Jazz Legend and Me
Publisher: RED ANCHOR PRODUCTIONS
Release Date: JANUARY 2015
UPC Code: 9 780692 211106 51795
ISBN: 978-0-692-21110-6
New Jazz Book:
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