William Zinsser's "Mitchell & Ruff: An American Profile in Jazz"
I don't know anything about jazz, but this book's opening chapter immediately transported me to the Shanghai Conservatory where in 1981 the two African American musicians introduced jazz to the Chinese. The Conservatory audience, steeped in the Western classical music tradition, were reportedly fascinated by the improvisations of jazz. At one point in their program, Willie Ruff invited a student to play a Chinese melody, before Dwike Mitchell improvised on it on the piano, and Ruff joined in on his string bass. For the Chinese students, this moment, according to Zinsser "was the ultimate proof--because it touched their own heritage--that for a jazz improviser no point of departure is alien." That is a beautiful idea; it makes me want to be the poetic equivalent of a jazz improviser, to take no point of departure as alien. As proof of Zinsser's own cross-cultural understanding, he does not end the chapter on the triumph of American music in China. Instead, he end...