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This Jazz Man

Image from goodreads.com

While it’s evident that most big band and jazz musicians can count 1-2-3-4, Ehrhardt’s all-stars work their way all the way up to 10. Set to the rhythm of "This Old Man," each musician plays his number in his signature style, inserting raucous onomatopoeia into the verse where the “knick-knack, paddy whack” usually goes. Roth’s illustrations, executed in mixed media collages, use swatches of fabric and wallpaper cut into clothes, India ink brushwork, sponge-applied pigments, and jazz-related ephemera to energetically sketch the appearance, personality, and musical stylings of each jazz man in his turn, along with a tiny grey guest star who can be followed from page to page. After finishing their solos and jamming together on number 10, the jazz men are introduced individually in brief biographical sketches. Observant fans would have noticed clues to their identities, but in the end they are revealed to be a nonet of jazz luminaries including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Fats Waller.

  • This Jazz Man by Karen Ehrhardt; illus. by R. G. Roth
  • Intermediate
  • Harcourt
  • 32 pp.
  • Published 2011
  • ISBN 978-1430107408
  • $16.00
  • Counting Book
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