Tom Sancton graduated from Harvard in 1971 and attended
Oxford as a
Rhodes scholar. He is a former senior editor for Time and a
contributor to such
publications as Vanity Fair, Fortune, Newsweek, and the Wall Street
Journal.
He coauthored the international best seller Death of a Princess:
The
Investigation and authored the novel The Armageddon Project. A jazz
performer
in his own right, Sancton has toured extensively in Europe and has
recorded
more than a dozen albums, appearing alongside Woody Allen in the
feature
film Wild Man Blues. In 2007, Sancton was named Andrew W. Mellon
Professor in
the Humanities at Tulane University, where he continues to teach
advanced
courses in creative writing.
Publishers Weekly: STARRED REVIEW
In this beguiling coming-of-age memoir, a former Time Paris bureau
chief takes a heartfelt look at his unusual Crescent City childhood
during the 1950’s and 60’s. At 13, the author, son of a liberal
white journalist-turned-novelist and a Mississippi debutante,
begins clarinet lessons, learning to play traditional New Orleans
jazz from veteran black musicians who were the heart of
Preservation Hall in the famous French Quarter and the soul of the
local black community. Sancton loves the music, but at the same
time lives the life of a middle-class white teen, expected to share
the prejudices and enthusiasms of his peers. Caught between
disparate social worlds and racial realities, he, “[l]ike Clark
Kent…, had a double identity.” This enduring portrait of a
particular side of New Orleans – which Sancton (Death of a
Princess) notes “had mostly faded into history long before Katrina
struck” – vividly captures the author’s complicated relationships
with his father, his hometown and the wonderful characters drawn to
it. Sketches pay homage to clarinetist George Lewis, banjoist
Creole George Guesnon, and others in prose that can emotionally
mimic the sound of a horn and summon the taste of red beans and
rice. (June)
Woody Allen:
“Finally a book about New Orleans music from a totally fresh
perspective. Tom Sancton was fortunate to have had a very colorful
upbringing in the cradle of jazz and we're fortunate that he wrote
about it so rivetingly.”
Wynton Marsalis:
“This is an important inside look into an underinvestigated period
of New Orleans music. It tells a story with an insider’s heart, a
reporter’s eye, and the pure feeling of a New Orleans musician.
Enjoyable, informative and engaging.”
Library Journal, William G. Kenz
A memoir in the truest sense of the word, this is the story of a
young white boy discovering life at its most meaningful and
bittersweet...Brimming with the creatively ripe atmosphere of New
Orleans pre-Katrina.
Time Magazine
In his memoir Song for My Fathers, former TIME Paris bureau chief
Tom Sancton recaptures the jazz-filled spirit of New Orleans in the
1950s and '60s, recounting his experiences and fellowship with "the
mens," the black musicians of Preservation Hall. A white
clarinetist caught between his father's belief in racial equality
and the prejudices of his peers, Sancton finds a second family in
these aging jazzmen and the world they created--a world, he writes,
that "had mostly faded into history long before Katrina
struck."
New Orleans Times Picayune, Susan Larson
Song for My Fathers is a serenade to many things -- to "the mens,"
who gave Sancton a sense of artistry as well as a model for
endurance; to his own unconventional father, who found in "the
mens" a metaphor for, and a hope of, his own redemption;
middle-class family life in 1960s New Orleans; and the hope for
racial harmony, or the wisdom that comes through understanding.
This book has many strengths -- it is that rare chronicle of a
young person growing up in New Orleans who is able to bridge the
racial barrier, as well as an equally rare account of a young
person's public school education here. French Quarter characters
and musical legends spring to life in these pages -- George Lewis,
George Guesnon, Percy and Willie Humphrey, Harold Dejan, Sweet Emma
Barrett, Punch Miller, Chester Zardis, artist Noel Rockmore, Sandy
and Allan Jaffee, Larry Borenstein, Bill Russell, Mike Stark, even
a very young Quint Davis.
Song for My Fathers struts with the energy of youth, tempered a bit
by the wisdom of middle age, and the bittersweet certainty that
change is inevitable. Every page of this newly minted classic of
life in New Orleans is filled with grace and gratitude, a debt paid
in full to the men who showed Tom Sancton the way.
Edge, Esther Friedman
As the nation grieves the devastation Hurricane Katrina visited on
the Gulf Coast, Song for My Fathers offers an often funny and
sometimes heart-wrenching tribute to the battered city, a
salutation to the wisdom, strength and humor of the music and
musicians who give New Orleans its soul, and a guidebook to its
heart. It is also a salutation to the power of music that melts
down racial/class/economic barriers, and an important chronicle of
the history of civil rights, as well as the city’s significance and
contribution to our country.
Entertainment Weekly
Returning to his hometown, New Orleans, Sancton places his hands on
Preservation Hall's wrought-iron gates and peers in, recalling a
city that "had mostly faded into history long before Katrina
struck--a victim of time, progress, and the eternal passing of
generations." TIME's ex-Paris bureau chief (and an accomplished
clarinetist) honors his father, a white writer with progressive
views, and "the mens," the black and Creole musicians who accepted
the author into their ranks. When George Lewis plays a lick and
tells a young Sancton, "Make that," he invites him also to imagine
a world beyond racism. Sancton's prose seduces like a good
second-line parade. B+
Gambit Weekly, Tom McDermott
The number of readable books about traditional jazz is surprisingly
small, so Song for My Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and
White is a terrific find.
This book contains some of the best writing ever about the New
Orleans Revival, the rediscovery of some of the city's earliest
jazz men that began at the end of the 1930s and gained traction
with Bunk Johnson's first recordings in 1942.
The narrative, basically a series of reminiscences, is neatly
sandwiched between two jazz funerals: the 1954 burial of Papa
Celestin, which the author attended at the age of 5, and that of
clarinetist George Lewis, whose passing in 1969, the year the
author left for Harvard, signifies the end of an era for
Sancton.
Sancton's status as a successful Orleanian-in-exile (he lives just
outside Paris) gives him the freedom to write without worrying
about flattery or offense.
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Sancton loves the music, but at the same time lives the life of a
middle-class white teen, expected to share the prejudices and
enthusiasms of his peers. Sketches pay homage to clarinetist George
Lewis, banjoist Creole George Guesnon and others in prose that can
emotionally mimic the sound of a horn and summon the taste of red
beans and rice.
USA Today
Sancton, former Paris bureau chief for Time, has written a lyrical
memoir that re-creates a time and place and tells a poignant story
about a father who was as difficult as he was lovable.
San Antonio Express-News, Jim Beale Jr.
The book is a powerful snapshot of the resurgence of interest in
trad jazz in the '60s, the rise of Preservation Hall, a bit of a
look at the lives of legends such as Lewis, Guesnon, the Humphrey
brothers, Sweet Emma Barrett, Danny Barker, Jim Robinson, Harold
Dejan and many others. It offers a glimpse of a New Orleans that
was long gone before Hurricane Katrina hit.
J.B. Spins
Sancton is an excellent writer, and his affectionate portrayal of
“the mens” is absorbing. His accounts of his family, particularly
his complex relationship with his father are also surprisingly
compelling, sometimes even bordering on Southern Gothic. Written
before Katrina, Sancton added a preface about his return to his
parents’ storm ravaged home, adding an additional chapter of
frustration to his family history.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Henry L. Carrigan Jr.
Sancton's poignant coming-of-age tale serves as both a loving paean
to his father and an eloquent memoir of a moment in musical and
social history.
Detroit Free Press
Sancton, former Paris bureau chief for Time, has written a lyrical
memoir, Song for My Fathers, that re-creates a time and place and
tells a poignant story about a father who was as difficult as he
was lovable.
Austin Chronicle, Robert Gabriel
What kind of father encourages his white, preteen son to befriend
elderly black men in barely desegregated New Orleans? As much a
personal journey as a restoration of New Orleans music history,
Song for My Fathers drenches itself in the sweat of a life spent
riding the fence between patriarchal extremes.
New Orleans Magazine
[Sancton's] character portraits of musicians are worth the price of
the ticket...[George] Lewis is the subject of two biographies, long
out of print. He comes alive in these pages as a gentle spirit in
whom the student found a surrogate father.
Sancton writes with clear-eyed honesty about the racial tensions
present as segregation laws began crumbling in New Orleans during
his teenage years. Yet his tone is anything but preachy; he doesn’t
sentimentalize the struggle of musicians as they straddled the
racial divide. He reports what he saw and remembered, treating the
men (and pianist “Sweet Emma” Barrett) as artists, with all the
complexities that the creative imagination carries.
Tom Sancton’s account of George Lewis’s wake and funeral registers
the heartbeat of New Orleans jazz with rare beauty.
Preserving the heritage will require the talents of both the
musicians and the writers. In Sancton and in Song for My Fathers,
both can be found.
The Madison County Herald, JC Patterson
If you're a fan of traditional New Orleans jazz, take a trip back
in time to the heyday of Preservation Hall, from a novice insider
whose intimate memories serve as wallpaper to some of the sweetest
sounds and eclectic personalities in Big Easy history. Song For My
Fathers is music for the soul.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
...an evocative and luminous memoir...
New Orleans Times-Picayune Best of 2006
The other work of nonfiction that captivated readers all over the
city -- as well as the entering freshman class at Tulane
University, for which it was required reading -- was A Song for My
Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and White, by Tom Sancton, a
beautifully written memoir of growing up in New Orleans in the '50s
and learning to play the clarinet from "the mens" of Preservation
Hall.
JazzBeat, Paige VanVorst
Sancton is an excellent writer and the book gripped me like few
books I've encountered lately – there are excellent profiles of a
number of my idols – Creole George Guesnon, Punch Miller, George
Lewis, Jim Robinson and Chester Zardis, filling in numerous details
I've never seen in print before, providing a clear narrative of the
Preservation Hall scene in the 1960s.
Tom Sancton has written a masterpiece – one of the most readable
narratives on New Orleans jazz to come along in years.
The Progressive Christian, John Winn
[In Song for My Fathers] Narvin Kimball, a wonderful left-handed
traditional jazz banjoist and singer, at age 90 said to... Tom, "I
want you to do something for me, young man. I want you to tell the
people that you played with me when I was 90 years old, and I still
have the beat. Tell them, please." He did. By doing so, he makes
you want to tell your story, too.
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