Notes from a Battered Grand

[Bill Barton]

I recently read this memoir by pianist Don Asher published in 1992. It has some scarily hilarious stories about a working musician's life and times, and wondered if anyone else here has read it and has any reactions to share. Asher is also the author of Raise Up off Me: A Portrait of Hampton Hawes, and strikes me as one of the few musicians who is as fluent with words as with notes and tones.

[Nate Dorward]

Bill--thanks for the mention--hadn't known of the existence of that book. Asher's co-credited with the Hawes book rather than strictly its "author" but reading it I have little doubt that Asher had a major hand in it. The Hawes book is one of the best jazz autobiographies I've read.