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Crowe, Watkins to read from ‘Rare Birds’
By Stephanie Salmons
Two local authors have turned a collection of interviews into a new book and plan a reading at City Lights tomorrow (Friday, Dec. 5) at 7 p.m.
Thomas Crowe and Nan Watkins of Tuckasegee have co-authored “Rare Birds: Conversations with Legends of Jazz and Classical Music” and will pair their readings with music by those interviewed in the book, including Charles Lloyd, Philip Glass, Abdullah Ibrahim, Steve Reich, Eugene Friesen and Sathima Bea Benjamin.
Tuckasegee writers Thomas Crowe and Nan Watkins will read from their latest book, “Rare Birds: Conversations with Legends of Jazz and Classical Music,” Friday, Dec. 5, at 7 p.m. The book is a compilation of interviews Crowe and Watkins have conducted over several years.
Crowe said that he began collecting interviews after he became a freelance writer around 1995.
Each May he would travel to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C., “to do articles and reviews for different magazines as part of the attempt to make a living as a freelancer,” he said. “Over the years, I accumulated interviews with really great musicians, dancers and writers.”
Those interviews have been published independently of each other in various publications but have never been collected in one place, Crowe said.
Crowe initially traveled to Spoleto alone but said he later began to go with Watkins, who is a musician herself and would sit in on the interviews.
Crowe and Watkins have collaborated before on books, translations and poetry so any collaboration between them is a “natural process,” Crowe said.
“Working together gives it a broader voice,” he said. “I come in as a writer, and she comes in as a musician and is able to ask questions on the music side of things. I think it works well using a collaborative effort because it’s more in depth. We can go deeper into the subject and the people that way.”
The book will offer insight to people who love jazz, modern classical music or music in general, Watkins said.
“These are very wonderful interviews,” she said. “They’re one-on-one, intimate conversations. It’s a great book, and (it’s good) to just hear these people talk individually and tell the stories of their lives, careers and how they’ve developed as composers over the years.”
There are no “pop artists” featured in this book, Crowe said.
“These are world-class, cutting-edge jazz musicians and composers,” he said, adding that one of the most well-known names in the book is classical composer Glass.
According to Crowe, Glass has worked on a number of film scores – including scores for “The Truman Show,” “Notes on a Scandal” and “The Illusionist” – and has composed symphonies and operas.
The depth of the conversations is what would make the book interesting to anyone, Crowe said.
“It gets into their personal philosophies and personal thoughts as well as letting them talk deeply about their process of making music, their history of making music and their own travels throughout the world,” Crowe said. “It’s more about trying to get to the essence of who these people are and what makes them tick. They are cutting-edge artists from a different mold than your average musicians.”
Each artist is different than the next and so the subject matter of each interview is different, Crowe said, adding that he couldn’t say who was his favorite musician to interview.
“We asked some unusual questions, and I think the answers are unique and appropriate in their depth,” Crowe said.
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