cover image The Parisian Jazz Chronicles: An Improvisational Memoir

The Parisian Jazz Chronicles: An Improvisational Memoir

Mike Zwerin. Yale University Press, $29 (214pp) ISBN 978-0-300-10806-4

In his deliberately digressive memoir, Zwerin applies the style and spirit of improvisational jazz to the form of memoir. As a longtime columnist for the International Herald Tribune and a trombonist who has played with Miles Davis, Zwerin brings intimate knowledge of both forms to the task. At the outset, it is unclear whether this can be a successful project: how exactly do the rhythms and improvisations of jazz translate to the page? Zwerin adopts multiple personalities, writes about himself in the third person, mixes in unused nuggets from his Trib columns and evaluates his memoir as he writes it. (""The multiple identities...are clumsy devices and probably cop-outs,"" ""This is beginning to sound like a Viagra commercial."") But perseverance pays off: what is initially troublesome reading gels as Zwerin finds his groove and larger arcs unfold (expatriatism, the future of jazz and, most notably, his heroin addiction), and his storytelling tricks turn into excellent writing, taking the reader on junkets from Parisian cafes to Mogador as Zwerin-imagining himself as a double agent-reports and gigs and partakes in many, many heroin ""sniffettes."" The juiciest sections are the profiles of musicians like Davis, Chet Baker and Bob Dylan. Zwerin gives the reader intimate access to these musicians and produces unexpectedly graceful essays. Ultimately, it is Zwerin himself who must carry the story; it's a responsibility he's hesitant to accept, but he does, and it is his battle with heroin and to understand himself that provides the heart beneath the orchestrated misdirection.