"BLACK AND BLUE" RETURNS

BLACK AND BLUE: The Life and Lyrics of Andy Razaf has now been out of print far, far longer than it was in print. At last, it has returned as an eBook, for the first time.

Forty-five years ago (now there’s a number!), I embarked on an odyssey in search of Andy Razaf. I was a couple of years out of college and working at Rolling Stone magazine, where I mostly helped with the creation of The Rolling Stone Record Guide — an endeavor that enabled me to spend hours each day reading the labels and liner notes of records, including any number of swinging jazz albums. My curiosity came to be consumed with a most unusual name that dominated the recordings of a favorite of mine: Thomas “Fats” Waller, composer of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Honeysuckle Rose” and, especially, the song, “Black and Blue.” The lyricist’s name on all of those songs was Andy Razaf.

I knew nothing beyond the name. Ten years later, I published BLACK AND BLUE: The Life and Lyrics of Andy Razaf.

There is a story in how this all came to pass. It encompasses a whole lot of detective work, copious interviews with aged survivors of Razaf’s era — the Harlem Renaissance and Black Broadway — friendship with the great cafe society singer Bobby Short, who’d actually known Andy Razaf (Bobby wound up writing BLACK AND BLUE’s Foreword). Most impactful, though, was my introduction to the incomparable John Hammond, patron of some of the greatest American music of the 20th century, who became my emissary and advocate — especially with Andy Razaf’s widow, who told me I was “too young, too white and too Jewish” to write her late-husband’s life story. She was right. On all counts. But John Hammond convinced her otherwise.

BLACK AND BLUE finally came out in 1992 and got some nice reviews — in Newsweek, in the N.Y. Times — even receiving some cursory sniffs for a movie from Hollywood big-wigs. It all came to nothing. I thought I would rescue Andy Razaf from oblivion. I didn't. One day I’ll write the story behind the story. Probably here.

Until then, you can now experience BLACK AND BLUE digitally. Just CLICK. Read it and wreap.