Like Young: Jazz, Pop, Youth and Middle Age (PB) (2002)

Francis Davis is one of this nation's savviest and most admired music and cultural critics. In this collection of essays he observes the modern jazz and pop that have reached middle age at the same moment as many of their listeners, including the author. Moving through the scales from Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday to Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra, he comments on music both old and new, on stage and screen. In addition to taking the pulse of jazz at the millennium, he offers fresh insights on pop icons like Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Burt Bacharach, and Brian Wilson. He also goes beyond character sketch and critical script to weave in fragments of his own life, making this the most personal of his collections. Like Young will resonate both with those who have spent two decades reading Davis and those who are discovering him today.