![]() The novel captures the end of the jazz age in Germany perfectly in the characters’ staccato slang, sounding much like jazz music imagined as dialogue. ![]() The story is told through the eyes of the Swingers’ bass player, Sid Griffiths, in alternating takes between events in Paris and Berlin in 1939 and Baltimore and Berlin in 1992. These are the Hot Time Swingers, the imagined jazz band at the center of Esi Edugyan’s “Half-Blood Blues.” The novel was a finalist for Britain’s prestigious Man Booker prize in 2011 and reaches U.S. This is Berlin, 1939 – the eve of World War II. You can almost smell the cigarette smoke, taste the cheap booze being served. ![]() ![]() The sounds of a trumpet solo echo on stage, while a piano, bass and drums pound out a finger-snapping groove. Imagine a smoke-filled jazz club, dark and crowded. ![]()
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