Annotated Playlist

Miles Davis

“…plus, from the olden days, Jimi Hendrix, "Milestones," "Barbara Ann," "Barbara Allen," "My Favorite Things," and "Happy Birthday" (as if played by Hendrix but on a bass!)” (p.27)

Beach Boys

“…plus, from the olden days, Jimi Hendrix, "Milestones," "Barbara Ann," "Barbara Allen," "My Favorite Things," and "Happy Birthday" (as if played by Hendrix but on a bass!)” (p.27)

Joan Baez

“…plus, from the olden days, Jimi Hendrix, "Milestones," "Barbara Ann," "Barbara Allen," "My Favorite Things," and "Happy Birthday" (as if played by Hendrix but on a bass!)” (p.27)

The Sound of Music

“…plus, from the olden days, Jimi Hendrix, "Milestones," "Barbara Ann," "Barbara Allen," "My Favorite Things," and "Happy Birthday" (as if played by Hendrix but on a bass!)” (p.27)

Blue Bells of Scotland

“Once, in Dellacrosse, I had agreed to give an actual concert—I played "Blue Bells of Scotland" and wore a kilt” (p.27)

Mussorgsky

“…she turned on the classical music station and we listened to Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain for the entire ride” (p.31)

Modest Mouse

“I got out my translucent Plexi bass, like an answer to ice itself, and put on my headphones and plucked a little Metallica, a little Modest Mouse, plus a nothing bass part for 'Angel from Montgomery,' and a bit of "Rock-a-Bye Baby"” (p.127)

Metallica

“I got out my translucent Plexi bass, like an answer to ice itself, and put on my headphones and plucked a little Metallica, a little Modest Mouse, plus a nothing bass part for 'Angel from Montgomery,' and a bit of 'Rock-a-Bye Baby'” (p.127)

John Prine

“I got out my translucent Plexi bass, like an answer to ice itself, and put on my headphones and plucked a little Metallica, a little Modest Mouse, plus a nothing bass part for 'Angel from Montgomery,' and a bit of 'Rock-a-Bye Baby'” (p.127)

Mozart

“After class, I went home and with my earphones on picked around on my electric bass, pressing my fingers into the steel strings, toughening my calluses. I loved 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,' which I referred to as 'Mozart'” (p.143)

James Taylor

“He played the only American song he knew, a folk one with verse upon verse of wide water and longing and woe, one that ended '… like the summer dew.' And then he was very quiet, saying, 'Shouldn't it be "like the summer does?"'” (p.269)

Schindler's List

“I listened endlessly to the music from Schindler's List. Then 'The Bridge on the River Kwai'” (p.180)

The Bridge on the ...

“I listened endlessly to the music from Schindler's List. Then 'The Bridge on the River Kwai'” (p.180)

The Longest Day

“The soundtracks to The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan played incessantly in my apartment” (p.183).

Saving Private Ryan

“The soundtracks to The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan played incessantly in my apartment” (p.183)

Bonnie Raitt

“I could make out one of the songs he played over and over, a Bonnie Raitt one, 'I Can't Make You Love Me,' the words to which I recognized but didn't really know.” (p.223)

Platoon

“Though I'd listened to Platoon's Adagio for Strings night and day” (p.231)

Diana Ross

“She and I were doing our song and dance to Diana Ross's 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough'” (p.253)

Sergei Koussevitzky

“I had once, in the state music tryouts, played a solo from a double bass concerto by Sergei Koussevitzky, who in 1930 had been on the cover of Time magazine” (p.275)

Miles Davis

“I just played it with open strings, Miles's 'Nardis,' which was basic, and which spelled starry backwards in Latin, or something, and which I loved, and which didn't take a lot out of me” (p.275)

Miles Davis

“I was playing 'Bye Bye Blackbird.' She thought that it was my own arrangement, but it was one I had copied, or tried to copy—if only I'd had beefier hands and more of them—from Christian McBride” (p.275)

Bach

“I played a Bach cello prelude I had learned only the year before. It was sometimes fun to do this, make the bass play cello, like making an old man sing a young man's song” (p.276)