Gene Lees talks about his book

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Gene Lees discusses his passion for studying language

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Gene Lees discusses pricing for performances and albums

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Q: “You have a book that has been garnering incredible reviews and it comes from your wonderful publication ‘the Jazz Letter’ and you’ve put the information together in a wonderful book called ‘Singers and the Song’ from Oxford University Press and you must be just delighted with the response!”

A: “True, I've never seen reviews like it. We got the front page of the New York Times book review section, the Sunday Book Review. It's an absolute rave. It had a similar review on the Washington Post, another one in the Boston Globe I think it was. Kansas City Star had an incredible review from Leonard Feather in the Los Angeles Times. And nobody, you know, rarely ... people have rarely seen reviews like this and as you know, as a long-time subscriber to the Jazzletter, I wrote all these essays from my own interest and in the interest of the readers, most of whom are people like yourself or other in broadcasting who are musicians, who are, one or the other, with some capacity in the business. And so it's a very inside look at Sinatra and Peggy Lee and Sarah Vaughan, and I never imagined that it would be of such general public interest.”