This biography of jazz multi-instrumentalist Adrian Rollini has a long history. The book was started in 1980 by Dutch musician and jazz scholar Tom Faber. Ate van Delden, also Dutch, joined him in the work and when Faber died in 2006, van Delden took over the project. I can easily understand it taking that long to complete the project. One can never know of course, but it seems as though any event of even the slightest consequence in Rollini’s life gets at least a mention here.
This is the very definition of a “weighty tome.” Apart from the book proper, there’s an Appendix of “Engagements Without Definite Dates,” a Filmography, a list of recordings on CD (although, surprisingly, not a complete discography), extensive Notes, a General Index, an Index of Locations, an Index of Title Tunes and an Appendix explaining the history and use of Rollini’s instruments.
One might think that an Appendix of Rollini’s instruments would be overkill, but he played such a vast and odd assortment, that it’s not. There is, preeminently, the Bass saxophone (larger and lower than a baritone sax), hot fountain pen (like a penny whistle with a couple of added keys), goofus (also known by its maker as a Couesnophone, it has a saxophone shape, but needs no reed and the keys are laid out like a piano keyboard), vibraphone, xylophone, celeste (a keyboard that moves hammers that strike metal b
