Jonathan Cott – författare

Leonard Bernstein was arguably the most highly esteemed, influential, and charismatic American classical music personality of the twentieth century. Conductor, composer, pianist, writer, educator, and human rights activist, Bernstein truly led a life of Byronic intensity--passionate, risk-taking, and convention-breaking.In November 1989, just a year before his death, Bernstein invited writer Jonathan Cott to his country home in Fairfield, Connecticut for what turned out to be his last major interview--an unprecedented and astonishingly frank twelve-hour conversation. Now, in Dinner with Lenny, Cott provides a complete account of this remarkable dialogue in which Bernstein discourses with disarming frankness, humor, and intensity on matters musical, pedagogical, political, psychological, spiritual, and the unabashedly personal. Bernstein comes alive again, with vodka glass in hand, singing, humming, and making pointed comments on a wide array of topics, from popular music ("the Beatles were the best songwriters since Gershwin"), to great composers ("Wagner was always in a psychotic frenzy. He was a madman, a megalomaniac"), and politics (lamenting "the brainlessness, the mindlessness, the carelessness, and the heedlessness of the Reagans of the world"). And of course, Bernstein talks of conducting, advising students "to look at the score and make it come alive as if they were the composer. If you can do that, you're a conductorand if you can't, you're not. If I don't become Brahms or Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky when I'm conducting their works, then it won't be a great performance."After Rolling Stone magazine published an abridged version of the conversation in 1990, the Chicago Tribune praised it as "an extraordinary interview" filled with "passion, wit, and acute analysis." Studs Terkel called the interview "astonishing and revelatory." Now, this full-length version provides the reader with a unique, you-are-there perspective on what it was like to converse with this gregarious, witty, candid, and inspiring American dynamo.

Winner of the NOBEL PRIZE in Literature 2016'I change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else.' Bob Dylan Gathered together for the first time: a rare and diverse collection of intimate interviews, straight from the mouth of America's most celebrated street poet. DYLAN ON DYLAN is a must-read for his millions of fans.Twenty-nine of the most significant and revealing conversations with the singer, stretching over forty years from the earliest days of his career in 1962 through to 2004, are brought together here to cover the gaps left by the Chronicles: Volume 1. Among the highlights are the seminal Rolling Stone interviews by Jann Wenner, Jonathan Cott, Kurt Loder and Mikal Gilmore, as well as the legendary 1966 Playboy interview.Dylan expert Jonathan Cott writes an introduction to this must-have collection of the artist in his own words.'Edited by Jonathan Cott, one of the original editors of Rolling Stone and arguably the most simpatico writer ever to converse with Mr Dylan, the interview format remains eminently readable ... Mr. Cott identifies the major sea changes in Mr Dylan's life via conversational format, without undue commentary ... Nobody can explain Mr Dylan as well as he, when he cares to do it, can explain himself' The New York Times

One of the most idiosyncratic and charismatic musicians of the twentieth century, pianist Glenn Gould (1932-82) slouched at the piano from a sawed-down wooden stool, interpreting Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart at hastened tempos with pristine clarity. A strange genius and true eccentric, Gould was renowned not only for his musical gifts but also for his erratic behavior: he often hummed aloud during concerts and appeared in unpressed tails, fingerless gloves, and fur coats. In 1964, at the height of his controversial career, he abandoned the stage completely to focus instead on recording and writing. Jonathan Cott, a prolific author and poet praised by Larry McMurtry as "the ideal interviewer," was one of the very few people to whom Gould ever granted an interview. Cott spoke with Gould in 1974 for Rolling Stone and published the transcripts in two long articles; after Gould's death, Cott gathered these interviews in Conversations with Glenn Gould, adding an introduction, a selection of photographs, a list of Gould's recorded repertoire, a filmography, and a listing of Gould's programs on radio and TV.A brilliant one-on-one in which Gould discusses his dislike of Mozart's piano sonatas, his partiality for composers such as Orlando Gibbons and Richard Strauss, and his admiration for the popular singer Petula Clark (and his dislike of the Beatles), among other topics, "Conversations with Glenn Gould" is considered by many, including the subject, to be the best interview Gould ever gave and one of his most remarkable performances.

Published in its entirety for the first time, a candid conversation with Susan Sontag at the height of her brilliant career  “A humanizing interview with the late cultural icon, who was often perceived as a fiercely aggressive and polarizing intellect.”—Kirkus Reviews  Susan Sontag (1933–2004), one of the most internationally renowned and controversial intellectuals of the latter half of the twentieth century, still provokes. In 1978 Jonathan Cott, a founding contributing editor of Rolling Stone magazine, interviewed Sontag first in Paris and later in New York. Only a third of their twelve hours of discussion ever made it to print. This book provides the entire transcript of Sontag’s remarkable conversation, accompanied by Cott’s preface and recollections.  Sontag’s musings and observations reveal the passionate engagement and breadth of her critical intelligence and curiosities at a moment when she was at the peak of her powers. These hours of conversation offer a revelatory and indispensable look at the self-described “besotted aesthete” and “obsessed moralist.”

One of the most important critics writing in the past 35 years, Jonathan Cott has interviewed and reviewed major artists in publishing, art, film and music, often unearthing new voices years before they're discovered by the mainstream. In Back to a Shadow in the Night, his music interviews and essays – covering an astonishingly wide range of artists and styles – are collected for the first time in one volume. From pondering the links between Patti Smith and Rimbaud to revealing the introverted and eccentric mind of Glenn Gould, Cott consistently provides probing and fascinating dialogues in his interviews. In this collection, John Lennon gives insights on surviving fame four days before his murder, Bob Dylan contemplates identity in his film Renaldo and Clara, and Lou Reed explores the nihilism of New York City and the best lines he's ever written, to name but a few topics. Cott's independent writing on the music world is equally stimulating. With interwoven strands of Eastern philosophy and classical music, nursery rhymes and rock and roll, Cott's musings have a beauty and texture all their own.Jonathan Cott is the author of 12 books including Isis and Osiris: Exploring the Goddess Myth, City of Earthly Love, He Dreams What Is Going On Inside His Head and The Search for Om Sety. A contributing editor for Rolling Stone since its beginnings, he has frequently been published in the New York Times, American Review and The New Yorker. Cott lives in New York City.“Jonathan Cott, as an interviewer, reveals truths of creative spirits – especially those in the world of music – that they themselves may not have understood.”– Studs Terkel

A wide-ranging collection of interviews and profiles from twenty years of Jonathan Cott’s remarkable writings  “All I really need to do is simply ask a question,” Jonathan Cott occasionally reminds himself. “And then listen.” It sounds simple, but in fact few have taken the art of asking questions to such heights-and depths-as Jonathan Cott, whom Jan Morris called “an incomparable interviewer,” one whose skill, according to the great interviewer and oral historian Studs Terkel, “is artless yet impassioned and knowing.” Collected here are twenty-two of Cott’s most illuminating interviews that encourage readers to listen to film directors and musicians, actors and writers, scientists and visionaries. These conversations affirm the indispensable and transformative powers of the imagination and offer us new ways to view these lives and their worlds. What is it like to be Bob Dylan making a movie? Carl Sagan taking on the cosmos? Oliver Sacks doctoring the soul? John Lennon, on December 5, 1980? Elizabeth Taylor, ever? From Chinua Achebe to Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), Federico Fellini to Werner Herzog, and Oriana Fallaci to Studs Terkel, Listening takes readers on a journey to discover not ways of life but ways to life. Within these pages,Cott proves himself to be, in the words of Brain Pickings’s Maria Popova, “an interlocutor extraordinaire,” drawing candid insights and profound observations from these inspired and inspiring individuals.

A wide-ranging collection of interviews and profiles from twenty years of Jonathan Cott’s remarkable writings  “All I really need to do is simply ask a question,” Jonathan Cott occasionally reminds himself. “And then listen.” It sounds simple, but in fact few have taken the art of asking questions to such heights-and depths-as Jonathan Cott, whom Jan Morris called “an incomparable interviewer,” one whose skill, according to the great interviewer and oral historian Studs Terkel, “is artless yet impassioned and knowing.” Collected here are twenty-two of Cott’s most illuminating interviews that encourage readers to listen to film directors and musicians, actors and writers, scientists and visionaries. These conversations affirm the indispensable and transformative powers of the imagination and offer us new ways to view these lives and their worlds. What is it like to be Bob Dylan making a movie? Carl Sagan taking on the cosmos? Oliver Sacks doctoring the soul? John Lennon, on December 5, 1980? Elizabeth Taylor, ever? From Chinua Achebe to Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), Federico Fellini to Werner Herzog, and Oriana Fallaci to Studs Terkel, Listening takes readers on a journey to discover not ways of life but ways to life. Within these pages,Cott proves himself to be, in the words of Brain Pickings’s Maria Popova, “an interlocutor extraordinaire,” drawing candid insights and profound observations from these inspired and inspiring individuals.

The conception, creation, recording, and significance of the Beatles’ “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever”John Lennon wrote “Strawberry Fields Forever” in AlmerÍa, Spain, in fall 1966, and in November, in response to that song, Paul McCartney wrote “Penny Lane” at his home in London. A culmination of what was one of the most life-altering and chaotic years in the Beatles’ career, these two songs composed the 1967 double A-side 45 rpm record that has often been called the greatest single in the history of popular music and was, according to Beatles producer George Martin, “the best record we ever made.”   In Let Me Take You Down: Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever, Jonathan Cott recounts the conception and creation of these songs; describes the tumultuous events and experiences that led the Beatles to call it quits as a touring band and redefine themselves solely as recording artists; and details the complex, seventy-hour recording process that produced seven minutes of indelible music. In writing about these songs, he also focuses on them as inspired artistic expressions of two unique ways of experiencing and being in the world, as Lennon takes us down to Strawberry Fields and McCartney takes us back to Penny Lane.   In order to gain new vistas and multiple perspectives on these multifaceted songs, Cott also engages in conversation with five remarkable people: media artist Laurie Anderson; guitarist Bill Frisell; actor Richard Gere; Jungian analyst Margaret Klenck; and urban planner, writer, and musician Jonathan F. P. Rose. The result is a wide-ranging, illuminating exploration of the musical, literary, psychological, cultural, and spiritual aspects of two of the most acclaimed songs in rock and roll history.