Additions and Corrections to
“Rat Race Blues: The Musical Life of Gigi Gryce” (Second Edition 2014)
by Noal Cohen and Michael Fitzgerald

Errata and New Information:
pp. xiv-xv: More passings of Gryce colleagues: Hal Stein (2008), Chris White (2014), Harold Ousley (2015), Orrin Keepnews (2015) and Ernestine Anderson (2016).

p. 48: Another spelling of Gryce’s composition is “Ghashiyah.”

p. 66: Paragraph 3 is a quote and should be in smaller font.

p. 197, Paragraph 4 and note 7 on p. 212: We regret failing to acknowledge the assistance of Masaya Yamaguchi regarding the “Not So Sleepy” solo transcription folio.

p. 203, Paragraph 2, line 3: “Six of the ten tracks…” should read “Seven of the ten tracks…”

p. 249, Paragraph 4, line 1: Our assumption that Gryce arranged “Sea Breeze” was wrong. This title was, in fact, arranged by Benny Golson for the Dizzy Gillespie octet session of December 17, 1957. This has been confirmed by Rob DuBoff of eJazzLines who gained access to the actual arrangement as well as the other three contributed by Golson to the session. This discovery also casts doubt on our attribution to Gryce of the arrangement of “Sea Breeze” for the Oscar Pettiford orchestra session of September 6, 1957 (see p. 245, paragraph 1).

p. 257, Paragraph 2, line 1: “two days…” should read “three days…”

p. 257, Last paragraph, line 1: This may actually have been the first arrangement of “Sea Breeze” written by Gryce (see correction to p. 249 above).

pp. 301-303: Three letters from Gryce to Eddie Curran, a Framingham, MA club owner, written in 1959, have surfaced thanks to collector, historian and record producer Art Zimmerman. In these Gryce talks about organizing a record company and requesting an arrangement whereby tapes recorded at Curran’s club could be issued on his new label. Presumably, Gryce is referring to the jam session recordings at Christy’s Restaurant in 1950 and 1951 (see Discography). In the last letter, dated July 14, 1959, Gryce mentions “legal technicalities to be cleared up” before the material could be released. Apparently, these snags were never overcome as there is no evidence any of the jam sessions were ever issued.

p. 351, line 12 and p. 355, reference 1: The video referred to was actually an audio recording made for the authors.

pp. 357-361 (Bibliography), Additions (thanks to Dennis Whitling): Ulanov, Barry, Handbook of Jazz, Viking Press, 1957, 1975
Mellers, Wilfrid, Music in a New Found land, Barrie and Rickliff, 1964

Note as of June 1, 2018: All of the above issues have been addressed in the version of the book available for purchase after this date.