Books with author Carolyn Glenn Brewer

Before storm sirens, before the Weather Channel, before Doppler Radar, a tornado "dropped out of a troubled May sky and twisted its way into our lives forever." On the evening of May 20, 1957 three communities south of Kansas City, Missouri were destroyed by a seventy-one mile, F-5 twister. This monstrous storm left in its path five hundred injured, forty dead and over a million dollars worth of property damage. Nothing defines a community more than its reaction to disaster. Caught in the Path is a story of fear and courage, suffering and resiliency. The hardest hit area, four year old Ruskin Heights, was the first post-war tract housing development in the Kansas City area. Like so many of their generation, its residents, mostly first time home buyers in their twenties and thirties, came to Ruskin to raise their baby-boom families with the optimism of the fifties. When the tornado scattered their dreams along its path, they came back, and changed a housing development into a community. Author Carolyn Glenn Brewer's family was among those caught off guard by the tornado. Most of the houses on her block were leveled to the foundation. She combines her story with extensive interviews from nearly one hundred survivors and period media coverage. The narrative flow of this book reads like fiction, but makes the tornado, and the summer that followed, pulse with reality.

Before storm sirens, before the Weather Channel, before Doppler Radar, a tornado "dropped out of a troubled May sky and twisted its way into our lives forever." On the evening of May 20, 1957 three communities south of Kansas City, Missouri were destroyed by a seventy-one mile, F-5 twister. This monstrous storm left in its path five hundred injured, forty dead and over a million dollars worth of property damage. Nothing defines a community more than its reaction to disaster. Caught in the Path is a story of fear and courage, suffering and resiliency. The hardest hit area, four year old Ruskin Heights, was the first post-war tract housing development in the Kansas City area. Like so many of their generation, its residents, mostly first time home buyers in their twenties and thirties, came to Ruskin to raise their baby-boom families with the optimism of the fifties. When the tornado scattered their dreams along its path, they came back, and changed a housing development into a community.Author Carolyn Glenn Brewer's family was among those caught off guard by the tornado. Most of the houses on her block were leveled to the foundation. She combines her story with extensive interviews from nearly one hundred survivors and period media coverage. The narrative flow of this book reads like fiction, but makes the tornado, and the summer that followed, pulse with reality.

Even though the potential passage of the Equal Rights Amendment had cracked glass ceilings across the country, in 1978 jazz remained a boys’ club. Two Kansas City women, Carol Comer and Dianne Gregg, challenged that inequitable standard. With the support of jazz luminaries Marian McPartland and Leonard Feather, inaugural performances by Betty Carter, Mary Lou Williams, an unprecedented All-Star band of women, Toshiko Akiyoshi’s band, plus dozens of Kansas City musicians and volunteers, a casual conversation between two friends evolved into the annual Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival (WJF). But with success came controversy. Anxious to satisfy fans of all jazz styles, WJF alienated some purists. The inclusion of male sidemen brought on protests. The egos of established, seasoned players unexpectedly clashed with those of newcomers. Undaunted, Comer, Gregg, and WJF’s ensemble of supporters continued the cause for eight years. They fought for equality not with speeches but with swing, without protest signs but with bebop. For the first book about this groundbreaking festival, Carolyn Glenn Brewer interviewed dozens of people and dove deeply into the archives. This book is an important testament to the ability of two friends to emphatically prove jazz genderless, thereby changing the course of jazz history.

Even though the potential passage of the Equal Rights Amendment had cracked glass ceilings across the country, in 1978 jazz remained a boys’ club. Two Kansas City women, Carol Comer and Dianne Gregg, challenged that inequitable standard. With the support of jazz luminaries Marian McPartland and Leonard Feather, inaugural performances by Betty Carter, Mary Lou Williams, an unprecedented All-Star band of women, Toshiko Akiyoshi’s band, plus dozens of Kansas City musicians and volunteers, a casual conversation between two friends evolved into the annual Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival (WJF). But with success came controversy. Anxious to satisfy fans of all jazz styles, WJF alienated some purists. The inclusion of male sidemen brought on protests. The egos of established, seasoned players unexpectedly clashed with those of newcomers. Undaunted, Comer, Gregg, and WJF’s ensemble of supporters continued the cause for eight years. They fought for equality not with speeches but with swing, without protest signs but with bebop. For the first book about this groundbreaking festival, Carolyn Glenn Brewer interviewed dozens of people and dove deeply into the archives. This book is an important testament to the ability of two friends to emphatically prove jazz genderless, thereby changing the course of jazz history.

Before storm sirens, before the Weather Channel, before Doppler Radar, a tornado "dropped out of a troubled May sky and twisted its way into our lives forever." On the evening of May 20,1957 three communities south of Kansas City, Missouri were destroyed by a seventy-one mile, F-5 twister. This monstrous storm left in its path five hundred injured, forty-four dead and over a million dollars worth of property damage. Nothing defines a community more than its reaction to disaster. Caught In The Path is a story of fear and courage, suffering and resiliency. The hardest hit area, four year old Ruskin Heights, was the first post-war tract housing development in the Kansas City area. Like so many of their generation, its residents, mostly first time home buyers in their twenties and thirties, came to Ruskin to raise their baby-boom families with the optimism of the fifties. When the tornado scattered their dreams along its path, they came back, and changed a housing development into a community. Author Carolyn Glenn Brewer's family was among those caught off guard by the tornado. Most of the houses on her block were leveled to the foundation. She combines her story with extensive interviews from nearly one hundred survivors and period media coverage. The narrative flow of this book reads like fiction, but makes the tornado, and the summer that followed, pulse with reality.