Just for a thrill

by James Dickerson

"Along with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, Lillian "Lil" Hardin (1898-1971) was arguably the third most crucial figure in the creation of popular jazz, but today her important contributions are almost entirely unknown." "Born in Memphis, Lil was, by her early twenties, the most sought-after jazz pianist in Chicago, playing first with Freddie Keppard's watershed Creole Jazz Band and later with King Oliver's world-famous Creole Jazz Band. She was already well established in Chicago as a pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader before she met and married Louis Armstrong in 1924." "Music writer and investigative journalist James L. Dickerson chronicles Lil's many musical achievements, which are all the more remarkable when one considers the patriarchal resistance that women in all professions - jazz included - confronted in twentieth-century America." "But Just for a Thrill, based on original research and interviews, is more than a biography of a jazz pioneer. It is also a story of