Celebrated illustrators Leo and Diane Dillon have won the Caldecott Medal twice, and now they present stunning illustrations of an evening of jazz music, complete with a special CD. If you have ever been lucky enough to hear great jazz, then you will understand the pure magic of this book. Leo and Diane Dillon use bright colors and musical patterns that make music skip off the page in this toe-tapping homage to many jazz greats. From Miles Davis and Charlie Parker to Ella Fitzgerald, here is a dream team sure to knock your socks off. Learn about this popular music form and read a biography of each player pictured-and then hear each instrument play on a specially produced CD. What's the featured song? "Jazz on a Saturday Night," written and recorded to accompany this book.
Author
Leo Dillon was a celebrated African-American magazine and book-cover artist, and a children's book author and illustrator. The vast majority of his work was done collaboratively with his wife, Diane Dillon, with whom he won his many awards, although a few early titles were solo projects. Born in Brooklyn in 1933, Lionel John Dillon was the son of Trinidadian immigrants, and was educated at the Parsons School of Design, after serving in the US Navy for three years. Here he met Diane Sorber, who was initially a fierce artistic competitor. Eventually the two married, and commenced a fifty-year collaborative career that produced over one hundred speculative fiction book and magazine covers, and numerous picture-book illustrations. They were jointly awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1976 and 1977, the only artists to be so honored twice in a row. The Dillons had one son, Lee Dillon, who also became an artist, and with whom they collaborated on Nancy Willard's Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch. Dillon died of lung cancer in 2012.
