Books

Ricochet (Forthcoming )

Partly a road book recounting some of the author's travels with jazz great Wynton Marsalis, RICOCHET incorporates material about his late father, also a musician, and his youngest child, for a short, agonizing time in his family’s life a runaway. The voice is very personal and the language, given the central subject—music’s ability both to trigger memory and, at its most profound level, to heal loss—is highly charged. The overall form, with the different story strands crosscut in a kind of weave, is novelistic, but the underlying thrust is clear and sequential, building to a conclusion that affirms the title.

Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life (with Wynton Marsalis) (2001)

Visit the Perseus Books Group Mini-Site for an excerpt from the book and bonus material.

From Publishers Weekly
American jazz sweetheart Marsalis gives readers a seat on his old septet's tour bus for a ride down memory lane. It's the early 1990s, and the trumpeter is coming into his own as a composer, despite his tight road schedule (check-in at hotel, go to sound check, eat supper, iron the suit, play the gig, snooze a bit, hit the road). Should a day off (or a few free hours) arise, he's speaking at a local school, composing a ballet, recording an album or playing a ballad to his sons on the phone. "He'd take his naps in the next life," writes coauthor Vigeland, who tagged along on tour. Marsalis's productivity and growth during this period would lead to nine Grammys, a Pulitzer (previously awarded only to classical composers) and his directorship of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Loosely using a sort of call-and-response style, the book swings between Vigeland's (Stalking the Shark: Passion and Pressure on the Pro Golf Tour) fly-on-the-wall documentation and the poetic solos of Marsalis, philosophizing on jazz, joy, love and lifeall synonymous for him. "The narrative's logic is one of feeling, not geography or chronology, and it develops accretively, elliptically," explains Vigeland. At their best, the authors show how Marsalis's road experiences shape his music and the tightness (musically and personally) of the septet. The glimpse into Marsalis's New Orleans upbringing in that famous first family of jazz (Ellis, his father, and Branford, his brother) fascinates.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

In Concert: Onstage and Offstage with the Boston Symphony Orchestra
1989

Click for more information on the on-demand version of this book.

“An absolutely fascinating book dealing with tension — artistic, musical, and personal tension between the first trumpet player of one of the most venerable orchestras in the country and the conductor, Seiji Ozawa. Music is the background, but the theme is really a conflict of two people with two completely different approaches to art — and to life.”
— Studs Terkel

From Publishers Weekly
Demystifying and humanizing the august Boston Symphony Orchestra--and expertly discussing, as the book's leitmotif, the intricacies of Mahler Two, a BSO specialty--Vigeland presents such an agreeable portrait that he makes the reader want to subscribe to the orchestra's upcoming season. A keen observer, and perhaps more of a tattletale than certain BSO members will like, the author takes us through the 1986-1987 season at Symphony Hall and concerts at Tanglewood (Mass.), Connecticut and Washington, D.C. Primarily, we follow slightly paranoid principal trumpet Charlie Schlueter and his strained relationship with music director Seiji Ozawa, who is not given to fraternizing with the musicians. We also meet concertmaster Malcolm Lowe, orchestra manager Anne Parsons, choral director John Oliver; learn about union problems; sit in on auditions; witness the intensity of rehearsals. Vigeland ( How Harvard Makes Its Money ) is at his best in conveying the emotive power of music, making palpable the feelings of the musicians when a concert goes well and they are overwhelmed at the sound they have made.

Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Letters to a Young Golfer (with Bob Duval) (2002)

More info at Perseus Books

"The emphasis on developing a routine, moving forward, playing the hand dealt you, makes a whole lot of sense. And our new knowledge about Duval definitely puts the importance of a game of golf into mighty perspective."
— Kirkus Reviews

"Duval has proven adept as an author... The book is a series of letters written by Duval in retrospective the past nine months, which give candid insight of the travails in his life."
— Pensacola News Journal

From the father, teacher, and mentor of David Duval, the 2001 British Open winner, comes this meditation on the game of golf and what it can teach you about the game of life Since his own boyhood growing up on the links in upstate New York, Bob Duval has lived the life of golf in all its incarnations--as student, mentor, teacher, playing professional, and, more recently, as proud parent of a star player on the PGA Tour. Whether telling a story about his son David playing with Tiger Woods or revealing the secret of hitting a long bunker shot, he has always shown a remarkable ability to find an emotional and highly personal resonance when communicating with other people. This book celebrates that ability with an inspirational collection of letters about golf and the joy and passions it arouses.

In Letters to a Young Golfer, Duval writes to David, sharing not only his wisdom as a golfer and a father but also expressing his bond with David as a friend and fellow professional. Other letters address golfers of every age and ability who seek to improve their game, from Sunday amateurs to seasoned Tour professionals. With stories from his own career playing with and observing golfers both famous and unknown, Duval goes beyond the sport and explores what it means to live a fuller life. Finally, he writes to his deceased father and probes the spiritual mysteries of golf, this sometimes maddening, always exhilarating game that has been a healing force in his life.

Stalking the Shark: Pressure & Passion on the Pro Golf Tour (1997) Read an Excerpt

"A fine book."
—Herbert Warren Wind

"A neatly crafted account of life on the PGA Tour."
—Alex Beam, The Boston Globe

From Publishers Weekly
Many a complaint has been voiced about pro golfers of the post-Palmer-Nicklaus-Trevino era, the most frequent one being that they are colorless. But that objection does not apply to one player, Greg Norman, the crowd-pleasing Aussie nicknamed the Great White Shark. The problem with the excitement he generates, however, is that it is based on the cliff-hanger quality of his play-he has more one-stroke second-place finishes than any other active pro, some of them detailed here. Interspersed between revealing short takes from Norman himself, titled "Sharkbites," are chapters by freelance golf writer Vigeland, who while keeping his chief subject in focus writes as much about the pro tour and other players such as Nick Price and Brad Faxon.

Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Great Good Fortune: How Harvard Makes Its Money
1986

"[An] intricate and engaging account...penetrating"
—The Washington Post

From Library Journal
Written by a 1969 Harvard alumnus, this book examines how the "oldest corporation in America" acquires and distributes its endowment and annual budget. Chapters focus on sketches of university adminstrators, the elaborate alumni fund campaigns, and the unheralded but powerful Harvard Management Company, which oversees the university's vast portfolio.

Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Selected Articles

A New Horn
The Atlantic Monthly, November, 1999

What was that odd-looking brass instrument you saw in a jazz club or at the symphony? It was David Monette's reinvention of the trumpet.
>>Read More

A Mower of Lawns
The New York Times, 1985

Our house sits on a hill, with the remains of an old barn still attached to the back...
>>Read More

The List - Eight great Places
Continental Magazine, January, 2005

With the PGA Tour’s headquarters nearby in Ponte Vedra, the World Golf Hall of Fame and Village south of Jacksonville, Fla., lays claim to being the centerpiece of an unofficial golf capital.
>> Read More

Golf Course
Fast Company, Number 8, April 1997

Butch Harmon, guru to Tiger Woods, teaches that winning is all in your head -- in golf or in business.
>> Read More

To the Spoiled Goes the Victory
When win-win has nothing to do with the golf score
Continental Magazine, August 2005

When a starter asks you if it’s all right if a single joins you, you may grumble but you know that there’s only one polite answer: of course...
>> Read More

Swingers' Clubs
Ranking the best golf courses in the region.
Boston Magazine, May 2003.

If you play golf in Greater Boston, hearing that the best golfer in the world will be visiting us soon only confirms what you already know: Despite the lousy climate, New England sets a high standard as a place to play and follow golf.
>>Read More

Silva’s Greens
Continental Magazine, February 2004

On a chilly day, when everyone else is wearing sweaters or jackets, golf course architect Brian Silva, 50, is ready to tee off in Bermuda shorts. That he can and does wear shorts to work is one of several dozen reasons why the energetic, effusive 1999 Golf World Architect of the Year loves his job.
>> Read More

Chasing ghost of his youth on a snowboard
The Daily Hampshire Gazette, March 4, 2004

Long ago, before I lived here and before I had started skiing, I visited Haystack Mountain in southern Vermont with some friends on a hike. Standing at the bottom of its main slope, following with my eyes the line of its old two-seater chairlift, I was transfixed.
>>Read More

Amherst's beloved Julius the Tailor
The Daily Hampshire Gazette, April 11, 2006

The notice was just six short paragraphs under a headline that identified him as a ''longtime tailor in Amherst.'' But the life of Julius Muskus, the subject of the obituary in Thursday's Gazette, belonged on the front page.
>>Read More