Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • No Beethoven

  • An Autobiography & Chronicle of Weather Report
  • By: Peter Erskine
  • Narrated by: Peter Erskine
  • Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (3 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
No Beethoven cover art

No Beethoven

By: Peter Erskine
Narrated by: Peter Erskine
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.89

Buy Now for £12.89

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Herbie Hancock: Possibilities cover art
Have a Little Faith cover art
My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire cover art
White Bicycles cover art
Sex, Drums, Rock 'n' Roll! cover art
Bruised, Never Broken cover art
Leon Russell cover art
I Am the Warrior cover art
Prince and the Parade and Sign O' the Times Era Studio Sessions cover art
Looking to Get Lost cover art
World on a String cover art
Absolute Beginner cover art
Just a Story from America cover art
View from the Bottom cover art
Only Wanna Be with You cover art
God Only Knows cover art

Summary

No Beethoven chronicles the life and times of drummer Peter Erskine, with the legendary band Weather Report being the nexus to this firsthand account. 

Erskine was in the midst of the modern American jazz music scene as it underwent its most dynamic change. Peter Erskine is a musician of his times with incredibly rich stories to tell in this autobiography.   

No Beethoven includes chapters dedicated to Weather Report and the musicians Joe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorius, and Wayne Shorter, plus the bands Steps Ahead, Steely Dan, and artists such as Elvin Jones, Joni Mitchell, Freddie Hubbard, Diana Krall, Steve Gadd, producer Manfred Eicher, composers John Williams and Mark-Anthony Turnage, et al. The audiobook provides a revealing look at the creative process involved in performing music onstage and in the recording studio, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at how the musical-instrument industry operates. 

This is an audiobook for all musicians and fans of music. As famed drummer and Rush founder Neil Peart writes: "No Beethoven is among the best musical autobiographies I have read. Peter's story is absorbing and compelling, full of well-drawn characters and incidents both humorous and serious. It flows with the same ease and naturalness as his drumming, and under that good-humored gloss, it conveys the same profundity of experience and ideas. This book should be read not only by every drummer, but by every musician. Even dedicated amateurs of music will find it entertaining and worthwhile."  

Special bonus: This audiobook features 11 bonus music tracks - more than an hour - of Peter with some "very special friends".

©2013 Fuzzy Music LLC (P)2018 Fuzzy Music LLC

Critic reviews

"Like the excellent drummer that he is, he approaches this book by keeping a steady beat throughout. Like his solos, the chapters are concise and to the point, changing patterns and dynamics as needed. He uses his brushes deftly as he goes through his reflections on relationships and family, riding the cymbal on his early days with Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson. He hits the snare hard and keeps at it on his insights on Joe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorius while the sizzling high hat of his days with the iconic fusion band fade in and out during various parts of the book, never quite leaving the relentless pulse." (Jazz Weekly)

"This is a story necessarily made up of creative personalities and Erskine's experience with them. Stan Kenton, Joni Mitchell, Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, Elvin Jones are all revealed in startling detail with love and respect. Spread out over the book is the evolution of Erskine's beautiful family within the perspective of his life as an in-demand musician. This is the biography of a success story with little of the dissolution and loss characterizing so many such accounts." (All About Jazz)

"Fortunately for us, Erskine’s memory is sharp, and his breezy, brazenly honest 320-page memoir is filled with juicy stories, humor, gratitude, and wisdom that will appeal to aspiring professionals and veterans alike." (Bass Player Magazine)

What listeners say about No Beethoven

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Musicians musician.

A wonderful book read by the great man himself. Been a fan my whole life great drummer great human being. Highly recommended.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!