Tom Sancton

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Tom Sancton is a journalist, author, and jazz musician. He grew up in New Orleans, graduated from Harvard, and took a doctorate in Modern History at Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. A former writer, editor, and foreign correspondant for TIME magazine, he has written or co-written six books of fiction and non-fiction. In 2014, the French government named him a Chevalier (Knight) in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He currently divides his time between Paris and New Orleans. Sancton’s latest work, published by Dutton in August 2017, is The Bettencourt Affair, the incredible French-based story of how a brash photographer and artist wheedled hundreds of millions of dollars out of the world’s richest woman, L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, now 94 and worth nearly $40 billion. Advance praise for The Bettencourt Affair:  “This book has it all! Money, class, art, greet, intrigue, seduction, betrayal, and politics…A family battle that shook France and will fascinate readers.”             —Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs  “The Bettencourt Affair reveals the far-reaching tentacles of a sensational family squabble over the $40-billion L'Oréal fortune…It's an eye- popping, page-turning read."              —John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil  “A riveting, dishy account of one of France’s wealthiest families, whose Olympian grasp reaches scandalously deep into the French political world and the government itself. No one who reads this intimate tale of materialism and dangerous liaisons… will ever again associate the French upper classes with discretion and understatement.  This history of postwar France traces the journey of its political world from the days of the Resistance to the anointment of a more flamboyant ruling class."              —Marie O’Connor, author of Lady in Gold

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RIVIERA REUNION (FLEUR-DE-LYS FDLCD-99) Tommy Sancton, clt; David Paquette, pno; Stéphane Roger, dms; Gilles Chevaucherie, bass I Can’t Believe that You’re in Love With Me; The Glory of Love; I Surrender Dear; Baby Face; The Preacher; True; Porter’s Love Song; At Sundown; Gypsy Love Song; Allez les Bleus; Talk of the Town; I Want Somebody to Love; A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/tommysancton

TOGETHER! LIVE IN SWITZERLAND (FDLCD – 94) Tommy Sancton, clt; Geoff Bull, tpt; Philippe De Smet, tbn; Jon Marks, pno; Bob Culverhouse, bass; Norman Emberson, dms Tuck me to Sleep in My Old ‘Tucky Home; Hold Me; Together; In a Sentimental Mood; S’il Vous Plaît; Tin Roof Blues; Willie the Weeper; Love; All I Do is Dream of You

LOUISIANA FAIRYTALE (G.H.B. BCD-360)TOMMY SANCTON’S NEW ORLEANS SERENADERS Tommy Sancton, clt; Charlie Fardella, tpt; Mike Owen, tbn; Jeff Hamilton, pno; Chris Tyle, dms; Bernie Attridge, bass Lover Come Back, Louisiana Fairytale; Smiles; Someday; Angry; Melancholy; Riverboat Shuffle; Do What Ory Say; Willie the Weeper; Old Rugged Cross; Love Letters; Milneberg Joys; What Can I Say?; I’m Alone Because I Love You; Slowboat to China Order online:http://jazzology.com/item_detail.php?id=BCD-360

Sancton is a well-known jazz clarinetist and a former student of the late, great George Lewis—an apprenticeship he lovingly chronicled in Song for My Fathers. Featured on more than a dozen CD’s,Tom Sancton (a.k.a. Tommy) has toured widely in Europe and the U.S., and has played at major international jazz festivals, including numerous appearances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He also appeared alongside Woody Allen in the 1998 film Wild Man Blues. Sancton has played regularly at such legendary New Orleans venues as Preservation Hall, the Palm Court Jazz Cafe, and Snug Harbor. In January 2012, he was featured at a gala 50th  anniversary Preservation Hall Jazz Band concert at Carnegie Hall.

THE CLASSIC JAZZ TRIO(RANKOMATIC – RMCD 110) John Rankin, guitar and vocals; Tom Sancton, clt; Tom Fischer, clt Some of These Days; Si Tu Vois Ma Mère; I’ll See You in My Dreams; Porter’s Loe Song; Do What Ory Say; Tom Tom Blues; Bye and Bye; Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You; Clarinet Marmalade; Mardi Gras Mambo; Save the Bones for Mister Jones; Burgundy Street Blues; Just a Little While to Stay Here; If I Had You. Order online:http://www.johnrankin.net

RECORDINGS BY TOMMY SANCTON:

CITY OF A MILLION DREAMSNEW ORLEANS LEGACY BAND (G.H.B. BCD-527) Tommy Sancton, clt; Clive Wilson, tpt; Ronell Johnson, tbn; Lars Edegran, pno; Kerry Lewis, bass; Jason Marsalis, dms City of a Million Dreams; High Society; There Goes My Heart; Un Hombre Fiel; Just You Just Me; I Want a Little Girl; Somebody Stole My Gal; You Tell Me Your Dream; Love Me or Leave Me; Pallet on the Floor; Yearning; Strike Up the Band Order online:http://jazzology.com/item_detail.php?id=BCD-527

HYMNS & SPIRITUALSTOMMY SANCTON NEW ORLEANS QUARTET (NOL-CD-99) Tommy Sancton, clt; Lars Edegran, pno; Seva Venet, gtr/bjo; Tom Saunders, bass; Nobu Ozaki, bass What a Friend We Have in Jesus; Streets of the City; How Great Thou Art; In the Garden; Lead Me Savior; Lord We Stand Before Thee Now; Sing on; Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen; When Jesus Comes; At the Cross; He Will Understand and Say Well Done Order online:http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tommysanctonlarsedegrann

TOMMY SANCTON’S BLACK EAGLE JAZZ BAND – 1971 (NBEJB BE-SIX) Tommy Sancton, clt; Tony Pringle, cornet; Jim Klippert, tbn’ Peter Bullis, bjo; Eli Newberger, pno; Pam Pameijer, dms; Chester Zardis, bass. Shake it & Break it; Perdido Street Blues; Ain’t Gonna Give Nobody; New Rag; Dippermouth; Snake Rag; Dallas Blues; Ice Cream; Red Man Blues; Lord, Lord, Lord; God Bless the Child; St. Louis Blues; Bogalousa Strut Order online:http://www.blackeagles.com/cgi-bin/us1.asp

NEW ORLEANS REUNION (G.H.B. BCD-283) Tommy Sancton, clt; David Paquette, pno; Pam Pameijer, dms Hold Me; Burgundy Street Blues; Girl of My Dreams; Tishomingo; Rose Room; Crying My Eyes Out Over You; Out in the Cold Again; Shake it and Break it; When I Come to the End of My Journey; New Orleans; Yearning; Whenever You’re Lonesome; Gee Gee Blues; Lull at Dawn Order online:http://jazzology.com/item_detail.php?id=BCD-283

SONG FOR MY FATHERS: A NEW ORLEANS STORY IN BLACK AND WHITEBy Tom Sancton (Other Press, 2006) A highly acclaimed coming-of-age memoir about a middle class white boy’s loving apprenticeship with a group of ageing black jazz musicians in the twilight years of the Jim Crow era.   “A former bureau chief for Time and a certified jazz freak from adolescence onward tells his sweet coming-of-age story in pre-Katrina New Orleans when ‘the mens’ (as the black jazz masters called one another) played the music that won his heart… A clear, simple melody played, surprisingly, with very little improvisation or ornamentation, but with enormous respect and affection.” —Kirkus Reviews. [Complete starred review available at:https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/tom-sancton/song-for-my-fathers/ “Song for My Fathers struts with the energy of youth, tempered a bit by the wisdom of middle age, and the bittersweet certainty that change is inevitable. Every page of this newly minted classic of life in New Orleans is filled with grace and gratitude, a debt paid in full to the men who showed Tom Sancton the way.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune, Best Book of 2006 “This is an important inside look into an under-investigated period of New Orleans music. It tells a story with an insider’s heart, a reporter’s eye, and the pure feeling of a New Orleans musician. Enjoyable, informative and engaging.”—Wynton Marsalis “Finally a book about New Orleans music from a totally fresh perspective. Tom Sancton was fortunate to have had a very colorful upbringing in the cradle of jazz and we're fortunate that he wrote about it so rivetingly.”—Woody Allen A stage adaptation of Song for My Fathers featuring the Preservation Hall Jazz Band debuted at Tulane University in 2010 and has since been presented before numerous audiences. Excerpts of the show were performed at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 2011 and at Carnegie Hall in 2012. See trailer: 

THE ARMAGEDDON PROJECTA novel by Tom Sancton (Other Press, 2007) “A riveting cautionary tale which resonates forcefully with contemporary political events. A bombing in a Paris church lands American journalist Sam Preston in the story of a lifetime—if only he can survive. The attack leads Sam to a group of Assyrian Christians. Their colorful leader-in-exile, Rafat Ganjibar, aims to form a breakaway Assyrian Republic in the oil-rich lands of northwestern Iraq, with the help of some powerful supporters—the American Evangelical community, the Israelis, and even U.S. President Jack Ritter. Sam suspects the President and his allies are acting secretly—and illegally—to advance and fund this movement….” From Amazon description: http://tinyurl.com/pjfsaq9

As a journalist and author, Tom Sancton has written extensively for such publications as TIME, Vanity Fair, Fortune, Reader’s Digest, L’Express, Le Point, Le Monde, Le Figaro, et al. During his 22-year stint as a writer, editor, and foreign correspondent for TIME, including 10 years as Paris Bureau Chief and Senior European Correspondent, Sancton wrote or reported more than 600 articles and 60 cover stories on subjects ranging from Pope John Paul II and the collapse of the Soviet Union, to jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, the endangered planet Earth, and the future of French haute cuisine. He has also authored or co-authored five books of fiction and non-fiction. His latest book, The Bettencourt Affair, was published in August 2017.

BOOKS BY TOM SANCTON

SONG FOR MY FATHERS By Tom Sancton (Other Press/Orson&Co. 2015) Teeming with exquisite illustrations and rare music and video footage, the Orson edition of Song for My Fathers is a triumph of digital storytelling: an enhanced e-book application featuring the full text, 9-hour audio narration by the author, some 80 rare photos, 10 short films, and 27 jazz tracks that allow the reader to hear the music Sancton writes about on the page where it is mentioned. Includes archival video footage and interviews with the legendary jazzmen at the heart of the story. For the first time you can hear the music at the heart of the story while you’re reading about it—and experience original footage of performances that helped define the soul of the city. Available for iPad only on the Apple App store: download the Orson&Co. app and click on Song for My Fathers.  See the full description on the Orson website by clicking here:

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DEATH OF A PRINCESS: THE INVESTIGATIONBy Tom Sancton and Scott MacLeod (Dutton, 2017) The updated 20th anniversary edition of Sancton and MacLeod’s bestselling investigation into the 1997 deaths of Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed.  “The truth about Dodi and Diana —their brief life together and how they died. The authors have investigated the question that have been continually asked, but not previously been satisfactorily answered: were the couple planning to marry? was Diana pregnant? Is there a grain of truth in the theories, rampant in the middle-east, that they were victims of a British intelligence plot? This is the first book to tell the truth.” —Amazon Praise for Death of a Princess: “The definitive book on those final moments, days, hours, minutes and seconds of Diana’s life.” —Cindy Adams, New York Post “Sancton and MacLeod…serve as textbook models of methodical reporting.” —Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly “[The authors] have done more in-depth reporting on this than just about anyone else.” —Anderson Cooper, CNN BUY NOWhttp://links.penguinrandomhouse.com/type/affiliate/isbn/9781524742485/siteID/8001/retailerid/2/trackingcode/PRH2370514634

DEAR JACQUES, CHER BILL: AU COEUR DE L’ELYSEE ET DE LA MAISON BLANCHEBy Tom Sancton and Gilles Delafon (Plon, 1998) Two Paris-based journalists take an inside look at Franco-American relations in the 1990s, focusing on the special relationship between U.S. President Bill Clinton and French President Jacques Chirac. (In French)

THE BETTENCOURT AFFAIR: THE WORLD’S RICHEST WOMAN AND THE SCANDAL THAT ROCKED PARIS By Tom Sancton (Dutton, 2017) Was the world’s wealthiest woman the victim of a con man or her own family members? This riveting narrative tells the real-life, shocking story behind the cause célèbre that captivated both France and the world. L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt—currently worth some $40 billion—is the eleventh richest person on the planet. But at 94, she’s embroiled in an incredible controversy that has dominated the headlines and ensnared a former president of France in the turmoil. It’s become Europe’s biggest scandal in years. The Bettencourt Affair is part courtroom drama; part upstairs-downstairs tale; part business narrative of a glamorous global company with past Nazi connections; and part character-driven story of a complex, fascinating family and the intruder who nearly tore it apart. “This book has it all! Money, class, art, greed, intrigue, seduction, betrayal, and politics…a family battle that shook France and will fascinate readers. —Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs “The Bettencourt Affair educates and informs even as it titilates.  Tom Sancton provides entree into the inner sanctum of French high society, a world where artists and aristocrats rub shoulders with a delightful cast of social climbers, perverts, and thieves.” -Scott Anderson, author of Lawrence in Arabia “Compulsively readable, with a cast of characters worthy of a Balzac novel, The Bettencourt Affair is perfect summer reading.  Forbidden family secrets, gender-bending rogues, ultrawealthy heiresses, a daughter driven by spite…Through its morass of celebrity and riches, Tom Sancton, strides in seven-league boots: narrating, interviewing, reflecting as both expert and storyteller as he paints this extraordinary comédie inhumaine-making it, at last, tragically real.” -Nigel Hamilton, author of JFK:Reckless Youth "Sancton...is an excellent straight-up reporter, and he has dug deeply into the many, many elements that complicate this story."                —Janet Maslin, New York Times Complete NYT review at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/23/books/review-bettencourt-affair-tom-sancton.html “A juicy chronicle of France’s richest scandal…A well-researched, crisply written, and entertaining story of family, greed, wealth, and the complex relations among them.” -Kirkus Reviews.  Complete review at: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/tom-sancton/the-bettencourt-affair/ “Former Time Paris bureau chief Tom Sancton follows what happened when the world’s richest woman, cosmetics heiress Liliane Bettencourt, became the center of a scandal that captivated Europe. This true story of the elderly billionaire, the artist to whom she gave a fortune, and the family that claims it’s all been a big con, is proof that truth is stranger—or at least makes better poolside reading.”  —Town & Country “There is no comparable work on the Bettencourt scandal, only interviews and articles, making this highly recommended and pleasurable read a mix of luring tabloid fare and professionally researched courtroom and political drama.”  —The Library Journal.  Complete starred review at:  http://tomsancton.blogspot.fr/2017/06/starred-review-in-library-journal.html "Although this tale seems destined for HBO or Hollywood, to bill this a mere 'family drama' belies the staggering depth with which Sancton portrays his subjects, whose motivations, desires, and downfalls are 'so difficult to judge according to a moral code based on right and wrong, black and white, good and evil.' A natural for book clubs, which will drain a French cellar’s worth of wine while appreciating Sancton’s meticulous research and discussing this unbelievable cast of characters."       —Katherine Uhrich, BOOKLIST. Complete starred review at: http://tomsancton.blogspot.fr/2017/06/starred-review-on-booklist.html "An intensely reported account of power, politics, persuasion and the dark family secrets of the ultra-wealthy."—Sherryl Connelly, New York Daily News.  Complete feature review at: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/heiress-rocked-france-showering-photographer-millions-article-1.3367724 Click on store to order:

April 3: Palm Court Jazz Cafe, 1296 Decatur St., with Lars Edegran All Stars, 7:30-10:30 p.m. April 13: French Quarter Festival, 500 Bourbon Street Stage, with the Tommy Sancton New Orleans Legacy Band, 12:00-1:15 p.m. April 13:  Palm Court Jazz Cafe, 1296 Decatur St., with Will Smith band, 7:30-10:30 p.m April 14: French Quarter Festival, 500 Bourbon Street Stage, with Clive Wilson's New Orleans Serenaders, 3:30-4:45 p.m. April 16: Octavia Books, 513 Octavia, with the Tommy Sancton Trio, for the launching of Clive Wilson's memoir Time of My Life, A Jazz Journey from London to New Orleans. 6-8 p.m. April 18:  Palm Court Jazz Cafe, 1296 Decatur St., with Leroy Jones band, 7:30-10:30 p.m April 27:  Palm Court Jazz Cafe, 1296 Decatur St., with Sammy Rimington, 7:30-10:30 p.m. May 2: Jazzfest, Economy Hall Tent, with Clive Wilson's Serenaders, 12-1 p.m. May 2: Palm Court Jazz Cafe, 1296 Decatur St., with Clive Wilson's Serenaders, 7:30-10:30 p.m. May 3:  Jazzfest, Economy Hall Tent, with Tommy Sancton's New Orlean Legacy Band, 12:25-1:20 p.m. May 7: Columns Hotel with John Rankin and Clarence Johnson. 8-11 p.m.

For music and speaking bookings: Tom Sancton, 504-451- 0990 (USA), or +33667923270 (France) Email: tomsancton@yahoo.com Literary agent: Katherine Flynn The Kneerim & Williams Agency 90 Canal Street Boston, MA 02114 617-303- 1659 kflynn@kwlit.com www.kwlit.com

Tom Sancton is a journalist, author, and jazz musician. He grew up in New Orleans, graduated from Harvard, and took a doctorate in Modern History at Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. A former writer, editor, and foreign correspondant for TIME magazine, he has written or co-written six books of fiction and non-fiction. In 2014, the French government named him a Chevalier (Knight) in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He currently divides his time between Paris and New Orleans. Sancton’s latest work, published by Dutton in August 2017, is The Bettencourt Affair, the incredible French-based story of how a brash photographer and artist wheedled hundreds of millions of dollars out of the world’s richest woman, L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, now 94 and worth nearly $40 billion. Advance praise for The Bettencourt Affair:  “This book has it all! Money, class, art, greet, intrigue, seduction, betrayal, and politics…A family battle that shook France and will fascinate readers.”             —Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs  “The Bettencourt Affair reveals the far-reaching tentacles of a sensational family squabble over the $40-billion L'Oréal fortune…It's an eye- popping, page-turning read."              —John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil  “A riveting, dishy account of one of France’s wealthiest families, whose Olympian grasp reaches scandalously deep into the French political world and the government itself. No one who reads this intimate tale of materialism and dangerous liaisons… will ever again associate the French upper classes with discretion and understatement.  This history of postwar France traces the journey of its political world from the days of the Resistance to the anointment of a more flamboyant ruling class."              —Marie O’Connor, author of Lady in Gold

http://www.octaviabooks.com/book/9781101984475

Buy The Bettencourt Affair online: