Lord Buckley was a uniquely hip entertainer, whose use of jazz vernacular in his comedic homilies made him one of the foremost underground figures of the 1940s and'50s. Born Richard Myrle Buckley in a run-down California gold mining town, Buckley gained something of a name as a conventional comedian before transforming himself into a tea-smoking hipster's vision of an English Lord, a persona he lived to the hilt. His extended riffs on classic stories (his transformation of Jesus Christ into the Nazz instantly restored the Messiah's relevance for a generation) mirrored jazz improvisation in their complexity and breadth of imagination; jazz musicians like Jon Hendricks and Dizzy Gillespie were among his greatest fans. Taking the form of oral recollections from a multitude of relatives, acquaintances, and admirers, DIG INFINITY!, Oliver Trager's milestone Buckley biography, constructs a composite portrait of this mysterious yet seminal figure in the annals of the hip underground. Interviews with a wide range of entertainers, from Jonathan Winters to George Harrison, reveal a self-invented man whose life and professional career form a kind of crazy quilt of 20th-century American entertainment, from vaudeville to burlesque to standup comedy. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.