No one can tell us more about jazz than the musicians themselves. Unfortunately, most oral histories have limited scope--focusing on a particular era or style--and fail to capture the full, rich story of jazz. Now, in this vivid oral history, W. Royal Stokes presents nearly a century of jazz--its people, places, periods, and styles--as it was seen by the artists who created America's most distinctive music.
Here, along with the author's enlightening commentary, are the words of musicians famous and little-known, veterans of the early years and pathbreakers of the present, telling us about their origins and adventures, about the places and performers they have known. We read of young artists learning their skills surrounded by poverty, going on to win fame around the world. We feel the excitement of jazz before the war ("The music was all over the place," recalled Wild Bill Davison. "It's just unbelievable how many bands there were in Chicago. You could go anywhere and there'd be a band."). And we glimpse the gritty, hard life hidden beneath the beauty of the notes they played: "I remember not eating practically a month several times," said Mary Lou Williams. "During the depression we played engagements and we knew we weren't going to get any money because Andy would scatch his face when he was walking toward the band and the trumpet player would pull out his horn and play the 'Weary Blues.' And we'd laugh about it. We hadn't eaten in a couple of days and nothing was said, because the music was our survival."
Stokes not only uncovers the history of jazz in the major cities and regions--New Orleans, for instance, Chicago in the '20s and '30s, Kansas City, and California from the '50s to the present--but he goes on to bring us the story of the big bands, post-bebop developments, vocalists, jazz around the globe, and the contemporary scene ("I was about eleven and my brother Mike started to bring home a lot of Miles Davis records from school and that did it for me," remembers Pat Metheny. "First time I heard Miles playing 'My Funny Valentine, ' that whole record just destroyed me."). And he takes a close look at the rising place of women as instrumentalists in the last decade.
Jazz is America's most original contribution to music, and--as the late Dexter Gordon lamented--America is the one country where it is little known. But W. Royal Stokes uncovers a scene that is as alive as ever, with this fascinating look at how it has been made and remade from the first decades of the century to today.

Martin Williams is one of the most perceptive and entertaining jazz critics writing in America today. This collection of pieces on the past, present, and future of the jazz idiom includes profiles of Sidney Bechet, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis, an assessment of jazz-rock fusion, and a look at the pressures placed on musicians and their music by commercialism.

This perceptive study takes a fresh look at jazz in relation to other art forms and places it in the context of contemporary culture. This original approach relates the work of Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Ormette Coleman to such subjects as primitivism, neoclassicism, improvisation, aesthetics, and good taste.

Exploring the diverse landscape of American life, the stories in Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories capture the lives of people caught between circumstance and their own natures or on the run from fate, from a Jewish couple encountering a dealer in Nazi memorabilia to the troubled family of a Gulf Coast fisherman awaiting a hurricane. Tom Piazza's debut short story collection, originally published in 1996, heralded the arrival of a startlingly original and vital presence in American fiction and letters. Set in Memphis, New Orleans, Florida, Texas, New York City, and elsewhere, the stories echo voices from Ernest Hemingway to Robert Johnson in their sharp eye for detail and their emotional impact. New to this volume is an introduction written by the author. Drawing themes, forms, and stylistic approaches from blues and country music, these stories present a tough, haunting vision of a landscape where the social and spiritual ground shifts constantly underfoot.

`The Roaring Twenties' - the time when Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, Gershwin, Berlin, and Porter all burst onto the musical scene.

Covering blues, jazz, band music, torch ballads, operettas, and musicals, Arnold Shaw's lively account embraces all the major personalities of the Jazz Age, from instrumentalists to composers, singers to lyricists. It also includes a bibliography, a detailed discography, and lists of songs and relevant films from the 1920s.

Over a ten-year period, Ira Gitler interviewed more than fifty of the major figures in jazz history to preserve for posterity their recollections of how jazz moved from the big band era in the late 1930s and 1940s into the modern jazz period. The musicians interviewed recreate their own experiences and also evoke the legendary figures of bop who were especially influential in its development but were rarely or never recorded, people like Clyde Hart and Freddie Webster.

Examining the changing face of the genre from its beginnings at the end of the 19th century to its international popularity today, this book traces the social climate that inspired the blues and takes a look at the unmistakable influences that blues had on 20th-century music. Includes information on performances from Muddy Waters to Eric Clapton.

"Soulsville, U.S.A." provides the first history of the groundbreaking label along with compelling biographies of the promoters, producers, and performers who made and sold the music. More than 45 photos. (Music)

(Harmonica Play-Along). The Harmonica Play-Along Series will help you play your favorite songs quickly and easily. Just follow the notation, listen to the CD to hear how the harmonica should sound, and then play along using the separate backing tracks. The melody and lyrics are also included in the book in case you want to sing, or to simply help you follow along. The audio CD is playable on any CD player, and also enhanced so PC and Mac users can adjust the recording to any tempo without changing pitch Volume 10 includes: Baby, Scratch My Back * Eyesight to the Blind * Good Morning Little Schoolgirl * Honest I Do * I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man * My Babe * Ride and Roll * Sweet Home Chicago.

This latest entry in Backbeat's bestselling handbook series starts by exploring the humble beginnings of blues guitar through the early decades of the 20th century, including profiles of such players as Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, and Son House. As the story moves into the '40s and '50s, and blues players migrate to major urban centers, author Adam St. James follows the evolution of the music at the hands of such electric blues kingpins as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and B. B. King. Then it's the blues-rockers of the '60s, '70s, and '80s (including Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Stevie Ray Vaughan) before the story comes up to date, with blues flame-keepers such as Keb Mo' or Duke Robillard, and some not-quite-traditionalists, such as Robben Ford or Derek Trucks. A comprehensive section for mastering electric and acoustic blues follows this historic overview. Starting from the very basics, it leads you into more advanced rhythm and lead techniques before examining four key styles: acoustic blues, classic electric blues, blues rock, and jazz blues. The many exercises in the book are supported by specially recorded audio tracks accessed online using the unique code inside each book. The audio files include PLAYBACK+, a multi-functional audio player that allows you to slow down audio without changing pitch, set loop points, change keys, and pan left or right.

This text reveals how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. It aims to illuminate the distinctive creative processes that comprise improvisation. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner demonstrates that a lifetime of preparation lies behind the skilled improviser's every note. Berliner's integration of data concerning musical development, the rigorous practice and thought artists devote to jazz outside performance, and the complexities of composing in the moment leads to a new understanding of jazz improvisation as a language, an aesthetic and a tradition. The product of more than 15 years of immersion in the jazz world, "Thinking in Jazz" combines participant observation with detailed musicological analysis, the author's own experience as a jazz trumpeter, interpretations of published material by scholars and performers, and, above all, original data from interviews with more than 50 professional musicians. Together, the interviews provide insight into the production of jazz by great artists like Betty Carter, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker. "Thinking in Jazz" features musical examples from the 1920s to the present, including transcriptions (keyed to commercial recordings) of collective improvisations by Miles Davis's and John Coltrane's groups.

According to Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and the late Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy is the greatest blues guitarist of all time. An enormous influence on these musicians as well as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, he is the living embodiment of Chicago blues. Guy's epic story stands at the absolute nexus of modern blues. He came to Chicago from rural Louisiana in the fifties,the very moment when urban blues were electrifying our culture. He was a regular session player at Chess Records. Willie Dixon was his mentor. He was a sideman in the bands of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. He and Junior Wells formed a band of their own. In the sixties, he became a recording star in his own right. When I Left Home tells Guy's picaresque story in his own unique voice, that of a storyteller who remembers everything, including blues masters in their prime and the exploding, evolving culture of music that happened all around him.

Women have been at the dawn of the blues since Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey were singing about hard knocks and tough love in smoky bars. This book gives an overview of the early days of the blues and its development from the Mississippi Delta to the hometown of electric blues, Chicago, to becoming the vibrant global musical movement it is today. Features over 30 exclusive interviews with the amazing female musicians leading the Blues to new heights today. Includes selected highlights from Chicago blues photographer Jennifer Noble's extensive colour collection.

The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake (""the devil's music""), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings. In this groundbreaking study, Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as ""the crossroads"" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own.

His blistering guitar playing breathed life back into the blues. Performing night after night - from his early teens to his tragic death at age thirty-five, in tiny pass-the-hat clubs and before thousands in huge arenas - Stevie Ray Vaughan fused blazing technique with deep soul in a manner unrivaled since the days of Jimi Hendrix. The genuineness and passion of his music moved millions. It nearly saved his life. Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire is the first biography of this meteoric guitar hero. Emerging from the hotbed of Texas blues, Stevie Ray Vaughan developed his unique style early on, in competition with his older brother, Jimmie Vaughan, founder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds - a competition that shaped much of Stevie's life. Fueled by drugs and alcohol through a thousand one-night stands, he lived at a fever pitch that nearly destroyed him. Musically exhausted and close to collapse, in his final years Stevie Ray mustered the courage to overcome his addictions, finding strength and inspiration in a new emotional openness. His death in a freak helicopter crash in 1990 silenced one of the great musical talents of our time. Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire reveals Stevie Ray Vaughan's life in all its remarkable, sometimes unsavory detail. It also brings to life the rich world of Texas music out of which he grew, and captures the staggering dimensions of his musical legacy. It will stand as the definitive biographical portrait of Stevie Ray.

The Definitive Jazz & Blues Encyclopedia, now fully updated from the illustrated edition, is the ultimate guide to two musical styles that have fundamentally influenced popular music. Divided into chapters, each covering a different era, the book traces the evolution of jazz and blues from their nineteenth-century African-American origins right through to the present day. Each chapter starts with a Sounds & Sources section, looking at the key developments in the music during that period. This is followed by an A-Z of artists from that era, with more extensive entries on key artists that include recommended classic recordings. With further sections on Styles, covering everything from Ragtime to Bebop and Texas Blues to Rhythm & Blues, and more; and Instruments, all written by a team of experts, this invaluable encyclopedia is comprehensive, easy to use and highly informative.

(Guitar Play-Along). The Guitar Play-Along Series will help you play your favorite songs quickly and easily Just follow the tab, listen to the CD to hear how the guitar should sound, and then play along using the separate backing tracks. The melody and lyrics are also included in the book in case you want to sing, or to simply help you follow along. The audio CD is playable on any CD player. For PC and Mac computer users, the CD is enhanced so you can adjust the recording to any tempo without changing pitch Songs: Couldn't Stand the Weather * Empty Arms * Lenny * Little Wing * Look at Little Sister * Love Struck Baby * The Sky Is Crying * Tightrope.

John Coltrane was a key figure in jazz, a pioneer in world music, and an intensely emotional force whose following continues to grow. This new biography, the first by a professional jazz scholar and performer, presents a huge amount of never-before-published material, including interviews with Coltrane, photos, genealogical documents, and innovative musical analysis that offers a fresh view of Coltrane's genius.
Compiled from scratch with the assistance of dozens of Coltrane's colleagues, friends, and family, "John Coltrane: His Life and Music" corrects numerous errors from previous biographies. The significant people in Coltrane's life were reinterviewed, yielding new insights; some were interviewed for the first time ever.
The musical analysis, which is accessible to the nonspecialist, makes its own revelations--for example, that some of Coltrane's well-known pieces are based on previously unrecognized sources. The Appendix is the most detailed chronology of Coltrane's performing career ever compiled, listing scores of previously unknown performances from the 1940s and early 1950s.
Coltrane has become a musical inspiration for thousands of fans and musicians and a personal inspiration to as many more. For all of these, Porter's book will become the definitive resource--a reliable guide to the events of Coltrane's life and an insightful look into his musical practices.
." . . well researched, musically knowledgeable, and enormously interesting to read. Porter is a jazz scholar with deep knowledge of the tradition he is studying, both conceptually and technically." --Richard Crawford, University of Michigan
"Lewis Porter is a meticulous person with love and respect forAfro-American classical music. I applaud this definitive study of my friend John Coltrane's life adn achievements." --Jimmy Heath, jazz saxophonist, composer, educator
Lewis Porter is Associate Professor of Music, Rutgers University in Newark. A leading jazz scholar, he is the author of "Jazz Readings from a Century of Change" and coauthor of "Jazz: From Its Origins to the Present," He was a project consultant on "The Complete Atlantic Recordings of John Coltrane," which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Historical Reissue, and an editor and assisting author of the definitive Coltrane discography by Y. Fujioka.

Taking to heart Ralph Ellison's remark that much in American life is "jazz-shaped," "The Jazz Cadence of American Culture" offers a wide range of eloquent statements about the influence of this art form. Robert G. O'Meally has gathered a comprehensive collection of important essays, speeches, and interviews on the impact of jazz on other arts, on politics, and on the rhythm of everyday life. Focusing mainly on American artistic expression from 1920 to 1970, O'Meally confronts a long era of political and artistic turbulence and change in which American art forms influenced one another in unexpected ways.

Organized thematically, these provocative pieces include an essay considering poet and novelist James Weldon Johnson as a cultural critic, an interview with Wynton Marsalis, a speech on the heroic image in jazz, and a newspaper review of a recent melding of jazz music and dance, "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk." From Stanley Crouch to August Wilson to Jacqui Malone, the plurality of voices gathered here reflects the variety of expression within jazz.

The book's opening section sketches the overall place of jazz in America. Alan P. Merriam and Fradley H. Garner unpack the word "jazz" and its register, Albert Murray considers improvisation in music and life, Amiri Baraka argues that white critics misunderstand jazz, and Stanley Crouch cogently dissects the intersections of jazz and mainstream American democratic institutions. After this, the book takes an interdisciplinary approach, exploring jazz and the visual arts, dance, sports, history, memory, and literature. Ann Douglas writes on jazz's influence on the design and construction of skyscrapers in the 1920s and '30s, Zora Neale Hurston considers the significance of African-American dance, Michael Eric Dyson looks at the jazz of Michael Jordan's basketball game, and Hazel Carby takes on the sexual politics of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith's blues.

"The Jazz Cadence" offers a wealth of insight and information for scholars, students, jazz aficionados, and any reader wishing to know more about this music form that has put its stamp on American culture more profoundly than any other in the twentieth century.

(Instrumental Folio). 14 songs for clarinet, complete with a play-along CD. Includes: Bernie's Tune * Cry Me a River * Fever * Fly Me to the Moon * God Bless' the Child * Harlem Nocturne * Moonglow * A Night in Tunisia * One Note Samba * Opus One * Satin Doll * Slightly Out of Tune (Desafinado) * Take the "A" Train * Yardbird Suite.

When it was first published in 1994, King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and his Era was widely heralded not only as the most thorough investigation of Scott Joplin's life and music, but also as a gripping read, almost a detective story. This new and expanded edition-more than a third larger than the first-goes far beyond the original publication in uncovering new details of the composer's life and insights into his music. It explores Joplin's early, pre-ragtime career as a quartet singer, a period of his life that was previously unknown. The book also surveys the nature of ragtime before Joplin entered the ragtime scene and how he changed the style. Author Edward A. Berlin offers insightful commentary on each of all of Joplin's works, showing his influence on other ragtime and non-ragtime composers. He traces too Joplin's continued music studies late in life, and how these reflect his dedication to education and probably account for the radical changes that occur in his last few rags. And he puts new emphasis on Joplin's efforts in musical theater, bringing in early versions of his Ragtime Dance and its precedents. Joplin's wife Freddie is shown to be a major inspiration to his opera Treemonisha, with her family background and values being reflected in that work. Joplin's reputation faded in the 1920s-30s, but interest in his music slowly re-emerged in the 1940s and gradually built toward a spectacular revival in the 1970s, when major battles ensued for possession of rights.

An essential how-to guide for students and teachers, this publication is a complete step-by-step guide to playing jazz with confidence and style. Designed for the complete beginner, it breaks down the process of learning jazz into simple activities and contains a range of easy music examples. The accompanying CD provides examples, activities and some great trio playing to use as a backdrop to your own work. It is an indispensable companion to the ABRSM's Jazz Piano exams, with Part III dealing with the exam in detail.

The late Count Basie is one of the jazz immortals. The master of swing, whose beat was the subtlest and supplest of all the bandleaders, Basie featured some of the great soloists in jazz history while he sat unobtrusively at the piano, keeping time with his unmatched rhythm section, showing off the surging power of his brass players, and commenting wittily with a single chord or phrase. A man and musician of reserve and modesty, Basie nonetheless will always be a landmark for his won achievements and for the jazz musicians who passed through his band. In this sociable and pioneering oral history of Basie and his band, Stanley Dance talks with the Count himself, Jimmy Rushing, Buddy Tate, Buck Clayton, Joe Williams, Jay McShann, Jo Jones, Dicky Wells, Lester Young, and a dozen others, who reminisce about each other, Kansas City jazz, and their legendary peers Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker. With a rich flow of anecdote, opinion, and biographical information,and with striking photographs,this history both documents and assesses the legacy of Basie for American music.