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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Jazz
Skollie, saint, scholar, hippest of hippies, imperfect musician with a perfect imagination, Syd Kitchen was, like all great artists, born to enrich his art and not himself.
Plagued by drugs, alcohol and depression, too much of an outlaw to be embraced by record companies, he frequently sold his furniture to cover production costs of his albums, seduced fans at concerts and music festivals worldwide with his dazzling ‘Afro-Saxon’ mix of folk, jazz, blues and rock interspersed with marvellously irreverent banter, and finally became the subject of several compelling documentaries, one of which - Fool in a Bubble - premiered in New York in 2010.
Musical Echoes tells the life story of the South African jazz vocalist Sathima Bea Benjamin.
Born in Cape Town in the 1930s, Benjamin came to know American jazz and popular music through the radio, movies, records, and live stage and dance band performances. She was especially moved by the voice of Billie Holiday. In 1962 she and Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) left South Africa together
for Europe, where they met and recorded with Duke Ellington. Benjamin and Ibrahim spent their lives on the move between Europe, the United States, and South Africa until 1977, when they left Africa for New York City and declared their support for the African National Congress.
In New York, Benjamin established her own record company and recorded her music independently from Ibrahim. Musical Echoes reflects twenty years of archival research and conversation between this extraordinary jazz singer and the South African musicologist Carol Ann Muller.
The narrative of Benjamin's life and times is interspersed with Muller's reflections on the vocalist's story and its implications for jazz history.
'Jazz Survivor' tells the story of Louis Bannet, the Dutch Louis
Armstrong. Louis Bannet was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau during the
was, but his skill as a musician saved his life: he became the
'star' of the Auschwitz Orchestra, as well as the personal
bandleader for Dr Josef Mengele and the founder of the Gypsy Camp
Orchestra.
Get into the music with David Leander Williams as he charts the
rise and fall of Indiana Avenue, the Majestic Entertainment
Boulevard of Indianapolis, which produced some of the nation's most
influential jazz artists. The performance venues that once lined
the vibrant thoroughfare were an important stop on the Chitlin'
Circuit and provided platforms for greats like Freddie Hubbard and
Jimmy Coe. Through this biography of the bustling street, meet
scores of the other musicians who came to prominence in the
avenue's heyday, including trombonist J.J. Johnson and guitarist
Wes Montgomery, as well as songwriters like Noble Sissle and Leroy
Carr.
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Washington, Dc, Jazz
(Paperback)
Regennia N Williams, Sandra Butler-truesdale; Foreword by Willard Jenkins
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R609
R552
Discovery Miles 5 520
Save R57 (9%)
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Miles Davis was one of the musical giants of the twentieth century.
In a career that spanned more than five decades, Miles transformed
the face of jazz four or five times and his music resonates far
beyond the bounds of his genre. Miles made the most famous album in
the history of jazz, Kind of Blue, formed one of the greatest jazz
quintets in the 1960s and fused jazz with rock. Including unique
interviews with dozens of Miles' closest colleagues, many of whom
have never before been interviewed about their time with him, The
Last Miles concentrates on the final period of Miles' life, after
he had emerged from a five-year lay-off from the world of music.
Right up until the end of his life, he was still searching, still
exploring and still refusing to play it safe. The focus is on the
music Miles recorded and played, and how it evolved in the eyes of
the musicians he played with. Those interviewed include, George
Duke, Teo Macero, Tommy LiPuma, Marcus Miller, Darryl Jones and
Easy Mo Bee. There are also interviews with musicians who played
with Miles before the 1980s, including Dave Liebman, Pete Cosey,
Michael Henderson and Mike Zwerin, who give their own assessment of
the music Miles played during the final period of his life. Cheryl
Davies, Miles' only daughter, is also interviewed. The Last Miles
is full of fascinating new facts and stories about Miles. For the
first time, every member of the group of young musicians from
Chicago who helped bring Miles back into the music scene gives
their story. Music journalist George Cole also reveals for the
first time the full story behind a lost Miles Davis album recorded
in 1985, tells you about a song Miles co-wrote for Mick Jagger, how
he worked with Prince, and discovers new and unreleased music that
Miles recorded. If you've ever wanted to know how Miles recruited
his band members, what it was like working with Miles in the studio
or to play with him on-stage, The Last Miles has the answers. There
is at least one chapter devoted to each album that Miles recorded
during this period. Full track-by-track descriptions contain many
new and interesting tales behind the songs including how Sting came
to record on one of Miles' tracks, why Prince dropped a song slated
to appear on the Tutu album, how Gil Evans helped Miles compose
many of the tunes on the album Star People, what Splatch means and
who Ursula was.
This second updated edition of Notes from a Jazz Life includes
Digby Fairweather's career since the year 2000 as a jazz cornetist,
band leader, educator and broadcaster, working with George Melly
and leading his band the Half-Dozen. The book has much to offer to
people who are even marginally interested in jazz in all its wide
variety of forms as well as providing insights for regular jazz
readers. The author provides revealing reflections on the personal
life and career of a musician and, with a wealth of warm, hilarious
anecdotes, he writes honestly about all the challenges,
frustrations and rich rewards of being part of the jazz world.
This book is primarily concerned with the story of traditional jazz
in Edinburgh since the mid-nineteen forties; that is, traditional
jazz played in and around Edinburgh by local jazz musicians and
bands. It is not much concerned with jazz played in and around
Edinburgh by visiting bands, professional or otherwise, except in
passing and when such bands have had a marked effect on local jazz,
this being especially the case in the early years. Similarly, the
significant number of local jazz musicians who went on to become
distinguished or even famous professional players at a UK or
international level, will primarily be discussed in respect of
their careers when playing in Edinburgh in local bands, rather than
their contributions in a wider and better known context. In some
cases, the wider reputations will be covered more than adequately
in more resounding publications than this.
"Such Deliberate Disguises: The Art of Philip Larkin" argues that a
true understanding of Philip Larkin as man and poet lies beyond his
enduring public appeal and the variety of criticism that has
recently been applied to his work. Richard Palmer suggests that the
ostensible simplicity of Larkin's writing, which continues to
attract so many readers to him, is deceptive, masking as it does
one of the richest and most resonant of oeuvres in
twentieth-century poetry. Penetrating the many masks of Larkin, the
book sheds new and considerable light on the hitherto largely
ignored spiritual significance of his work. Based upon close and
scrupulous reading of the poems themselves, it draws upon insights
gained from the history of art and the study of religion and myth
as much as literary criticism and personal biography.It also brings
long-overdue attention to what is seen to be perhaps the chief
love, and operative aesthetic force, of Larkin's life: jazz. "Such
Deliberate Disguises" is thus a major contribution, not just to
Larkin studies, but to the wider cultural history of our times.
The jazz pianist discusses his life and career, from his birth in
Texas, to his rise to international fame and his involvement in
politics and business.
The revised edition of Sync or Swarm promotes an ecological view of
musicking, moving us from a subject-centered to a system-centered
view of improvisation. It explores cycles of organismic
self-regulation, cycles of sensorimotor coupling between organism
and environment, and cycles of intersubjective interaction mediated
via socio-technological networks. Chapters funnel outward, from the
solo improviser (Evan Parker), to nonlinear group dynamics (Sam
Rivers trio), to networks that comprise improvisational
communities, to pedagogical dynamics that affect how individuals
learn, completing the hermeneutic circle. Winner of the Society for
Ethnomusicology's Alan Merriam prize in its first edition, the
revised edition features new sections that highlight
electro-acoustic and transcultural improvisation, and concomitant
issues of human-machine interaction and postcolonial studies.
Embracing the entire history of jazz poetry, the work defines
this inspired literary genre as poetry necessarily informed by jazz
music. It discusses the major figures and various movements from
the racist poems of the 1920s to contemporary times when the tone
of jazz poetry experienced a dramatic change from elegy to
celebration. The jazz music of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane
transliterated into poetry by the likes of Langston Hughes and
Sterling Brown is but a part of this vital work. This unusual
volume will be of interest to scholars and students of literature,
music, American and African Studies, and popular culture as well as
anyone who enjoys jazz and poetry.
Emphasis is given to a call and response between white and
African American writers. The earliest jazz poems by white writers
from the 1920s, for example, reflected the general anxieties evoked
by jazz, particularly regarding race and sexuality, and jazz did
not fully become embraced in American verse until Langston Hughes
and Sterling Brown published their first books in 1926 and 1932,
respectively. By the 1950s, jazz poetry had become a fad, featuring
jazz and poetry in performance, and this book spends considerable
time addressing the energetic but often wildly unsuccessful work by
dominantly white, West coast writers who turned to Charlie Parker
as their hero. African American poets from the 1960s, however,
focused more on John Coltrane and interpreted his music as a
representation of the Black Civil Rights movement. Jazz poetry from
the 1970s to the present has had less to do with this call and
response between races, and the final two chapters discuss
contemporary jazz poetry in terms of its dramatic change in tone
from elegy to joy.
Keith Hatschek tells the story of three determined artists: Louis
Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Iola Brubeck and the stand they took
against segregation by writing and performing a jazz musical titled
The Real Ambassadors. First conceived by the Brubecks in 1956, the
musical's journey to the stage for its 1962 premiere tracks
extraordinary twists and turns across the backdrop of the civil
rights movement. A variety of colorful characters, from Broadway
impresarios to gang-connected managers, surface in the compelling
storyline. During the Cold War, the US State Department enlisted
some of America's greatest musicians to serve as jazz ambassadors,
touring the world to trumpet a so-called "free society." Honored as
celebrities abroad, the jazz ambassadors, who were overwhelmingly
African Americans, returned home to racial discrimination and
deferred dreams. The Brubecks used this double standard as the
central message for the musical, deploying humor and pathos to
share perspectives on American values. On September 23, 1962, The
Real Ambassadors's stunning debut moved a packed arena at the
Monterey Jazz Festival to laughter, joy, and tears. Although
critics unanimously hailed the performance, it sadly became a
footnote in cast members' bios. The enormous cost of reassembling
the star-studded cast made the creation impossible to stage and
tour. However, The Real Ambassadors: Dave and Iola Brubeck and
Louis Armstrong Challenge Segregation caps this jazz story by
detailing how the show was triumphantly revived in 2014 by Jazz at
Lincoln Center. This reaffirmed the musical's place as an integral
part of America's jazz history and served as an important reminder
of how artists' voices are a powerful force for social change.
Most die-hard Brazilian music fans would argue that Getz/Gilberto,
the iconic 1964 album featuring "The Girl from Ipanema," is not the
best bossa nova record. Yet we've all heard "The Girl from Ipanema"
as background music in a thousand anodyne settings, from cocktail
parties to telephone hold music. So how did Getz/Gilberto become
the Brazilian album known around the world, crossing generational
and demographic divides? Bryan McCann traces the history and making
of Getz/Gilberto as a musical collaboration between leading figure
of bossa nova Joao Gilberto and Philadelphia-born and New
York-raised cool jazz artist Stan Getz. McCann also reveals the
contributions of the less-understood participants (Astrud
Gilberto's unrehearsed, English-language vocals; Creed Taylor's
immaculate production; Olga Albizu's arresting,
abstract-expressionist cover art) to show how a perfect balance of
talents led to not just a great album, but a global pop sensation.
And he explains how Getz/Gilberto emerged from the context of Bossa
Nova Rio de Janeiro, the brief period when the subtle harmonies and
aching melodies of bossa nova seemed to distill the spirit of a
modernizing, sensuous city. 33 1/3 Global, a series related to but
independent from 33 1/3, takes the format of the original series of
short, music-based books and brings the focus to music throughout
the world. With initial volumes focusing on Japanese and Brazilian
music, the series will also include volumes on the popular music of
Australia/Oceania, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and more.
""Is there jazz in China?"" This is the question that sent author
Eugene Marlow on his quest to uncover the history of jazz in China.
Marlow traces China's introduction to jazz in the early 1920s, its
interruption by Chinese leadership under Mao in 1949, and its
rejuvenation in the early 1980s with the start of China's opening
to the world under Premier Deng Xiaoping. Covering a span of almost
one hundred years, Marlow focuses on a variety of subjects--the
musicians who initiated jazz performances in China, the means by
which jazz was incorporated into Chinese culture, and the musicians
and venues that now present jazz performances. Featuring unique,
face-to-face interviews with leading indigenous jazz musicians in
Beijing and Shanghai, plus interviews with club owners, promoters,
expatriates, and even diplomats, Marlow marks the evolution of jazz
in China as it parallels China's social, economic, and political
evolution through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.
Also featured is an interview with one of the extant members of the
Jimmy King Big Band of the 1940s, one of the first major
all-Chinese jazz big bands in Shanghai. Ultimately, Jazz in China:
From Dance Hall Music to Individual Freedom of Expression is a
cultural history that reveals the inexorable evolution of a
democratic form of music in a Communist state.
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