Those who have lived - not just witnessed - the efflorescence of a pivotal culture moment never see the world through veiled eyes again. Jimmy Lyons was there, devising wholly original inventions of words and music while the Beats, the neo-folk troubadours, the post-bop jazz shooting stars, and the tie-dyed psychedelic rockers were scorching through the underbrush and opening new paths of creativity as alternatives to the increasingly bottom line-driven mainstream. Lyons, though, wasn't content to find a niche in one countercultural movement or another. He kept moving, observing, and writing new poems, stories, and songs. But he never gave up on the wry sophistication of the classic American popular song. Indeed, he has dedicated himself to infusing the same hallowed forms perfected by Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, and others, with his singular fantasias of ingeniously colored and textured wordplay.

These plays have a subtext only Lyons can provide, derived from what he calls the "rituals of the road" and the "the circular rhythms" of the race track, the beats and pulses of everyday American life that rarely raise a ripple on the surface of American culture. Lyons hears the screams and dreams of his countrymen and woman; from them he creates new modes of expression. He has been changed by each of his open-hearted an open-eared encounters, and this body of work is his way of making those changes sing and swing. - Derk Richardson

Ken Prouty argues that knowledge of jazz, or more to the point, claims to knowledge of jazz, are the prime movers in forming jazz's identity, its canon, and its community. Every jazz artist, critic, or fan understands jazz differently, based on each individual's unique experiences and insights. Through playing, listening, reading, and talking about jazz, both as a form of musical expression and as a marker of identity, each aficionado develops a personalized relationship to the larger jazz world. Through the increasingly important role of media, listeners also engage in the formation of different communities that transcend not only traditional boundaries of geography, but increasingly exist only in the virtual world.

The relationships of "jazz people" within and between these communities is at the center of "Knowing Jazz." Some communities, such as those in academia, reflect a clash of sensibilities between historical traditions. Others, particularly those who inhabit cyberspace, represent new and exciting avenues for everyday fans, whose involvement in jazz has often been ignored. Other communities seek to define themselves as expressions of national or global sensibility, pointing to the ever-changing nature of jazz's identity as an American art form in an international setting. What all these communities share, however, is an intimate, visceral link to the music and the artists who make it, brought to life through the medium of recording. Informed by an interdisciplinary approach and approaching the topic from a number of perspectives, "Knowing Jazz" charts a philosophical course in which many disparate perspectives and varied opinions on jazz can find common ground.

As a thesaurus of chordal options available to the comping jazz guitarist, this book is an in-depth study of optimum voice leading motions using drop-2 and drop-3 voicings for the variations on the ubiquitous major and minor II-V-I progressions - yielding fluid and cohesive accompaniments.

There are three fundamentals to any great solo: Chords, Scales, and Tone Selection. Learn to use the fundamentals as your three-step approach to jazz improvisation. Over 80 images for Treble and Bass Clef. This book is perfect for beginners, struggling intermediates, and jazz instructors requiring a concise method for students. Simple enough for immediate results, this method can be applied to any style, from the easiest inside harmonies, to the most advanced outside substitutions. While other methods teach patterns and riffs, this book reveals how those patterns and riffs get created in the first place. All images in this edition are monochrome (black and white).

"Modern Jazz Guitar Ensemble" Vol. 1 is a collection of four original compositions arranged for five guitars, bass, and drums. The arrangements range in style from swing, rock, 3/4, and straight eighth. The arrangements feature chromatic melodies and modern chord voicings that create a contemporary new sound for the jazz guitar ensemble. Each chart provides many opportunities for all the players in the ensemble to solo. The arrangements in this book are ideally suited for the intermediate/advanced level guitar ensemble. For audio and video samples of the charts visit www.nickfryermusic.com

Wilbur C. Sweatman (1882-1961) is one of the most important, yet unheralded, African American musicians involved in the transition of ragtime into jazz in the early twentieth century. In "That's Got 'Em ," Mark Berresford tracks this energetic pioneer over a seven-decade career. His talent transformed every genre of black music before the advent of rock and roll--"pickaninny" bands, minstrelsy, circus sideshows, vaudeville (both black and white), night clubs, and cabarets. Sweatman was the first African American musician to be offered a long-term recording contract, and he dazzled listeners with jazz clarinet solos before the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's so-called "first jazz records."

Sweatman toured the vaudeville circuit for over twenty years and presented African American music to white music lovers without resorting to the hitherto obligatory "plantation" costumes and blackface makeup. His bands were a fertile breeding ground of young jazz talent, featuring such future stars as Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, and Jimmie Lunceford. Sweatman subsequently played pioneering roles in radio and recording production. His high profile and sterling reputation in both the black and white entertainment communities made him a natural choice for administering the estate of Scott Joplin and other notable black performers and composers.

"That's Got 'Em " is the first full-length biography of this pivotal figure in black popular culture, providing a compelling account of his life and times.

Cross-Rhythms investigates the literary uses and effects of blues and jazz in African-American literature of the twentieth century. Texts by James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Gayl Jones, Toni Morrison and Ishmael Reed variously adopt or are consciously informed by a jazz aesthetic; this aesthetic becomes part of a strategy of ethnic identification and provides a medium with which to consider the legacy of trauma in African-American history. These diverse writers are all thoroughly immersed in a socio-cultural context and a literary aesthetic that embodies shifting conceptions of ethnic identity across the twentieth century. The emergence of blues and jazz is, likewise, a crucial product of, as well as catalyst for, this context, and in their own aesthetic explorations of notions of ethnicity these writers consciously engage with this musical milieu. By examining the highly varied manifestations of a jazz aesthetic as possibly the fundamental common denominator which links these writers, this study attempts to identify an underlying unifying principle. As the different writers write against essentializing or organic categories of race, the very fact of a shared engagement with jazz sensibilities in their work redefines the basis of African-American communal identity.

In "People Get Ready," musicians, scholars, and journalists write about jazz since 1965, the year that Curtis Mayfield composed the famous civil rights anthem that gives this collection its title. The contributors emphasize how the political consciousness that infused jazz in the 1960s and early 1970s has informed jazz in the years since then. They bring nuance to historical accounts of the avant-garde, the New Thing, Free Jazz, "non-idiomatic" improvisation, fusion, and other forms of jazz that have flourished since the 1960s, and they reveal the contemporary relevance of those musical practices. Many of the participants in the jazz scenes discussed are still active performers. A photographic essay captures some of them in candid moments before performances. Other pieces revise standard accounts of well-known jazz figures, such as Duke Ellington, and lesser-known musicians, including Jeanne Lee; delve into how money, class, space, and economics affect the performance of experimental music; and take up the question of how digital technology influences improvisation. "People Get Ready" offers a vision for the future of jazz based on an appreciation of the complexity of its past and the abundance of innovation in the present.
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Contributors." Tamar Barzel, John Brackett, Douglas Ewart, Ajay Heble, Vijay Iyer, Thomas King, Tracy McMullen, Paul D. Miller/DJ Spooky, Nicole Mitchell, Roscoe Mitchell, Famoudou Don Moye, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Eric Porter, Marc Ribot, Matana Roberts, Jaribu Shahid, Julie Dawn Smith, Wadada Leo Smith, Alan Stanbridge, John Szwed, Greg Tate, Scott Thomson, Rob Wallace, Ellen Waterman, Corey Wilkes

In "People Get Ready," musicians, scholars, and journalists write about jazz since 1965, the year that Curtis Mayfield composed the famous civil rights anthem that gives this collection its title. The contributors emphasize how the political consciousness that infused jazz in the 1960s and early 1970s has informed jazz in the years since then. They bring nuance to historical accounts of the avant-garde, the New Thing, Free Jazz, "non-idiomatic" improvisation, fusion, and other forms of jazz that have flourished since the 1960s, and they reveal the contemporary relevance of those musical practices. Many of the participants in the jazz scenes discussed are still active performers. A photographic essay captures some of them in candid moments before performances. Other pieces revise standard accounts of well-known jazz figures, such as Duke Ellington, and lesser-known musicians, including Jeanne Lee; delve into how money, class, space, and economics affect the performance of experimental music; and take up the question of how digital technology influences improvisation. "People Get Ready" offers a vision for the future of jazz based on an appreciation of the complexity of its past and the abundance of innovation in the present.
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Contributors." Tamar Barzel, John Brackett, Douglas Ewart, Ajay Heble, Vijay Iyer, Thomas King, Tracy McMullen, Paul D. Miller/DJ Spooky, Nicole Mitchell, Roscoe Mitchell, Famoudou Don Moye, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Eric Porter, Marc Ribot, Matana Roberts, Jaribu Shahid, Julie Dawn Smith, Wadada Leo Smith, Alan Stanbridge, John Szwed, Greg Tate, Scott Thomson, Rob Wallace, Ellen Waterman, Corey Wilkes

In the late nineteenth century, black musicians in the lower Mississippi Valley, chafing under the social, legal, and economic restrictions of Jim Crow, responded with a new musical form the blues. In Jim Crow s Counterculture, R. A. Lawson offers a cultural history of blues musicians in the segregation era, explaining how by both accommodating and resisting Jim Crow life, blues musicians created a counterculture to incubate and nurture ideas of black individuality and citizenship. These individuals, Lawson shows, collectively demonstrate the African American struggle during the early twentieth century. Derived from the music of the black working class and popularized by commercially successful songwriter W. C. Handy, early blues provided a counterpoint to white supremacy by focusing on an anti-work ethic that promoted a culture of individual escapism even hedonism and by celebrating the very culture of sex, drugs, and violence that whites feared. According to Lawson, blues musicians such as Charley Patton and Muddy Waters drew on traditions of southern black music, including call and response forms, but they didn t merely sing of a folk past. Instead, musicians saw blues as a way out of economic subservience. Lawson chronicles the major historical developments that changed the Jim Crow South and thus the attitudes of the working-class blacks who labored in that society. The Great Migration, the Great Depression and New Deal, and two World Wars, he explains, shaped a new consciousness among southern blacks as they moved north, fought overseas, and gained better-paid employment. The me -centered mentality of the early blues musicians increasingly became we -centered as these musicians sought to enter mainstream American life by promoting hard work and patriotism. Originally drawing the attention of only a few folklorists and music promoters, popular black musicians in the 1940s such as Huddie Ledbetter and Big Bill Broonzy played music that increasingly reached across racial lines, and in the process gained what segregationists had attempted to deny them: the identity of American citizenship. By uncovering the stories of artists who expressed much in their music but left little record in traditional historical sources, Jim Crow s Counterculture offers a fresh perspective on the historical experiences of black Americans and provides a new understanding of the blues: a shared music that offered a message of personal freedom to repressed citizens.

Structured to accommodate the three most-prevalent avenues of learning: A) In the classroom: as a text book resource for a three-year course of study when used with the included student practice assignments. Year 1 - Embracing all the essential materials leading up to the construction, and use of four-part chords with accompanying exercises. Year 2 - Coverage of core subjects, plus the construction and use of chords up to and including seven-part chords, with accompanying examples and exercises. Year 3 - The study of melodic inharmonics, substitute and chromatic chords, with guidance on how to recognize and use them. A further section focuses on harmonic and melodic analysis of tunes, with exercises and examples. B) Private instruction: the "one-on-one" teacher-pupil relationship which forms the second avenue of learning. Private teachers with aspiring jazz students will find this text provides key information in an easily understood and logical progression which eliminates the "skip and jump" method of teaching. The teacher will easily be able to guide the student, providing practice work and tunes that demonstrate the course of study. C) Self-education: at last a text book, that is useful as a course of self-study in jazz. The book will develop, in the student, an orderly step-by-step understanding of the theory of jazz and jazz improvisation. Student exercises included with this book are written for all instruments ("C," "Bb," and "Eb") to provide meaningful examples and practice assignments for each topic covered in The Art of Jazz Improvisation For All Instruments. About the Author Lloyd Abrams began playing professionally while in High School. To pursue additional theoretical and technical knowledge, he later moved to Toronto where he spent three years at the Toronto Conservatory of Music in the study of Jazz Theory, Composition and Orchestration with the eminent Gordon Delamont, and classical piano with John Covert. Working gigs with various groups in the region helped pay the bills. To further his professional knowledge and experience, Lloyd moved to Hollywood California in 1959, where he continued his Theory and Piano studies with Dick Grove. After three years he returned home to continue playing and to pursue a teaching career. In 1964 he was invited to form an all-star band comprised of music students from local high schools. In successive years the band was invited to stage performances at school concerts and teacher conventions. The band project has been recognized as instrumental in exposing educators to the Jazz idiom, and introducing the study of jazz into regional school musical programs. Retired from professional performance since the mid 1980's Lloyd has turned his full attention to education of the individual performer. His pupils and graduate pupils are performing professionally as studio musicians, entertainers, and as educators, working in North America, Europe and Asia. Publisher's Website: http://SBPRA.com/LloydAbrams

Koop Kooper, the Cocktail universe's high priest of all things hep, swinging, and swank, and cyber disc-jockey of his radio show, "The Cocktail Nation," has unleashed the definitive guide to the Lounge universe. Replete with gassin interviews and cool pixeramas, he reveals the incredible diorama of Cocktail culture, lifestyle, and music. Koop mixes it up with cool luminaries and pioneers of the Cocktail soundtrack, such as hepster Jack Constanzo, the bongo player of the 1950s, shakes a martini with the leaders of the revival Combustible Edison, trades smart lip with comedian satirist Shelley Berman and 21st century hit-makers Martini Kings, heads down the dark streets of Cocktail noir, muscling it up with croonoir Jimmy Vargas, then it's off to the Vegas pool, where he conducts an underwater interview with gorgeous fire-eating mermaid Marina. Koop Kooper's Cocktail Nation book is a glorious panorama of all things Lounge, created by the swank meister of uber cool himself.

(Book). Cannonball Adderley introduces his 1967 recording of "Walk Tall," by saying, "There are times when things don't lay the way they're supposed to lay. But regardless, you're supposed to hold your head up high and walk tall." This sums up the life of Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, a man who used a gargantuan technique on the alto saxophone, pride in heritage, devotion to educating youngsters, and insatiable musical curiosity to bridge gaps between jazz and popular music in the 1960s and '70s. His career began in 1955 with a Cinderella-like cameo in a New York nightclub, resulting in the jazz world's looking to him as "the New Bird," the successor to the late Charlie Parker. But Adderley refused to be typecast. His work with Miles Davis on the landmark Kind of Blue album helped further his reputation as a unique stylist, but Adderley's greatest fame came with his own quintet's breakthrough engagement at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop in 1959, which launched the popularization of soul jazz in the 1960s. With his loyal brother Nat by his side, along with stellar sidemen, such as keyboardist Joe Zawinul, Adderley used an engaging, erudite personality as only Duke Ellington had done before him. All this and more are captured in this engaging read by author Cary Ginell. "Hipness is not a state of mind, it is a fact of life." Cannonball Adderley

The coal fields of West Virginia would seem an unlikely market for big band jazz during the Great Depression. That a prosperous African American audience dominated by those involved with the coal industry was there for jazz tours would seem equally improbable. "Big Band Jazz in Black West Virginia, 1930-1942" shows that, contrary to expectations, black Mountaineers flocked to dances by the hundreds, in many instances traveling considerable distances to hear bands led by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Andy Kirk, Jimmie Lunceford, and Chick Webb, among numerous others. Indeed, as one musician who toured the state would recall, "All the bands were goin' to West Virginia."

The comparative prosperity of the coal miners, thanks to New Deal industrial policies, was what attracted the bands to the state. This study discusses that prosperity as well as the larger political environment that provided black Mountaineers with a degree of autonomy not experienced further south. Author Christopher Wilkinson demonstrates the importance of radio and the black press both in introducing this music and in keeping black West Virginians up to date with its latest developments. The book explores connections between local entrepreneurs who staged the dances and the national management of the bands that played those engagements. In analyzing black audiences' aesthetic preferences, the author reveals that many black West Virginians preferred dancing to a variety of music, not just jazz. Finally, the book shows bands now associated almost exclusively with jazz were more than willing to satisfy those audience preferences with arrangements in other styles of dance music.

There has always been more to music in Boston than the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Jazz, for example, dates to the early 1900s, but it was in the 1940s and 1950s that it truly sparkled. The Boston Jazz Chronicles: Faces, Places, and Nightlife 1937-1962 is the first book to document that city's active jazz scene at mid-century.

Boston jazz came into its own during the World War II years, when the big bands supplied America with its popular music, and Boston's Charlie and Cy Shribman were among the kingmakers of the big-band era. The city produced such talents as pianist and bandleader Sabby Lewis, the multi-instrumentalist Ray Perry, and bassist Lloyd Trotman. The scene benefited from the extended wartime presence of established stars, including trumpeter Frankie Newton and trombonist Vic Dickenson, and from the start of a Sunday afternoon jam session tradition that brought the nation's best jazzmen into regular contact with local players. There were opportunities for musicians, particularly young musicians, to gain valuable experience by filling in for the older men serving in the military.

The end of the war introduced new jazz sounds to Boston, and reintroduced a few older ones as well. Alongside those musicians like Lewis still playing swing, there were others looking to the past for inspiration, sparking a Dixieland revival, and still others looking forward, spreading the new sound of bebop. There were big-band survivors in downsized groups playing jump blues, and others organizing new big bands along modern lines.

The end of the war also brought a surge of talented musicians, many of them veterans and beneficiaries of the GI Bill. They were attracted by the city's music conservatories and the new Schillinger House, soon to be renamed the Berklee School of Music. Boston became a destination for musicians seeking new musical direction. Here they joined with Boston's own contingent of formidable musicians to form a new, more modern scene, led by such luminaries as Jaki Byard, Joe Gordon, Nat Pierce, Charlie Mariano, Herb Pomeroy, Sam Rivers, Alan Dawson, and Dick Twardzik. They would carry Boston jazz to a creative peak in the mid-to-late 1950s that still remains unequaled.

The music was splendid, but there was more. Boston was home to influential jazz journalists George Frazier and Nat Hentoff; Berklee College of Music founder Lawrence Berk; Father Norman O'Connor, the Jazz Priest; record company executive and producer Tom Wilson; and Storyville nightclub proprietor George Wein, organizer of the Newport Jazz Festival. And through it all was the music, at the Ken Club, the Savoy Cafe, the Hi-Hat, the Stable, and other rooms both rowdy and refined.

The Boston Jazz Chronicles relates this story in reportage and personal anecdotes, and through dozens of photographs, advertisements, and period maps. This complete study also includes extensive notes, a bibliography, discography, and comprehensive index.

Author Richard Vacca is a Boston-based technical writer and editor with a lifelong interest in cultural history, and a regular presenter on the topic of Boston jazz and nightlife. He spent seven years researching and assembling these chronicles.

The commercial explosion of ragtime in the early twentieth century created previously unimagined opportunities for black performers. However, every prospect was mitigated by systemic racism. The biggest hits of the ragtime era weren't Scott Joplin's stately piano rags. "Coon songs," with their ugly name, defined ragtime for the masses, and played a transitional role in the commercial ascendancy of blues and jazz.In "Ragged but Right," now in paperback, Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff investigate black musical comedy productions, sideshow bands, and itinerant tented minstrel shows. Ragtime history is crowned by the "big shows," the stunning musical comedy successes of Williams and Walker, Bob Cole, and Ernest Hogan. Under the big tent of Tolliver's Smart Set, Ma Rainey, Clara Smith, and others were converted from "coon shouters" to "blues singers."Throughout the ragtime era and into the era of blues and jazz, circuses and Wild West shows exploited the popular demand for black music and culture, yet segregated and subordinated black performers to the sideshow tent. Not to be confused with their nineteenth-century white predecessors, black, tented minstrel shows such as the Rabbit's Foot and "Silas Green from New Orleans" provided blues and jazz-heavy vernacular entertainment that black southern audiences identified with and took pride in.

A method of learning jazz chords for mandolin players. Starts with swing and goes through modern jazz, showing chords and voicings that work with all.

A Living Jazz Legend, musician and composer David Baker has made a distinctive mark on the world of music in his nearly 60-year career as player (chiefly on trombone and cello), composer, and educator. In this richly illustrated volume, Monika Herzig explores Baker s artistic legacy, from his days as a jazz musician in Indianapolis to his long-term gig as Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the Jazz Studies department at Indiana University. Baker s credits are striking: in the 1960s he was a member of George Russell s "out there" sextet and orchestra; by the 1980s he was in the jazz educator s hall of fame. His compositions have been recorded by performers as diverse as Dexter Gordon and Janos Starker, the Beaux Arts Trio, the Composer s String Quartet and the Czech Philharmonic. Featuring enlightening interviews with Baker and a CD of unreleased recordings and Baker compositions, this book brings a jazz legend into clear view."

Standard Lines, Book III in the Constructing Walking Jazz Bass Lines series for the Double Bassist and Electric Bassist is a comprehensive guide demonstrating the devices used to construct walking jazz bass lines in the jazz standard tradition. Book III covers 24 standard jazz chord progressions with 110 choruses of professional jazz bass lines as an example. Part I outlines the Modes and the chord scale relationships and the fundamental knowledge required to be able to build the diatonic triads and 7th chords in any key. Examples are given in the " 2 " feel and " 4 " feel walking bass style enabling the bassist to develop a strong rhythmic and harmonic foundation. More advanced bass line construction examples including voice leading and mode substitutions and mode applications related to specific jazz chord progressions are also outlined. Part II outlines the Symmetric Scales as well as the Modes of the Melodic Minor Scale related to the Minor II V I progression. Provided are written examples of the Symmetric Scales and the chord scale relationships and how to apply the use of the Symmetric Scales over popular jazz chord progressions. The Minor II V I is outlined and compared to the Major II V I outlining the differences with the suggested scale uses applied to common jazz chord progressions. Part III outlines the use of the BeBop Scales and their use in the jazz walking bass tradition, providing suggested uses of the Be Bop scales related to popular jazz chord progressions. Part IV outlines the previous lesson devices and concepts with examples of professional level bass lines over standard jazz chord progressions. All information builds in a stepwise progression enabling the bassist to apply the techniques in all 12 keys.

Standard Lines Book III in the Constructing Walking Jazz Bass Lines series for the Electric Bassist is a comprehensive guide demonstrating the devices used to construct walking jazz bass lines in the jazz standard tradition. Book III covers 24 standard jazz chord progressions with 110 choruses of professional jazz bass lines as an example. Part I outlines the Modes and the chord scale relationships and the fundamental knowledge required to be able to build the diatonic triads and 7th chords in any key. Examples are given in the " 2 " feel and " 4 " feel walking bass style enabling the bassist to develop a strong rhythmic and harmonic foundation. More advanced bass line construction examples including voice leading and mode substitutions and mode applications related to specific jazz chord progressions are also outlined. Part II outlines the Symmetric Scales as well as the Modes of the Melodic Minor Scale related to the Minor II V I progression. Provided are written examples of the Symmetric Scales and the chord scale relationships and how to apply the use of the Symmetric Scales over popular jazz chord progressions. The Minor II V I is outlined and compared to the Major II V I outlining the differences with the suggested scale uses applied to common jazz chord progressions. Part III outlines the use of the BeBop Scales and their use in the jazz walking bass tradition, providing suggested uses of the Be Bop scales related to popular jazz chord progressions. Part IV outlines the previous lesson devices and concepts with examples of professional level bass lines over standard jazz chord progressions. All information builds in a stepwise progression enabling the bassist to apply the techniques in all 12 keys.