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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Jazz
Just after World War I, jazz began a journey along America's waterways from its birthplace in New Orleans. For the first time in any organized way, steam-driven boats left town during the summer months to travel up the Mississippi River, bringing this exotic new music to the rest of the nation. In Jazz on the River, William Howland Kenney brings to life the vibrant history of this music and its newfound mainstream popularity among the American people. Here for the first time readers can learn about the lives and music of the levee roustabouts promoting riverboat jazz and their relationships with such great early jazz adventurers as Louis Armstrong, Fate Marable, Warren "Baby" Dodds, and Jess Stacy. Kenney follows the boats from Memphis to St. Louis, where new styles of jazz were soon produced, all the way up the Ohio River, where the music captivated audiences in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Jazz on the River concludes with the story of the decline of the old paddle wheelers - and thus riverboat jazz - on the inland waterways after World War II. The enduring silence of our rivers, Kenney argues, reminds us of the loss of such a distinctive musical tradition. But riverboat jazz still lives on in myriad permutations, each one in tune with its own time.
The Jazz Sax Collection (Alto/Baritone Saxophone) is an unmissable selection of authentic jazz, written and arranged by professional jazz saxophonist Ned Bennett for Intermediate to Advanced-level players (approximately Grade 4 to 7). It includes accompanied and unaccompanied pieces, featuring well-known jazz standards, with opportunities for improvisation within selected pieces, together with performance notes and listening suggestions. Audio demo and backing tracks of all the pieces will be available online at fabermusicstore.com/jazzsaxcollection.
Jazz Theory Workbook accompanies the second edition of the successful Jazz Theory-From Basic to Advanced Study textbook designed for undergraduate and graduate students studying jazz. The overall pedagogy bridges theory and practice, combining theory, aural skills, keyboard skills, and improvisation into a comprehensive whole. While the Companion Website for the textbook features aural and play-along exercises, along with some written exercises and the answer key, this workbook contains brand-new written exercises, as well as as well as four appendices: (1) Rhythmic Exercises, (2) Common-Practice Harmony at the Keyboard, (3) Jazz Harmony at the Keyboard, and (4) Patterns for Jazz Improvisaton. Jazz Theory Workbook works in tandem with its associated textbook in the same format as the 27-chapter book, yet is also designed to be used on its own, providing students and readers with quick access to all relevant exercises without the need to download or print pages that inevitably must be written out. The workbook is sold both on its own as well as discounted in a package with the textbook. Jazz Theory Workbook particularly serves the ever-increasing population of classical students interested in jazz theory or improvisation. This WORKBOOK is available for individual sale in various formats: Print Paperback: 9781138334250 Print Hardback: 9781138334243 eBook: 9780429445477 The paperback WORKBOOK is also paired with the corresponding paperback TEXTBOOK in a discounted PACKAGE (9780367321963).
**As featured on Barack Obama's Summer 2022 Reading List** Winner of the Gordon Burn Prize Winner of the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist for the Pen/Diamonstein-Spievogel Award for the Art of the Essay Shortlisted for the National Book Award 'Gorgeous' - Brit Bennett 'Pure genius' - Jacqueline Woodson 'One of the most dynamic books I have ever read' - Clint Smith At the March on Washington, Josephine Baker reflected on her life and her legacy. She had spent decades as one of the most successful entertainers in the world, but, she told the crowd, "I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too". Inspired by these words, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a stirring meditation on Black performance in the modern age, in which culture, history and his own lived experience collide. With sharp insight, humour and heart, Abdurraqib explores a sequence of iconic and intimate performances that take him from mid-century Paris to the moon -- and back down again, to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio. Each one, he shows, has layers of resonance across Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and his own personal history of love and grief -- whether it's the twenty-seven seconds of 'Gimme Shelter' in which Merry Clayton sings, or the magnificent hours of Aretha Franklin's homegoing; Beyonce's Super Bowl show or a schoolyard fistfight; Dave Chapelle's skits or a game of spades among friends.
"Why Jazz Happened" is the first comprehensive social history of jazz. It provides an intimate and compelling look at the many forces that shaped this most American of art forms and the many influences that gave rise to jazz's post-war styles. Rich with the voices of musicians, producers, promoters, and others on the scene during the decades following World War II, this book views jazz's evolution through the prism of technological advances, social transformations, changes in the law, economic trends, and much more. In an absorbing narrative enlivened by the commentary of key personalities, Marc Myers describes the myriad of events and trends that affected the music's evolution, among them, the American Federation of Musicians strike in the early 1940s, changes in radio and concert-promotion, the introduction of the long-playing record, the suburbanization of Los Angeles, the Civil Rights movement, the "British invasion" and the rise of electronic instruments. This groundbreaking book deepens our appreciation of this music by identifying many of the developments outside of jazz itself that contributed most to its texture, complexity, and growth.
What, where, and when is jazz? To most of us jazz means small combos, made up mostly of men, performing improvisationally in urban club venues. But jazz has been through many changes in the decades since World War II, emerging in unexpected places and incorporating a wide range of new styles. In this engrossing new book, David Ake expands on the discussion he began in "Jazz Cultures," lending his engaging, thoughtful, and stimulating perspective to post-1940s jazz. Ake investigates such issues as improvisational analysis, pedagogy, American exceptionalism, and sense of place in jazz. He uses provocative case studies to illustrate how some of the values ascribed to the postwar jazz culture are reflected in and fundamentally shaped by aspects of sound, location, and time.
Through both personal stories and stunning photographs captured behind the scenesincluding scores of images never before publishedlose yourself in this bygone era of jazz that celebrates dozens of the most recognized and formidable jazz artists spanning three decades. As a freelance jazz photojournalist who devoted nearly thirty years in search of the great jazz musicians, Veryl Oakland profiles the musics masters in a wide variety of settingsunder the spotlight, in their homes, and far from the stagein a personalized manner unique for jazz publications. Close followers of the entertainment industry and music lovers everywhere will be enthralled to see more than 340 iconic images of diverse starsDuke Ellington, Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Stan Getz, Phil Woods, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley, Weather Report, and Wynton Marsaliscovering music styles from swing, to bebop, cool, hard bop, free, and beyond.
An intimate look at the legendary Frank Sinatra by one of his closest friends. Not many people were allowed inside Frank Sinatra's inner circle. But Tony Consiglio was a boyhood friend of Sinatra's who remained his friend and confidant for over sixty years. One reason Sinatra valued Tony's friendship is that he could be trusted: Sinatra nicknamed him "the Clam" because Tony never spoke to reporters or biographers about the singer. From the early days when Sinatra was trying to establish himself as a singer to the mid-1960s, Tony worked with Sinatra and was there to share in the highs and lows of Sinatra's life and career. Tony was with Sinatra during his "bobby-soxer" megastar days in the 1940s, and he remained loyal to Sinatra during the lean years of the early 1950s, when "the Voice" was struggling with a crumbling singing and acting career-as well as his tumultuous marriage to Ava Gardner. Tony also had a front row seat to Sinatra's comeback in the 1950s, starting with his Academy Award-winning role in From Here to Eternity and a string of now-classic hit recordings. Tony's friendship with Sinatra allowed him to rub elbows with the Hollywood elite, including Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Kim Novak, Ava Gardner, and many others. It also brought him close to the political world of the early 1960s, when Sinatra campaigned for John F. Kennedy and then helped plan the Kennedy inauguration. Tony was even at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts, when the election results came in. Sinatra and Me will shed new light on the real Frank Sinatra-from the man who knew him better than anyone.
This is the first comprehensive treatment of the remarkable music and influence of Carla Bley, a highly innovative American jazz composer, pianist, organist, band leader, and activist. With fastidious attention to Bley's diverse compositions over the last fifty years spanning critical moments in jazz and experimental music history, Amy C. Beal tenders a long-overdue representation of a major figure in American music. Best known for her jazz opera "Escalator over the Hill," her role in the Free Jazz movement of the 1960s, and her collaborations with artists such as Jack Bruce, Don Cherry, Robert Wyatt, and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, Bley has successfully maneuvered the field of jazz from highly accessible, tradition-based contexts to commercially unviable, avant-garde works. Beal details the staggering variety in Bley's work as well as her use of parody, quotations, and contradictions, examining the vocabulary Bley has developed throughout her career and highlighting the compositional and cultural significance of her experimentalism. Beal also points to Bley's professional and managerial work as a pioneer in the development of artist-owned record labels, the cofounder and manager of WATT Records, and the cofounder of New Music Distribution Service. Showing her to be not just an artist but an activist who has maintained musical independence and professional control amid the profit-driven, corporation-dominated world of commercial jazz, Beal's straightforward discussion of Bley's life and career will stimulate deeper examinations of her work.
Hurricane Katrina threatened to wash away the history of an
incomparable, culturally vibrant American city, while the aftermath
exposed New Orleans' ugly, deeply rooted racial divisions.
"Subversive Sounds," Charles Hersch's study of the role of race in
the origins of jazz, probes both sides of the city's heritage,
uncovering a web of racial interconnections and animosities that
was instrumental to the creation of a vital art form.
American cinema has long been fascinated by jazz and jazz
musicians. Yet most jazz films aren't really about jazz. Rather, as
Krin Gabbard shows, they create images of racial and sexual
identity, many of which have become inseparable from popular
notions of the music itself. In "Jammin' at the Margins, " Gabbard
scrutinizes these films, exploring the fundamental obsessions that
American culture has brought to jazz in the cinema.
Johnny Griffin, the Little Giant from the South Side of Chicago, has remained a top jazz saxophonist throughout his 62-year playing career. He has spent 42 years in Europe and is recognized internationally as a major jazz star with a readily identifiable style, an immense improvisational flair and an unfailing capacity to swing. As jazz writer Brian Priestley has observed: Griffin is one of the fastest and most accurate ever on his instrument. Griffin is an articulate, witty and entertaining conversationalist with an unending flow of anecdotal reminiscences about his days with Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, the Clarke Boland Big Band and the variety of small groups he has fronted over the years. The Little Giant is a light-hearted, irreverent and uninhibited look at the life of one of the most consummate musicians in jazz. Author Mike Hennessey is a jazz critic, producer, broadcaster and pianist. Other books by him include a biography of the late drummer, Kenny Clarke, Klook, and a history of Ronnie Scott's Club, Some of My Best Friends Are Blues. He has covered the international music scene for Billboard magazine for 27 years and he has written more than 500 album notes and hundreds of articles for a wide range of jazz magazines in North America and Europe."
Hailed by corporate, philanthropic, and governmental organizations as a metaphor for democratic interaction and business dynamics, contemporary jazz culture has a story to tell about the relationship between political economy and social practice in the era of neoliberal capitalism. The Jazz Bubble approaches the emergence of the neoclassical jazz aesthetic since the 1980s as a powerful, if unexpected, point of departure for a wide-ranging investigation of important social trends during this period, extending from the effects of financialization in the music industry to the structural upheaval created by urban redevelopment in major American cities. Dale Chapman draws from political and critical theory, oral history, and the public and trade press, making this a persuasive and compelling work for scholars across music, industry, and cultural studies.
With Hit Me, Fred, sensational sideman Fred Wesley Jr. moves front and center to tell his life story. A legendary funk, soul, and jazz musician, Wesley is best known for his work in the late sixties and early seventies with James Brown and as the leader of Brown's band, Fred Wesley and the JB's. Having been the band's music director, arranger, trombone player, and frequent composer, Wesley is one of the original architects of funk music. He describes what it was like working for the Godfather of Soul, revealing the struggle and sometimes stringent discipline behind Brown's tight, raucous tunes. After leaving Brown and the JB's, Wesley arranged the horn sections for Parliament, Funkadelic, and Bootsy's Rubber Band, and led Fred Wesley and the Horny Horns. Adding his signature horn arrangements to the P-Funk mix, Wesley made funk music even funkier. Wesley's distinctive sound reverberates through rap and hip-hop music today. In Hit Me, Fred, he recalls the many musicians whose influence he absorbed, beginning with his grandmother and father-both music teachers-and including mentors in his southern Alabama hometown and members of the Army band. In addition to the skills he developed working with James Brown, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and the many talented musicians in their milieu, Wesley describes the evolution of his trombone playing through stints with the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, Hank Ballard, and Count Basie's band. He also recounts his education in the music business, particularly through his work in Los Angeles recording sessions. Wesley is a virtuoso storyteller, whether he's describing the electric rush of performances when the whole band is in the groove, the difficulties of trying to make a living as a rhythm and blues musician, or the frustrations often felt by sidemen. Hit Me, Fred is Wesley's story of music-making in all its grit and glory.
A practical comprehensive guide to rock, jazz and pop arranged by one of Britain's most gifted and versatile musicians. Written in lively, accessible and entertaining style, this book contains everything the professional arranger or aspiring amateur needs to know, from setting out a lead sheet to scoring a full arrangement. The problems and pitfalls of writing for every group of instrument are discussed, from keyboards, drums and bass to brass strings, woodwind, percussion, guitar and a 'cappella' vocal writing. Packed with vital tips and hints, and presented in easy-to-use reference format, Rock, Jazz and Pop Arranging also includes two valuable appendices - on time saving shortcuts and chord symbols - and indispensable glossary.
From the Preface by Ted Gioia:All of these musicians fought their way back over the next decade, and their success in re-establishing themselves as important artists was perhaps the first signal, initially unrecognized as such, that a re-evaluation of the earlier West Coast scene was under way. Less fortunate than these few were West Coasters such as Sonny Criss, Harold Land, Curtis Counce, Carl Perkins, Lennie Niehaus, Roy Porter, Teddy Edwards, Gerald Wilson, and those others whose careers languished without achieving either a later revival or even an early brief taste of fame. Certainly some West Coast jazz players have been awarded a central place in jazz history, but invariably they have been those who, like Charles Mingus or Eric Dolphy, left California for Manhattan. Those who stayed behind were, for the most part, left behind. The time has come for a critical re-evaluation of this body of work. With more than forty years of perspective--since modern jazz came to California-we can perhaps now begin to make sense of the rich array of music presented there during those glory years. But to do so, we need to start almost from scratch. We need to throw away the stereotypes of West Coast jazz, reject the simplifications, catchphrases, and pigeonholings that have only confused the issue. So many discussions of the music have begun by asking, "What was West Coast jazz?"--as if some simple definition would answer all our questions. And when no simple answer emerged--how could it when the same critics asking the question could hardly agree on a definition of jazz itself?--this failure was brandished as grounds for dismissing the whole subject. My approach is different. I start with the music itself, the musicians themselves, the geography and social situation, the clubs and the culture. I tried to learn what they have to tell us, rather than regurgitate the dubious critical consensus of the last generation. Was West Coast jazz the last regional style or merely a marketing fad? Was there really ever any such thing as West Coast jazz? If so, was it better or worse than East Coast jazz? Such questions are not without merit, but they provide a poor start for a serious historical inquiry. I ask readers hoping for quick and easy answers to approach this work with an open mind and a modicum of patience. Generalizations will emerge; broader considerations will become increasingly clear; but only as we approach the close of this complex story, after we have let the music emerge in all its richness and diversity. By starting with some theory of West Coast jazz, we run the risk of seeing only what fits into our theory. Too many accounts of the music have fallen into just this trap. Instead, we need to see things with fresh eyes, hear the music again with fresh ears.
Floyd Levin, an award-winning jazz writer, has personally known many of the jazz greats who contributed to the music's colorful history. In this collection of his articles, published mostly in jazz magazines over a fifty-year period, Levin takes us into the nightclubs, the recording studios, the record companies, and, most compellingly, into the lives of the musicians who made the great moments of the traditional jazz and swing eras. Brilliantly weaving anecdotal material, primary research, and music analysis into every chapter, "Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians" is a gold mine of information on a rich segment of American popular music. This collection of articles begins with Levin's first published piece and includes several new articles that were inspired by his work on this compilation. The articles are organized thematically, beginning with a piece on Kid Ory's early recordings and ending with a newly written article about the campaign to put up a monument to Louis Armstrong in New Orleans. Along the way, Levin gives in-depth profiles of many well-known jazz legends, such as Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong, and many lesser-known figures who contributed greatly to the development of jazz. Extensively illustrated with previously unpublished photographs from Levin's personal collection, this wonderfully readable and extremely personal book is full of information that is not available elsewhere. "Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians" will be celebrated by jazz scholars and fans everywhere for the overview it provides of the music's evolution, and for the love of jazz it inspires on every page.
As the 1960s ended, Herbie Hancock embarked on a grand creative experiment. Having just been dismissed from the celebrated Miles Davis Quintet, he set out on the road, playing with his first touring group as a leader until he eventually formed what would become a revolutionary band. Taking the Swahili name "Mwandishi," the group would go on to play some of the most innovative music of the 1970s, fusing an assortment of musical genres, American and African cultures, and acoustic and electronic sounds into groundbreaking experiments that helped shape the American popular music that followed. In "You'll Know When You Get There," Bob Gluck offers the first comprehensive study of this seminal group, mapping the musical, technological, political, and cultural changes that they not only lived in but also effected. Beginning with Hancock's formative years as a sideman in bebop and hard bop ensembles, his work with Miles Davis, and the early recordings under his own name, Gluck uncovers the many ingredients that would come to form the Mwandishi sound. He offers an extensive series of interviews with Hancock and other band members, the producer and engineer who worked with them, and a catalog of well-known musicians who were profoundly influenced by the group. Paying close attention to the Mwandishi band's repertoire, he analyzes a wide array of recordings--many little known--and examines the group's instrumentation, their pioneering use of electronics, and their transformation of the studio into a compositional tool. From protofunk rhythms to synthesizers to the reclamation of African identities, Gluck tells the story of a highly peculiar and thrillingly unpredictable band that became a hallmark of American genius.
Any listener knows the power of music to define a place, but few can describe the how or why of this phenomenon. In "Lonesome Roads and Streets of Dreams", Andrew S. Berish attempts to right this wrong, showcasing how American jazz defined a culture particularly preoccupied with place. By analyzing both the performances and cultural context of leading jazz figures, including the many famous venues where they played, Berish bridges two dominant scholarly approaches to the genre, offering not only a new reading of swing era jazz but an entirely new framework for musical analysis in general, one that examines how the geographical realities of daily life can be transformed into musical sound. Focusing on white bandleader Jan Garber, black bandleader Duke Ellington, white saxophonist Charlie Barnet, and black guitarist Charlie Christian, as well as traveling from Catalina Island to Manhattan to Oklahoma City, "Lonesome Roads and Streets of Dreams" depicts not only a geography of race but how this geography was disrupted, how these musicians crossed physical and racial boundaries - from black to white, South to North, and rural to urban - and how they found expression for these movements in the insistent music they were creating.
Stan Kenton (1911-1979) formed his first full orchestra in 1940 and soon drew record-breaking crowds to hear and dance to his exciting sound. He continued to tour and record unrelentingly for the next four decades. "Stan Kenton: This Is an Orchestra " sums up the mesmerizing bandleader at the height of his powers, arms waving energetically, his face a study of concentration as he cajoled, coaxed, strained, and obtained the last ounce of energy from every musician under his control. Michael Sparke's narrative captures that enthusiasm in words: a lucid account of the evolution of the Kenton Sound, and the first book to offer a critical evaluation of the role that Stan played in its creation. Insightful and thought-provoking throughout, and supported by liberal quotes from the musicians who made the magic, even at his most contentious the author's high regard and admiration for his subject shines through. The most knowledgeable of Stan's fans will learn new facts from this far-reaching biography of a man and his music. "Stan Kenton "will be essential reading for every Kenton devotee and jazz historian.
Michael Buble is an international singing sensation. Since his debut in 2003, he has sold 18 million albums, won numerous awards (including a Grammy), reached the top 10 in the UK charts with his first album, 'Michael Buble', and the top 50 of the Billboard 200 album charts for the same CD. His second album, 'It's Time', was more successful still, debuting at number 4 in the UK charts, and his song 'Home' was a UK number one. His performances and concerts worldwide have been sell outs, while he has cultivated a huge and loyal fanbase. Of Italian origin, and born into a family of fishermen in Canada, Michael was heavily influenced by his grandfather, whom he credited with introducing him to the kind of music he would make his own - Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Dean Martin and Elvis, to name but a few. His popularity continues to grow, and this comprehensive and definitive biography charts his fascinating and phenomenal success story.
Hard bop was a brand of post bebop jazz that enveloped many of the most talented American musicians in the period between 1955 and 1956. These were years unrivalled in jazz history for the number of musically brilliant records issued - including Art Blakey's Ugetsu, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, Thelonius Monk's Brilliant Corners, and Sonny Rollins's Saxophone Colossus. This is the first book devoted entirely to hard bop, combining a narrative of the movement's evolution, from its beginnings as an amalgam of bebop and R&B to its experimental breakthroughs in the 1960s. With close analyses of musicians' styles and recordings, as well as specific tendencies within the school, such as `soul jazz', it offers a much needed examination of the artists, milieus, and above all the sounds of one of America's greatest musical epochs. |
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