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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Jazz
Redefining Music Studies in an Age of Change: Creativity, Diversity, Integration takes prevailing discourse about change in music studies to new vistas, as higher education institutions are at a critical moment of determining just what professional musicians and teachers need to survive and thrive in public life. The authors examine how music studies might be redefined through the lenses of creativity, diversity, and integration. which are the three pillars of the recent report of The College Music Society taskforce calling for reform. Focus is on new conceptions for existent areas-such as studio lessons and ensembles, academic history and theory, theory and culture courses, and music education coursework-but also on an exploration of music and human learning, and an understanding of how organizational change happens. Examination of progressive programs will celebrate strides in the direction of the task force vision, as well as extend a critical eye distinguishing between premature proclamations of "mission accomplished" and genuine transformation. The overarching theme is that a foundational, systemic overhaul has the capacity to entirely revitalize the European classical tradition. Practical steps applicable to wide-ranging institutions are considered-from small liberal arts colleges, to conservatory programs, large research universities, and regional state universities.
In the 1920s and 30s, musicians from Latin America and the Caribbean were flocking to New York, lured by the burgeoning recording studios and lucrative entertainment venues. In the late 1940s and 50s, the big-band mambo dance scene at the famed Palladium Ballroom was the stuff of legend, while modern-day music history was being made as the masters of Afro-Cuban and jazz idiom conspired to create Cubop, the first incarnation of Latin jazz. Then, in the 1960s, as the Latino population came to exceed a million strong, a new generation of New York Latinos, mostly Puerto Ricans born and raised in the city, went on to create the music that came to be called salsa, which continues to enjoy avid popularity around the world. And now, the children of the mambo and salsa generation are contributing to the making of hip hop and reviving ancestral Afro-Caribbean forms like Cuban rumba, Puerto Rican bomba, and Dominican palo. Salsa Rising provides the first full-length historical account of Latin Music in this city guided by close critical attention to issues of tradition and experimentation, authenticity and dilution, and the often clashing roles of cultural communities and the commercial recording industry in the shaping of musical practices and tastes. It is a history not only of the music, the changing styles and practices, the innovators, venues and songs, but also of the music as part of the larger social history, ranging from immigration and urban history, to the formation of communities, to issues of colonialism, race and class as they bear on and are revealed by the trajectory of the music. Author Juan Flores brings a wide range of people in the New York Latin music field into his work, including musicians, producers, arrangers, collectors, journalists, and lay and academic scholars, enriching Salsa Rising with a unique level of engagement with and interest in Latin American communities and musicians themselves.
During the Cold War, jazz became a cultural weapon that was employed by both sides to advance their interests. This volume explores the history and roles of jazz in Poland, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Soviet Union, and the Baltic States by means of several case studies. The American administration attempted to destabilize the political systems of the Eastern Bloc countries, while the powers responsible for culture in the Eastern Bloc countries tried to curtail the US propaganda campaign. This resulted in distinct jazz traditions and jazz scenes, each governed by a distinct behavioural codex, as well as official responses in each of the Eastern Bloc countries.
Komeda: A Private Life in Jazz is the biography of Krzysztof (Trzcinski) Komeda (1931-1969), composer of no fewer than 40 soundtracks, including film scores to all of Roman Polanski's early films such as Knife in the Water and Rosemary's Baby; and revered figure in the world of jazz, which regards his album, Astigmatic (released in 1966), as a key album in the history of European jazz. This biography of Komeda, originally published in Polish by Znak in 2018, the first to be published in the English language, not only traces Komeda's life, but also the development of Polish jazz during this period, showing how this arose in large part out of a need for self-expression and personal freedom during a repressive period of Soviet communist dominance. The book is full of interviews between the biographer and people who worked with and knew Krzysztof Komeda personally, and, while thoroughly-grounded in primary sources, it is written in a playful, questioning, engaging style.
In Arranging Gershwin, author Ryan Banagale approaches George
Gershwin's iconic piece Rhapsody in Blue not as a composition but
as an arrangement -- a status it has in many ways held since its
inception in 1924, yet one unconsidered until now. Shifting
emphasis away from the notion of the Rhapsody as a static work by a
single composer, Banagale posits a broad vision of the piece that
acknowledges the efforts of a variety of collaborators who shaped
the Rhapsody as we know it today. Arranging Gershwin sheds new
light on familiar musicians such as Leonard Bernstein and Duke
Ellington, introduces lesser-known figures such as Ferde Grofe and
Larry Adler, and remaps the terrain of this emblematic piece of
American music. At the same time, it expands on existing approaches
to the study of arrangements -- an emerging and insightful realm of
American music studies -- as well as challenges existing and
entrenched definitions of composer and composition.
In a career that spanned 60 years, Paul Whiteman changed the landscape of American music, beginning with his million-selling recordings in the early 1920s of "Whispering," "Japanese Sandman," and "Three O'Clock in the Morning." Whiteman would then introduce "symphonic jazz," a powerful blend of the classical and jazz idioms that represented a whole new approach to modern American music, influencing generations of bandleaders and composers. While some hold that at the close of the Roaring Twenties Whiteman's musical hegemony quickly waned, Don Rayno illustrates in this second volume of Paul Whiteman: Pioneer in American Music how much of a dominant figure Whiteman remained. A major figure on the American music scene for decades to come, he would continue to lead critically-acclaimed orchestras, filling theaters and concert halls alike and diligently seeking out and nurturing musical talent on the largest scale of any orchestra leader in the 20th century. In this second volume of Rayno's magisterial treatment of the life and music of this remarkable maestro, Whiteman's career during the second half of his life is explored in the fullest detail, as Whiteman conquers the worlds of theater and vaudeville, the concert hall, radio, motion pictures, and television, winning accolades in all of them. Through hundreds of interviews, extensive documentation, and exhaustive research of over nearly three decades, a portrait emerges of one of American music's most important musical figures during the last century. Rayno paints a stunning portrait of Whiteman's considerable accomplishments and far-reaching influence.
Play jazz piano with new facility and expression as Ray Santisi, one of the most revered educators at the Berklee College of Music - and mentor to Keith Jarrett, Diana Krall, Joe Zawinul, and thousands of others - reveals the pedagogy at the core of Berklee's jazz piano curriculum. From beginning through advanced levels, Berklee Jazz Piano maps the school's curriculum: a unique blend of theory and application that gives you a deep, practical understanding of how to play jazz. Concepts are illustrated by the accompanying practice CD, where you'll hear how one of the great jazz pianists and educators of our time applies these concepts to both jazz standards and original compositions, and how you can do the same. You will learn: * Jazz chords and their characteristic tension substitutions, in many voicings and configurations * Modes and scales common in jazz * Techniques for comping, developing bass lines, harmonizing melodies, melodizing harmonies, and improvisation * Practice techniques for committing these concepts to your muscle memory * Variations for solo and ensemble playing * Advanced concepts, such as rhythmic displacement, approach-chord harmonization, and jazz counterpoint
Sounding American: Hollywood, Opera, and Jazz tells the story of the interaction between musical form, film technology, and ideas about race, ethnicity, and the nation during the American cinema's conversion to sound. Contrary to most accepted narratives about the conversion, which tend to explain the competition between the Hollywood studios' film sound technologies in qualitative and economic terms, this book argues that the battle between disc and film sound was waged primarily in an aesthetic realm. Opera and jazz in particular, though long neglected in studies of the film score, were extremely important in defining the scope of the American soundtrack, not only during the conversion, but also once sound had been standardized. Examining studio advertisements, screenplays, scores, and the films themselves, the book concentrates on the interactions between musical form and film technology, arguing that each of the major studios appropriated opera and jazz in a unique way in order to construct its own version of an ideal American voice. The book's central question asks what the synthesis of opera and jazz during the conversion reveals about the stylistic and ideological norms of classical Hollywood cinema and the racial, ethnic, gendered, and socially stratified spaces of American musical production. Unlike much of the scholarship on film music, which gravitates toward feature film scores, Sounding American concentrates on the musical shorts of the late 1920s, showing how their representations of the stage, conservatory, ballroom, and nightclub reflected what opera and jazz meant for particular groups of Americans and demonstrating how the cinema helped to shape the racial, ethnic, and national identities attached to this music. Traditional histories of Hollywood film music have tended to concentrate on the unity of the score, a model that assumes a passive spectator. Sounding American claims that the classical Hollywood film is essentially an illustrated jazz-opera with a musical structure that encourages an active form of listening and viewing in order to make sense of what is ultimately a fragmentary text.
More than a simple biography of John Coltrane, this book is an in-depth examination of his unique sound and work, tracing the saxophonist's career arc from a Navy band to his recordings just a few years before his death, at which point he was already a venerated figure within the music industry. The first part of this exploration focuses primarily on the roughly 10-year period before Coltrane's death, during which he achieved an incredible series of musical milestones in an almost religious pursuit of perfection, and analyzes the evolution of his playing style and the critical reception to it. The second part of the book discusses Coltrane's legacy and influence, not only within the context of jazz but also on other modern musical forms. Through research and investigation, Ratliff identifies Coltrane not just as a preeminent jazz musician but as one of the great creators and innovators of his time in any field. "Mas que una simple biografia de John Coltrane, este libro es un examen exhaustivo de su sonido y su obra unica, recorriendo la trayectoria del saxofonista desde sus primeras actuaciones con una banda de la marina hasta los discos grabados a las puertas de la muerte, cuando ya estaba establecido como una figura venerada dentro de la musica. La primera parte de esta exploracion se enfoca principalmente en la decada antes de la muerte de Coltrane, durante la cual habia ido hilvanando una prodigiosa sucesion de hitos musicales en una busqueda casi religiosa de la perfeccion, y analiza la evolucion de su estilo de tocar y la recepcion critica de este. La segunda parte discute el legado e influencia del artista, no solo dentro del contexto del jazz, pero sobre otras expresiones musicales modernas tambien. A traves de la investigacion e indagacion, Ratliff identifica a Coltrane no solo como uno de los mas importantes musicos del jazz, pero tambien como uno de los grandes creadores e innovadores de su epoca."
The Cultural Politics of Jazz Collectives: This Is Our Music documents the emergence of collective movements in jazz and improvised music. Jazz history is most often portrayed as a site for individual expression and revolves around the celebration of iconic figures, while the networks and collaborations that enable the music to maintain and sustain its cultural status are surprisingly under-investigated. This collection explores the history of musician-led collectives and the ways in which they offer a powerful counter-model for rethinking jazz practices in the post-war period. It includes studies of groups including the New York Musicians Organization, Sweden's Ett minne foer livet, Wonderbrass from South Wales, the contemporary Dutch jazz-hip hop scene, and Austria's JazzWerkstatt. With an international list of contributors and examples from Europe and the United States, these twelve essays and case studies examine issues of shared aesthetic vision, socioeconomic and political factors, local education, and cultural values among improvising musicians.
'It is the most singular of sounds, yet among the most ubiquitous. It is the sound of isolation that has sold itself to millions.' Miles Davis's Kind of Blue is the best selling piece of music in the history of jazz, and for many listeners among the most haunting in all of twentieth-century music. It is also, notoriously, the only jazz album many people own. Recorded in 1959 (in nine miraculous hours), there has been nothing like it since. Its atmosphere - slow, dark, meditative, luminous - became all-pervasive for a generation, and has remained the epitome of melancholy coolness ever since. Richard Williams has written a history of the album which for once does not rip it out of its wider cultural context. He evokes the essence of the music - identifying the qualities that make it so uniquely appealing - while making effortless connections to painting, literature, philosophy and poetry. This makes for an elegant, graceful and beautifully-written narrative.
A frank autobiography of the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. This book records his life - the music, the women and the drugs. It talks about the white promotors and producers who exploited black musicians as well as the critics.
To serve the British nation in World War II, the BBC charged itself with mobilizing popular music in support of Britain's war effort. Radio music, British broadcasters and administrators argued, could maintain civilian and military morale, increase industrial production, and even promote a sense of Anglo-American cooperation. Because of their widespread popularity, dance music and popular song were seen as ideal for these tasks; along with jazz, with its American associations and small but youthful audience, these genres suddenly gained new legitimacy at the traditionally more conservative BBC. In Victory through Harmony, author Christina Baade both tells the fascinating story of the BBC's musical participation in wartime events and explores how popular music and jazz broadcasting helped redefine notions of war, gender, race, class, and nationality in wartime Britain. Baade looks in particular at the BBC's pioneering Listener Research Department, which tracked the tastes of select demographic groups including servicemen stationed overseas and young female factory workers in order to further the goal of entertaining, cheering, and even calming the public during wartime. The book also tells how the wartime BBC programmed popular music to an unprecedented degree with the goal of building national unity and morale, promoting new roles for women, virile representations of masculinity, Anglo-American friendship, and pride in a common British culture. In the process, though, the BBC came into uneasy contact with threats of Americanization, sentimentality, and the creativity of non-white "others," which prompted it to regulate and even censor popular music and performers. Rather than provide the soundtrack for a unified "People's War," Baade argues, the BBC's broadcasting efforts exposed the divergent ideologies, tastes, and perspectives of the nation. This illuminating book will interest all readers in popular music, jazz, and radio, as well as British cultural history and gender studies.
Today, jazz history is dominated by iconic figures who have taken on an almost God-like status. From Satchmo to Duke, Bird to Trane, these legendary jazzmen form the backbone of the jazz tradition. Jazz icons not only provide musicians and audiences with figureheads to revere but have also come to stand for a number of values and beliefs that shape our view of the music itself. Jazz Icons explores the growing significance of icons in jazz and discusses the reasons why the music's history is increasingly dependent on the legacies of 'great men'. Using a series of individual case studies, Whyton examines the influence of jazz icons through different forms of historical mediation, including the recording, language, image and myth. The book encourages readers to take a fresh look at their relationship with iconic figures of the past and challenges many of the dominant narratives in jazz today.
Recorded by his quartet in a single session in 1964, A Love Supreme
is widely considered John Coltrane's magnum opus and one of the
greatest jazz albums of all time.
Hugh Masekela is a prodigiously talented giant of jazz and world music, and a pioneer in sharing the voice and spirit of South Africa with the rest of the world, but his globetrotting tale transcends music. Still Grazing was first published in the US in 2004; it is an autobiography which shares rich detail of world-acclaimed jazz giant Hugh Masekela's life, infused with love and loss, sex and drugs, exile and revolution. He survived it all, with wit, passion, abundant talent and wisdom, and is now bringing his story back home!
Clad in white tie and tails, dancing and scatting his way through the "Hi-de-ho" chorus of "Minnie the Moocher," Cab Calloway exuded a sly charm and sophistication that endeared him to legions of fans. In Hi-de-ho, author Alyn Shipton offers the first full-length biography of Cab Calloway, whose vocal theatrics and flamboyant stage presence made him one of the highest-earning African American bandleaders. Shipton sheds new light on Calloway's life and career, explaining how he traversed racial and social boundaries to become one of the country's most beloved entertainers. Drawing on first-hand accounts from Calloway's family, friends, and fellow musicians, the book traces the roots of this music icon, from his childhood in Rochester, New York, to his life of hustling on the streets of Baltimore. Shipton highlights how Calloway's desire to earn money to support his infant daughter prompted his first break into show business, when he joined his sister Blanche in a traveling revue. Beginning in obscure Baltimore nightclubs and culminating in his replacement of Duke Ellington at New York's famed Cotton Club, Calloway honed his gifts of scat singing and call-and-response routines. His career as a bandleader was matched by his genius as a talent-spotter, evidenced by his hiring of such jazz luminaries as Ben Webster, Dizzy Gillespie, and Jonah Jones. As the swing era waned, Calloway reinvented himself as a musical theatre star, appearing as Sportin' Life in "Porgy and Bess" in the early 1950s; in later years, Calloway cemented his status as a living legend through cameos on "Sesame Street" and his show-stopping appearance in the wildly popular "The Blues Brothers" movie, bringing his trademark "hi-de-ho" refrain to a new generation of audiences. More than any other source, Hi-de-ho stands as an entertaining, not-to-be-missed portrait of Cab Calloway-one that expertly frames his enduring significance as a pioneering artist and entertainer.
Behind the scenes in the life of a musician--an exuberant, entertaining memoir from jazz guitarist, singer, and raconteur John Pizzarelli John Pizzarelli, the son of jazz guitar legend Bucky Pizzarelli, is a connoisseur of American song who grew up among the legends of jazz. From teenage explorations of rock music to life on the road with his father, he worked his way from gigs in tiny clubs to opening for Frank Sinatra during his final international tour. Now Pizzarelli performs in festivals and top venues across the United States and the world, and he shares his unique journey in this revealing, charming, and heartwarming memoir. Includes firsthand stories of famous jazz greats and popular music icons including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Benny Goodman, Joe Pass, James Taylor, and Paul McCartney Reveals what it was like to grow up among great musicians and storytellers and shares the day-to-day experiences of a touring musician's life Includes thirty-five terrific photographs that take you inside John Pizzarelli's life and music Part of the Wiley-Lincoln Center alliance Absorbing, upbeat, funny, and down to earth, World on a String is an irresistible celebration of music and life that will appeal to John Pizzarelli's large and growing following.
At its most intimate level, music heals our emotional wounds and inspires us. At its most public, it unites people across cultural boundaries. But can it rebuild a city? That's the central question posed in New Atlantis, journalist John Swenson's beautifully detailed account of the musical artists working to save America's most colorful and troubled metropolis: New Orleans. The city has been threatened with extinction many times during its three-hundred-plus-year history by fire, pestilence, crime, flood, and oil spills. Working for little money and in spite of having lost their own homes and possessions to Katrina, New Orleans's most gifted musicians-including such figures as Dr. John, the Neville Brothers, "Trombone Shorty," and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux-are fighting back against a tidal wave of problems: the depletion of the wetlands south of the city (which are disappearing at the rate of one acre every hour), the violence that has made New Orleans the murder capitol of the U.S., the waning tourism industry, and above all the continuing calamity in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (or, as it is known in New Orleans, the "Federal Flood"). Indeed, most of the neighborhoods that nurtured the indigenous music of New Orleans were destroyed in the flood, and many of the elder statesmen have died or been incapacitated since then, but the musicians profiled here have stepped up to fill their roles. New Atlantis is their story. Packed with indelible portraits of individual artists, informed by Swenson's encyclopedic knowledge of the city's unique and varied music scene-which includes jazz, R&B, brass band, rock, and hip hop-New Atlantis is a stirring chronicle of the valiant efforts to preserve the culture that gives New Orleans its grace and magic.
This book traces the learning experiences of the jazz community in Bristol, UK from 1945 to 2012. Grounded in a methodology of participant observation and case studies, it documents changes in the economic, cultural and educational circumstances faced by the players. In their own words, the musicians recall the influences that initiated and developed their musicianship. Drawing on first-person accounts, the study traces the historical development of jazz music and musicians in Bristol. In the post-war years, players began to develop significant stylistic aspects in the jazz lexicon. Drawing on media sources and interaction in performance, players garnered a host of performing skills whilst suffering dwindling audiences and declining venues. Reforms in English music education in the 1980s offered formal opportunities to study jazz in the city's schools, drawing minimal attention from institutions. Practical learning and playing opportunities offered by the Local Authority music service sustained a modest membership over the years. Post millennium, local schools, with one or two exceptions, showed little interest in jazz education. Nevertheless, maintaining its traditional stance, Bristol's jazz community continues to exhort top quality jazz performances including compositions that match national and international standards.
(Jazz Play Along). For use with all Bb, Eb, C and bass clef instruments, the Jazz Play-Along Series is the ultiimate learning tool for all jazz musicians. With musician-friendly lead sheets, melody cues and other split-track choices on the included CD, this first-of-its-kind package makes learning to play jazz easier than ever before. FOR STUDY, each tune includes a split track with: * Melody cue with proper style and inflection * Professional rhythm tracks * Choruses for soloing * Removable bass part * Removable piano part. FOR PERFORMANCE, each tune also has: * An additional full stereo accompaniment track (no melody) * Additional choruses for soloing. 10 songs: Ceora * Corn Bread * Gary's Notebook * Hocus-Pocus * The Joker * Mr. Kenyatta * Morgan the Pirate * Sidewinder * Speedball * Totem Pole.
Jazz Trumpet Studies brings together 78 of James Rae's pieces from his successful method Progressive Jazz Studies into a single great-value book, suitable for Grade 1 to 5. *Part 1 introduces the beginner to jazz rhythms including swing quavers, syncopation and anticipation *Part 2 contains fully graded melodic jazz studies *Part 3 develops confidence within common jazz tonalities: whole-tone, diminished and blues scales, modes and the II-V-I chord sequence. **ABRSM selected pieces (Trumpet, Cornet & Flugelhorn from 2009): Study No. 31 or No. 33 (Rae) Study No. 37 or No. 43 (Rae) Study No. 44 or No. 48 (Rae) Study No. 61 (Rae)
For jazz historians, Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings mark the first revolution in the history of a music riven by upheaval. Yet few traces of this revolution can be found in the historical record of the late 1920s, when the records were made. Even black newspapers covered Armstrong as just one name among many, and descriptions of his playing, while laudatory, bear little resemblance to those of today. For this reason, the perspective of Armstrong's first listeners is usually regarded as inadequate, as if they had missed the true significance of his music. This attitude overlooks the possibility that those early listeners might have heard something valuable on its own terms, something we ourselves have lost. If we could somehow recapture their perspective-without abandoning our own-how might it change our understanding of these seminal recordings? In Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings, Harker selects seven exceptional records to study at length: "Cornet Chop Suey," "Big Butter and Egg Man," "Potato Head Blues," "S.O.L. Blues"/"Gully Low Blues," "Savoy Blues," and "West End Blues." The world of vaudeville and show business provide crucial context, revealing how the demands of making a living in a competitive environment could catalyze Armstrong's unique artistic gifts. Technical achievements such as virtuosity, structural coherence, harmonic improvisation, and high-register playing are all shown to have a basis in the workaday requirements of Armstrong's profession. Invoking a breadth of influences ranging from New Orleans clarinet style to Guy Lombardo, and from tap dancing to classical music, this book offers bold insights, fresh anecdotes, and, ultimately, a new interpretation of Louis Armstrong and his most influential body of recordings. |
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