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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Jazz
On January 16, 1938 Benny Goodman brought his swing orchestra to
America's venerated home of European classical music, Carnegie
Hall. The resulting concert - widely considered one of the most
significant events in American music history - helped to usher jazz
and swing music into the American cultural mainstream. This
reputation has been perpetuated by Columbia Records' 1950 release
of the concert on LP. Now, in Benny Goodman's Famous 1938 Carnegie
Hall Jazz Concert, jazz scholar and musician Catherine Tackley
provides the first in depth, scholarly study of this seminal
concert and recording. Combining rigorous documentary and archival
research with close analysis of the recording, Tackley strips back
the accumulated layers of interpretation and meaning to assess the
performance in its original context, and explore what the material
has come to represent in its recorded form. Taking a complete view
of the concert, she examines the rich cultural setting in which it
took place, and analyzes the compositions, arrangements and
performances themselves, before discussing the immediate reception,
and lasting legacy and impact of this storied event and album. As
the definitive study of one of the most important recordings of the
twentieth-century, Benny Goodman's Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz
Concert is a must-read for all serious jazz fans, musicians and
scholars.
(Guitar Educational). Now you can add authentic jazz feel and
flavor to your playing Here are 101 definitive licks, plus a
demonstration CD, from every major jazz guitar style, neatly
organized into easy-to-use categories. They're all here: swing and
pre-bop, bebop, post-bop modern jazz, hard bop and cool jazz, modal
jazz, soul jazz and postmodern jazz. Includes an introduction by
Wolf Marshall, tips for using the book and CD, and a listing of
suggested recordings.
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.
The Definitive Jazz & Blues Encyclopedia, now fully updated
from the illustrated edition, is the ultimate guide to two musical
styles that have fundamentally influenced popular music. Divided
into chapters, each covering a different era, the book traces the
evolution of jazz and blues from their nineteenth-century
African-American origins right through to the present day. Each
chapter starts with a Sounds & Sources section, looking at the
key developments in the music during that period. This is followed
by an A-Z of artists from that era, with more extensive entries on
key artists that include recommended classic recordings. With
further sections on Styles, covering everything from Ragtime to
Bebop and Texas Blues to Rhythm & Blues, and more; and
Instruments, all written by a team of experts, this invaluable
encyclopedia is comprehensive, easy to use and highly informative.
What does jazz "mean" 20 years into the 21st century? Has streaming
culture rendered music literally meaningless, thanks to the removal
of all context beyond the playlist? Are there any traditions left
to explore? Has the destruction of the apprenticeship model (young
musicians learning from their elders) changed the music
irrevocably? Are any sounds off limits? How far out can you go and
still call it "jazz"? Or should the term be retired? These
questions, and many more, are answered in Ugly Beauty, as Phil
Freeman digs through his own experiences and conversations with
present-day players. Jazz has never seemed as vital as it does
right now, and has a genuine role to play in 21st-century culture,
particularly in the US and the UK.
Though often thought of as rivals, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin,
and Amiri Baraka shared a range of interests, especially a passion
for music. Jazz, in particular, was a decisive influence on their
thinking, and, as "The Shadow and the Act" reveals, they drew on
their insights into the creative process of improvisation to
analyze race and politics in the civil rights era. In this inspired
study, Walton M. Muyumba situates them as a jazz trio,
demonstrating how Ellison, Baraka, and Baldwin's individual works
form a series of calls and responses with each other.
Muyumba connects their writings on jazz to the philosophical
tradition of pragmatism, particularly its support for more freedom
for individuals and more democratic societies. He examines the way
they responded to and elaborated on that lineage, showing how they
significantly broadened it by addressing the African American
experience, especially its aesthetics. Ultimately, Muyumba
contends, the trio enacted pragmatist principles by effectively
communicating the social and political benefits of African
Americans fully entering society, thereby compelling America to
move closer to its democratic ideals.
John Coltrane's unique and powerful saxophonic sound is commonly
recognized among jazz scholars and fans alike as having a
"spiritual" nature, imbued with the perfomer's soul, which deeply
touches musicians and listeners worldwide. This revered and
respected musician created new standards, linked tradition with
innovation, challenged common assumptions, and relentlessly pursued
spiritual goals in his music, which he aimed openly to use as a
means to help listeners see the beauty of life. More than four
decades after Coltrane's death, it is this spiritual nature of the
music that has kept his sound alive - and thriving - on the
contemporary jazz scene. Edited by prominent jazz musician and
scholar Leonard Brown, John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for
Freedom is a timely exploration of Coltrane's sound and its
spiritual qualities as they relate to Black American music culture
and aspirations for freedom. A wide-ranging collection of essays
and interviews featuring many of the most eminent figures in jazz
studies and performance-Tommy Lee Lott, Anthony Brown, Herman Gray,
Emmett G. Price III, Dwight Andrews, Tammy Kernodle, Salim
Washington, Eric Jackson, and TJ Anderson (foreword)-the book
examines the full spectrum of Coltrane's legacy. Each essay
approaches this theme from a different angle, in both historical
and contemporary contexts, focusing on how Coltrane became a
quintessential example of the universal and enduring qualities of
Black American culture. The contributors address Coltrane as the
Black intellectual, the visionary master of musical syntax, the man
and the media icon, and ultimately the symbol of the spiritual core
of Black American music.
(Piano Instruction). Expand your keyboard knowledge with the
Keyboard Lesson Goldmine series The series contains four books:
Blues, Country, Jazz, and Rock. Each volume features 100 individual
modules that cover a giant array of topics. Each lesson includes
detailed instructions with playing examples. You'll also get
extremely useful tips and more to reinforce your learning
experience, plus two audio CDs featuring performance demos of all
the examples in the book 100 Jazz Lessons includes scales, modes
and progressions; Latin jazz styles; improvisation ideas; harmonic
voicings; building your chops; and much more
The saxophone, today an emblem of "cool" and the instrument most
associated with jazz, was largely ignored in the U.S. for well over
a half-century after its invention in France in 1838. Bringing this
new sound to the American public was the Six Brown Brothers, one of
the most famous musical acts on the stage in the early twentieth
century. The group's quarter-century of ups and downs mirror the
rise and fall of minstrelsy and vaudeville. With treks across the
country and Europe, years in Broadway musical and comedy revues,
and even time at the circus, the Six Brown Brothers embodied early
American music.
Rather than a note-by-note analysis of the music (the author is
not a musicologist, but rather a cornet player, ragtime aficionado,
and former philosophy professor), the book works with the music in
its context, offering a cultural interpretation of blackface and
minstrelsy, a history of the invention and evolution of the
saxophone, and insight into the burgeoning American
music/entertainment business and forgotten music traditions. While
known among fans of early ragtime and saxophone players, Vermazen's
rigorous archival research with primary sources repositions the
Brothers in their rightful place as key players in the development
of American music and popularizers of the saxophone. Through their
live performances and groundbreaking recordings--the first of a
saxophone ensemble--the Six Brown Brothers made this new and often
derided instrument (once referred to as the "Siren of Satan")
familiar to and loved by a wide audience, laying the groundwork for
the saxophone soloists that have become the crowning symbol of
jazz.
Adrian Rollini (1903-1956), an American jazz multi-instrumentalist,
played the bass saxophone, piano, vibraphone, and an array of other
instruments. He even introduced some, such as the harmonica-like
cuesnophone, called Goofus, never before wielded in jazz. Adrian
Rollini: The Life and Music of a Jazz Rambler draws on oral
history, countless vintage articles, and family archives to trace
Rollini's life, from his family's arrival in the US to his
development and career as a musician and to his retirement and
death. A child prodigy, Rollini was playing the piano in public at
the age of five. At sixteen in New York he was recording pianola
rolls when his peers recognized his talent and asked him to play
xylophone and piano in a new band, the California Ramblers. When he
decided to play a relatively new instrument, the bass saxophone,
the Ramblers made their mark on jazz forever. Rollini became the
man who gave this instrument its place. Yet he did not limit
himself to playing bass parts-he became the California Ramblers'
major soloist and created the studio and public sound of the band.
In 1927 Rollini led a new band that included such jazz greats as
Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer. During the Depression years,
he was back in New York playing with several bands including his
own New California Ramblers. In the 1940s, Rollini purchased a
property on Key Largo. He rarely performed again for the public but
hosted rollicking jam sessions at his fishing lodge with some of
the best nationally known and local players. After a car wreck and
an unfortunate hospitalization, Rollini passed away at age
fifty-three.
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