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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Jazz
During World War II, jazz embodied everything that was appealing
about a democratic society as envisioned by the Western Allied
powers. Labelled 'degenerate' by Hitler's cultural apparatus, jazz
was adopted by the Allies to win the hearts and minds of the German
public. It was also used by the Nazi Minister for Propaganda,
Joseph Goebbels, to deliver a message of Nazi cultural and military
superiority. When Goebbels co-opted young German and foreign
musicians into 'Charlie and his Orchestra' and broadcast their
anti-Allied lyrics across the English Channel, jazz took centre
stage in the propaganda war that accompanied World War II on the
ground. The Jazz War is based on the largely unheard oral testimony
of the personalities behind the German and British wartime radio
broadcasts, and chronicles the evolving relationship between jazz
music and the Axis and Allied war efforts. Studdert shows how jazz
both helped and hindered the Allied cause as Nazi soldiers secretly
tuned in to British radio shows while London party-goers danced the
night away in demimonde `bottle parties', leading them to be
branded a `menace' in Parliament. This book will appeal to students
of the history of jazz, broadcasting, cultural studies, and the
history of World War II.
"Given South Africa's venerable jazz tradition, it's perhaps
surprising it's taken so long for more fundis to be tapped for
their responses to our kind of jazz. But it takes a special brew of
ingredients for this kind of book to come together. You need an
inspired guiding spirit, such as editor and jazzwoman-in-words
Myesha Jenkins, and you need a vat in which the ingredients can mix
and bubble. You'll find everything here in To breathe into another
voice: faithful and fantastical accounts of the jazz life and jazz
people as well as reflections on the music as a metaphor for how we
live - or, maybe more importantly, how we'd like to live. All you
need to do now is open the covers, start reading, and dance
joyously about the architecture." --Gwen Ansel
The vibrant world of jazz may be viewed from many angles, from social and cultural history to music analysis, from economics to ethnography. It is challenging and exciting territory. This volume of nineteen specially commissioned essays offers informed and accessible guidance to the challenge, taking the reader through a series of five basic subject areas--locating jazz historically and geographically; defining jazz as musical and cultural practice; jazz in performance; the uses of jazz for audiences, markets, education and for other art forms; and the study of jazz.
Duke Ellington (1899-1974) is widely considered the jazz
tradition's most celebrated composer. This engaging yet scholarly
volume explores his long career and his rich cultural legacy from a
broad range of in-depth perspectives, from the musical and
historical to the political and international. World-renowned
scholars and musicians examine Ellington's influence on jazz music,
its criticism, and its historiography. The chronological structure
of the volume allows a clear understanding of the development of
key themes, with chapters surveying his work and his reception in
America and abroad. By both expanding and reconsidering the
contexts in which Ellington, his orchestra, and his music are
discussed, Duke Ellington Studies reflects a wealth of new
directions that have emerged in jazz studies, including focuses on
music in media, class hierarchy discourse, globalization,
cross-cultural reception, and the role of marketing, as well as
manuscript score studies and performance studies.
(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
Laura Nyro (1947-1997) was one of the most significant figures to
emerge from the singer-songwriter boom of the 1960s. She first came
to attention when her songs were hits for Barbra Streisand, The
Fifth Dimension, Peter, Paul and Mary, and others. But it was on
her own recordings that she imprinted her vibrant personality. With
albums like Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York
Tendaberry she mixed the sounds of soul, pop, jazz and Broadway to
fashion autobiographical songs that earned her a fanatical
following and influenced a generation of music-makers. In later
life her preoccupations shifted from the self to embrace public
causes such as feminism, animal rights and ecology - the music grew
mellower, but her genius was undimmed. This book examines her
entire studio career from 1967's More than a New Discovery to the
posthumous Angel in the Dark release of 2001. Also surveyed are the
many live albums that preserve her charismatic stage presence. With
analysis of her teasing, poetic lyrics and unique vocal and
harmonic style, this is the first-ever study to concentrate on
Laura Nyro's music and how she created it. Elton John idolised her;
Joni Mitchell declared her 'a true original'. Here's why.
Through archival work and storytelling, Musical Migration and
Imperial New York revises many inherited narratives about
experimental music and art in postwar New York. From the urban
street level of music clubs and arts institutions to the
world-making routes of global migration and exchange, this book
redraws the map of experimental art to reveal the imperial dynamics
and citizenship struggles that continue to shape music in the
United States. Beginning with the material conditions of power that
structured the cityscape of New York in the early Cold War years,
Brigid Cohen looks at a wide range of artistic practices (concert
music, electronic music, jazz, performance art) and actors (Edgard
Varese, Charles Mingus, Yoko Ono, and Fluxus founder George
Maciunas) as they experimented with new modes of creativity. Cohen
links them with other migrant creators vital to the city's postwar
culture boom, creators whose stories have seldom been told (Halim
El-Dabh, Michiko Toyama, Vladimir Ussachevsky). She also gives
sustained and serious treatment to the work of Yoko Ono, something
long overdue in music scholarship. Musical Migration and Imperial
New York is indispensable reading, offering a new understanding of
global avant-gardes and American experimental music as well as the
contrasting feelings of belonging and exclusion on which they were
built.
Few American artists in any medium have enjoyed the
international and lasting cultural impact of Duke Ellington. From
jazz standards such as "Mood Indigo" and "Don't Get Around Much
Anymore," to his longer, more orchestral suites, to his leadership
of the stellar big band he toured and performed with for decades
after most big bands folded, Ellington represented a singular,
pathbreaking force in music over the course of a half-century. At
the same time, as one of the most prominent black public figures in
history, Ellington demonstrated leadership on questions of civil
rights, equality, and America's role in the world.
With "Duke Ellington's America," Harvey G. Cohen paints a vivid
picture of Ellington's life and times, taking him from his youth in
the black middle class enclave of Washington, D.C., to the heights
of worldwide acclaim. Mining extensive archives, many never before
available, plus new interviews with Ellington's friends, family,
band members, and business associates, Cohen illuminates his
constantly evolving approach to composition, performance, and the
music business--as well as issues of race, equality and religion.
Ellington's own voice, meanwhile, animates the book throughout,
giving "Duke Ellington's America" an intimacy and immediacy
unmatched by any previous account.
By far the most thorough and nuanced portrait yet of this towering
figure, "Duke Ellington's America" highlights Ellington's
importance as a figure in American history as well as in American
music.
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).
Author and radio personality Stanley Péan is a jazz scholar who
takes us seamlessly and knowledgeably through the history of the
music, stopping at a number of high points along the way. He gets
behind the scenes with anecdotes that tell much about the
misunderstandings that have surrounded the music. How could French
existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre have mixed up Afro-Canadian
songwriter Shelton Brooks with the Jewish-American belter Sophie
Tucker? What is the real story behind the searing classic
“Strange Fruit” made immortal by Billie Holiday, who at first
balked at performing it? Who knew that an Ohio housewife named
Sadie Vimmerstedt was behind the revenge song “I wanna be around
to pick up the pieces when somebody breaks your heart?” And since
this is jazz, there is no shortage of sad ends: Bix Beiderbecke,
Chet Baker, Lee Morgan, to name a few.
It was 1969, and Miles Davis, prince of cool, was on the edge of
being left behind by a dynamic generation of young musicians, an
important handful of whom had been in his band. Rock music was
flying off in every direction, just as America itself seemed about
to split at its seams. Following the circumscribed grooves and
ambiance of In A Silent Way; coming off a tour with a burning new
quintet-called 'The Lost Band'-with Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea,
Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette; he went into the studio with
musicians like frighteningly talented guitarist John McLaughlin,
and soulful Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul. Working with his
essential producer, Teo Macero, Miles set a cauldron of ideas loose
while the tapes rolled. At the end, there was the newly minted
Prince of Darkness, a completely new way forward for jazz and rock,
and the endless brilliance and depth of Bitches Brew. Bitches Brew
is still one of the most astonishing albums ever made in either
jazz or rock. Seeming to fuse the two, it actually does something
entirely more revolutionary and open-ended: blending the most
avant-garde aspects of Western music with deep grooves, the album
rejects both jazz and rock for an entirely different idea of how
music can be made.
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