Jazz has always been a genre built on the blending of disparate musical cultures. Latin jazz illustrates this perhaps better than any other style in this rich tradition, yet its cultural heritage has been all but erased from narratives of jazz history. Told from the perspective of a long-time jazz insider, Latin Jazz: The Other Jazz corrects the record, providing a historical account that embraces the genre's international nature and explores the dynamic interplay of economics, race, ethnicity, and nationalism that shaped it.

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.

This is a series of unorthodox peices that analyze some 40 of the author's favorite jazz records. The book is intended to make people listen to records which we believe are worth listening to again.

The Ella Fitzgerald Companion is a celebration of the woman who is arguably musical history's greatest singer of popular. An international superstar of jazz and popular music, Fitzgerald boasted astounding versatility and sophistication that covered the entire musical spectrum, and her combination of incredible vocal flexibility, precise diction and articulation, accurate improvising skills, and a huge repertoire remains unmatched. This guide to her sixty-year career-including her recordings, her important influences, and her collaborators-offers an overview of the evolution of American popular singing in the twentieth century through the lens of its greatest interpreter. Interspersed throughout the text are over eighty transcribed examples of recorded performances by Fitzgerald and a number of her influences, illuminating her genius in an unprecedented way. With accompanying discussions in both descriptive and musical language, this unique collection of transcriptions is accessible to musicians and non-musicians alike. Concluding the volume is a comprehensive discography of all the important Fitzgerald albums that have been re-issued to date on compact disc, offering the reader a practical way to become acquainted with one of the twentieth century's true musical pioneers.

Though serious jazz fans certainly recognize the brilliance of guitarist Grant Green, his overall contributions to the genre were sorely underrated during his own lifetime. Best known as a coveted Blue Note Records session leader and sideman - he played on nine Blue Note albums in 1961 alone - Green helped raise the art of jazz guitar playing to new heights. Like his contemporary Wes Montgomery, Green's driving, aggressive tone was simultaneously fluid and eloquent. He moved freely from style to style, embracing bop, gospel, blues, Latin, country, soul, and funk. In the late '60s, Green forayed into pop jazz but was overshadowed on the charts by more commercial players such as George Benson, who sang as well as played. Throughout most of his brief life, Green battled racial and religious barriers, as well as two failed marriages and a drug habit. This book follows him from his St. Louis gospel and blues roots to his heyday at New York's Blue Note Records; through a subsequent period of musical flux; on the club circuit in Detroit; and into eventual disillusionment, declining health, and death in 1979 at age 43. While later Grant Green songs such as "Down Here on the Ground" from the 1970 album Alive! have been sampled by performers ranging from Madonna to A Tribe Called Quest, the more classic 1963 album Idle Moments ranked Number 9 on Rolling Stone's Alternative Music chart in 1994 - more than 30 years after it was recorded. Such versatility and timelessness makes the short life and career of this jazz guitar genius all the more fascinating.

'A masterpiece, as fresh and shocking as if it were written yesterday' Craig Brown "I've been told that no one sings the word 'hunger' like I do. Or the word 'love'." Lady Sings the Blues is the inimitable autobiography of one of the greatest icons of the twentieth century. Born to a single mother in 1915 Baltimore, Billie Holiday had her first run-in with the law at aged 13. But Billie Holiday is no victim. Her memoir tells the story of her life spent in jazz, smoky Harlem clubs and packed-out concert halls, her love affairs, her wildly creative friends, her struggles with addiction and her adventures in love. Billie Holiday is a wise and aphoristic guide to the story of her unforgettable life.

Born in the late 19th century, jazz gained mainstream popularity during a volatile period of racial segregation and gender inequality. It was in these adverse conditions that jazz performers discovered the power of dress as a visual tool used to defy mainstream societal constructs, shaping a new fashion and style aesthetic. "Fashion and Jazz" is the first study to identify the behaviours, signs and meanings that defined this newly evolving subcultural style. Drawing on fashion studies and cultural theory, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the social and political entanglements of jazz and dress, with individual chapters exploring key themes such as race, class and gender. Including a wide variety of case studies, ranging from Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald to Louis Armstrong and Chet Baker, it presents a critical and cultural analysis of jazz performers as modern icons of fashion and popular style. Addressing a number of previously underexplored areas of jazz culture, such as modern dandyism and the link between drug use and glamorous dress, " Fashion and Jazz" provides a fascinating history of fashion's dialogue with African-American art and style. It is essential reading for students of fashion, cultural studies, African-American studies and history.

TONY BENNETT: Harold Jones is one of the finest men I know. I have reviewed "The Singer's Drummer" and it is a Knock-Out I am happy that someone is putting together a history of what really happens on the road. This is a very creative work. Best of luck with the book COUNT BASIE: A great drummer can mean everything to a band. Harold Jones has really pulled us together. LOUIS BELLSON: Harold Jones was Count Basie's favorite drummer. BILL COSBY: Harold is a master of mind, hands, feet and touch. His playing is very delicate, like handling the very finest crystal and china and when he is done, there's no damage. NATALIE COLE: Harold is one of the best jazz drummers in the world. NANCY WILSON: When I speak of my "Gentlemen" I am referring to a select group of super-talented musicians with whom I have had the good fortune to work. Harold was a treasured member of my trio in the mid-70's, a class act both as a musician and a man. I commend him as one of my gentlemen. JON HENDRICKS: Harold always pulled the band back of us singers. Harold always swings and he is a beautiful, sensitive cat. GEORGE YOUNG: Playing with Harold is like taking a warm bath. All you have to do is lay back and enjoy the swinging feel of his playing. JOHN BADESSA: Harold won the Downbeat International Award as the "Best New Artist and Big Band Drummer" in 1972. He has not relinquished his title. He is still the best big band drummer in the world.

Free Jazz: A Research and Information Guide offers carefully selected and annotated sources on free jazz, with comprehensive coverage of English-language academic books, journal articles, and dissertations, and selective coverage of trade books, popular periodicals, documentary films, scores, Masters' theses, online texts, and materials in other languages. Free Jazz will be a major reference tool for students, faculty, librarians, artists, scholars, critics, and serious fans navigating this literature.

Singing Jazz looks at the ups and downs of this tough profession through the eyes of legendary jazz singers, well-established performers, and some newcomers. Drawing on accounts from vocalists of yesterday and today in all major jazz styles, the book explores the musical influences of jazz singing; the learning process, whether on the road or in training; the challenges of building a repertoire, getting gigs, traveling, and performing under sometimes difficult circumstances; and the ongoing struggle for artistic recognition and financial security in the competitive world of popular music. To reveal the roots and evolution of this unique art form, authors Crother and Pinfold revisit the lives, words, and stylistic innovations of great singers in jazz history, including Carmen McRae, Dinah Washington, Mel Torme, Shirley Horn, Ethel Waters, Anita O'Day, and many more. Plus - interviewed especially for Singing Jazz - some of today's best performers illustrate the contemporary view of jazz singing. Kitty Margolis, Mark Murphy, Helen Merrill, Mark Porter, Christine Tyrrell, and many others discuss the influences and experiences that have shaped their singing careers, and share insights on how their art is still evolving today.

This work puts together in one volume all the book and scholarly materials related to jazz lives and organizes them in such a way that the reader, at a glance, can see the entire sweep of writings on a given artist and grasp the nature of their contents. The bibliography includes many different kinds of biographical source material published in all languages from 1921 to the present, such as biographies, autobiographies, interview collections, musical treatises, bio-discographies, anthologies of newspaper articles, Master theses, and Ph.D. dissertations. With few exceptions, a work of at least 50 pages in length merits inclusion, providing it has a substantive biographical component or aids jazz research. The main section of the work is an alphabetical listing of sources on individual jazz artists and ensembles. Jazz artists, as defined by Carner, are those who have made their mark as jazz performers and who have led the "jazz life," playing the clubs and "joints," not the "legitimate" concert stage, Broadway, Las Vegas, or the like. Thus, musicians such as Ray Charles or Frank Sinatra, who have recorded and performed with jazz ensembles, do not qualify for inclusion. Each bonafide jazz musician is given a separate section with birth, death, and primary instrumentation provided. Biographical sources about the artist or ensemble follow. Each entry is annotated to differentiate it from another and to present basic data on the source's content, such as the inclusion of a discography, bibliography, music examples and transcriptions, footnotes, indexes, illustrations, filmographies, and glossaries. An invaluable tool for jazz researchers and historians, Jazz Performers will also appeal tojazz enthusiasts in general.

Edward "Kid" Ory (1886-1973) was a trombonist, composer, recording artist, and early New Orleans jazz band leader. Creole Trombone tells his story from birth on a rural sugar cane plantation in a French-speaking, ethnically mixed family, to his emergence in New Orleans as the city's hottest band leader. The Ory band featured such future jazz stars as Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, and was widely considered New Orleans's top "hot" band. Ory's career took him from New Orleans to California, where he and his band created the first African American New Orleans jazz recordings ever made. In 1925 he moved to Chicago where he made records with Oliver, Armstrong, and Jelly Roll Morton and captured the spirit of the jazz age. His most famous composition from that period, "Muskrat Ramble," is a jazz standard. Retired from music during the Depression, he returned in the 1940s and enjoyed a reignited career.

Drawing on oral history and Ory's unpublished autobiography, "Creole Trombone" is a story that is told in large measure by Ory himself. The author reveals Ory's personality to the reader and shares remarkable stories of incredible innovations of the jazz pioneer. The book also features unpublished Ory compositions, photographs, and a selected discography of his most significant recordings.

(Limelight). ..".his economical writing style ... manages to pack lots of information and opinion into a few carefully chosen words ... Besides detail work well-grounded in scholarship...the author isn't afraid to interpolate such generalizations and speculations as he sees fit; he may be the Stephen Hawking of jazz criticism." Bob Tarte, The Beat

Endorsed by Kenny Barron, Jamey Aebersold, Richie Beirach, and more, this book presents all the information a student of jazz piano needs in an easy-to-understand, yet thorough, manner. For intermediate to advanced pianists, written by one of the acknowledged masters of jazz piano playing.

The early swing era of jazz, from 1930 to 1941, represents both an extension of developments of the previous decade and an introduction of new tendencies that influenced subsequent periods of jazz history. Major big bands and individual artists established important styles that brought wide popularity to the music, while small groups created innovative approaches that determined the directions jazz would take in the years to come. This was a time marked by colorful band leaders, flashy instrumental soloists, showy orchestras, and engaging singers, and Oliphant's reference guide to this period is an invaluable source of information on its artists, methods, innovations, and recordings.

Directing readers to outstanding performances available on compact disc, it serves not only as a scholarly historical and cultural overview, but also as a helpful guide for the layman. Organized in a biographical format, the volume discusses many individuals and groups that have not been considered so fully before, and provides a critical assessment of a major period in American music.

"In The Return of Jazz, Andrew Wright Hurley has admirably demonstrated Berendt's influence upon the emerging jazz scene of the early Federal Republic. Hurley shows how Cold War politics and rejection of the National Socialist past heightened Berendt's sense of mission. For Berendt, jazz was more than an avocation; it was a program for social and cultural reform. It is to Hurley's credit that he raises so many important issues surrounding jazz's development in the second half of the twentieth century." - H-German

"This is a benchmark study, in showing why a subject that has been overlooked in jazz historiography should not have been. Its importance lies not just in recognising the importance of a major mediator and 'enabler' of postwar jazz; it also models the late twentieth century shift of the jazz centre of gravity away from the US and towards international fusions. In its balancing of cultural theory with the most painstaking empirical research this is, quite simply, essential reading not just in jazz scholarship, but in the larger field of cultural history and its methodologies." - Bruce Johnson Cultural History, University of Turku

Jazz has had a peculiar and fascinating history in Germany. The influential but controversial German writer, broadcaster, and record producer, Joachim-Ernst Berendt (1922-2000), author of the world's best-selling jazz book, labored to legitimize jazz in West Germany after its ideological renunciation during the Nazi era. German musicians began, in a highly productive way, to question their all-too-eager adoption of American culture and how they sought to make valid artistic statements reflecting their identity as Europeans. This book explores the significance of some of Berendt's most important writings and record productions. Particular attention is given to the "Jazz Meets the World" encounters that he engineered with musicians from Japan, Tunisia, Brazil, Indonesia, and India. This proto-"world music" demonstrates how some West Germans went about creating a post-nationalist identity after the Third Reich. Berendt's powerful role as the West German "Jazz Pope" is explored, as is the groundswell of criticism directed at him in the wake of 1968.

In Crossing Bar Lines: The Politics and Practices of Black Musical Space James Gordon Williams reframes the nature and purpose of jazz improvisation to illuminate the cultural work being done by five creative musicians between 2005 and 2019. The political thought of five African American improvisers-trumpeters Terence Blanchard and Ambrose Akinmusire, drummers Billy Higgins and Terri Lyne Carrington, and pianist Andrew Hill-is documented through insightful, multilayered case studies that make explicit how these musicians articulate their positionality in broader society. Informed by Black feminist thought, these case studies unite around the theory of Black musical space that comes from the lived experiences of African Americans as they improvise through daily life. The central argument builds upon the idea of space-making and the geographic imagination in Black Geographies theory. Williams considers how these musicians interface with contemporary social movements like Black Lives Matter, build alternative institutional models that challenge gender imbalance in improvisation culture, and practice improvisation as joyful affirmation of Black value and mobility. Both Terence Blanchard and Ambrose Akinmusire innovate musical strategies to address systemic violence. Billy Higgins's performance is discussed through the framework of breath to understand his politics of inclusive space. Terri Lyne Carrington confronts patriarchy in jazz culture through her Social Science music project. The work of Andrew Hill is examined through the context of his street theory, revealing his political stance on performance and pedagogy. All readers will be elevated by this innovative and timely book that speaks to issues that continue to shape the lives of African Americans today.

An important volume on both the harmonic and melodic aspects of the modern guitarist with an emphasis on improvisation. Subjects include chord construction, embellishment, substitution, connection, resolution and chromatic movement. Also covers whole tone, blues, altered scales, chord scales and much more.

America's most popular introduction to jazz-now with MyMusicLab For undergraduate courses in Jazz History, Jazz Survey, Evolution of Jazz, Introduction to Jazz, and Jazz Appreciation. America's most widely used introduction to jazz text captures the minds of students by teaching the history of the styles and how to actively listen to jazz. While its chronological format serves as a great resource for beginners, Jazz Styles is applicable to more advanced students because of its in-depth analysis of musical elements and its technical appendices that discuss music theory concepts. This new edition incorporates a rich array of online features--including a full interactive eText, streaming audio, and historic performance video-through MyMusicLab. MyMusicLab was developed to help engage students in course material and assess their understanding of the material. With powerful online learning tools integrated into the book, the online and textbook experience is more seamless than ever before. MyMusicLab provides wonderful interactive resources that the instructor can bring directly into the classroom. Teaching and Learning Experience Personalize Learning- The new MyMusicLab delivers proven results in helping students succeed, provides engaging experiences that personalize learning, and comes from a trusted partner with educational expertise and a deep commitment to helping students and instructors achieve their goals. Improve Active Listening- Jazz Styles is celebrated for its detailed listening guides that take students through the key elements in each performance. Through MyMusicLab, these guides are now integrated with streaming audio for a truly integrated listening experience. Engage Students- In the text, an engaging design, historic photographs, and active listening activities engage students in learning, while streaming audio, historic performances by jazz legends, and a full interactive eText in MyMusicLab engage them online. Support Instructors- Supported by the best instructor resources on the market, including a full Instructor's Manual, Testbank, MyMusicLab, ClassPrep for digital images.

Frank Sinatra, an enduring mass-media personality, was not only an accomplished musician, film actor, and concert performer but also a spokesman for civil rights, a humanitarian, and a cultural trendsetter. This bibliography culls material from a variety of disparate sources and catalogues the numerous writings that encompass Sinatra's accomplishments, public persona, and cultural impact. In addition to the unique listing of liner notes, the books, book chapters, articles, and Internet websites span the 60 years that trace the beginning of Sinatra's career in 1939 through his death in 1998. This comprehensive bibliography will attract scholars and Sinatra fans alike as a useful tool for further research. The different types of literature catalogued are divided among separate chapters. An index provides for easy cross-referencing of material and an appendix lists more than 200 of the more notable essays that appeared following Sinatra's death on May 14, 1998.

The official illustrated history of Blue Note, the most influential and important brand in jazz. Blue Note is not only known as the purveyor of extraordinary jazz but is also famous as an arbiter of cool. The superb photography of co-founder Francis Wolff and the cover designs of Reid Miles were integral to the label's success and this highly illustrated publication - featuring the very best photographs, covers and ephemera from the archives, including never-before-published material - commemorates Blue Note's momentous contribution to jazz, to art and design, and to the music business. Tracing the evolution of jazz from the boogie-woogie and swing of the 1930s, through bebop, funk and fusion, to the eclectic mix Blue Note releases today, the book also narrates a complex social history from the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany to the developments in music and technology in the late 20th century. Celebrating over eight decades of extraordinary music, this book demonstrates how Blue Note has stayed true to its founders' commitment to 'Uncompromising Expression'.