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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Jazz
When Derek Coller decided to pay tribute to his late friend - the
author, biographer, discographer and researcher, Bert Whyatt - he
looked for a common theme under which to group some of the articles
they had written together over the years. He found it in Chicago
where their research activities had gravitated towards the style of
music created by the young white musicians from that city and its
environs - particularly those who rallied around the figurehead of
Eddie Condon - as they listened to and learned from the pioneer
black stylists, many of them the greatest jazz players to emigrate
from New Orleans, including King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Johnny
and Baby Dodds and Jimmy Noone. Two trips to the USA, made by the
authors in 1979 and 1992, led to meetings and correspondence with
some of the musicians in this compilation, and to learning about
many others. There are connections between most of these articles,
interviews and notes, with an over-lapping of jobs, leaders and
clubs. Some of the stories are about pioneers: Elmer Schoebel, Jack
Pettis and Frank Snyder, for example, were in the New Orleans
Rhythm Kings in 1923. Trombonist George Brunis, chronicled here,
was also a member of that band, though his long career - during
which he played with Muggsy Spanier, as did Rod Cless and George
Zack, in the Spanier Ragtime Band of 'Great Sixteen' fame - has
been more widely documented. Floyd Bean and Tut Soper, here too,
were also Spanier alumni. The articles originally appeared
variously under a dual by-line, or by either Whyatt or Coller, but
always with consultation and discussion prior to publication. Here
they become a lively mix of the voices of the authors as well as
the musicians and their families, building a story through
biography, reviews and discography. The book is illustrated with
evocative black and white photographs and images, and there is an
Index of names and places to help the reader keep track of the
musicians, composers, producers, promoters and writers who created
this part of the history of jazz.
""Is there jazz in China?"" This is the question that sent author
Eugene Marlow on his quest to uncover the history of jazz in China.
Marlow traces China's introduction to jazz in the early 1920s, its
interruption by Chinese leadership under Mao in 1949, and its
rejuvenation in the early 1980s with the start of China's opening
to the world under Premier Deng Xiaoping. Covering a span of almost
one hundred years, Marlow focuses on a variety of subjects--the
musicians who initiated jazz performances in China, the means by
which jazz was incorporated into Chinese culture, and the musicians
and venues that now present jazz performances. Featuring unique,
face-to-face interviews with leading indigenous jazz musicians in
Beijing and Shanghai, plus interviews with club owners, promoters,
expatriates, and even diplomats, Marlow marks the evolution of jazz
in China as it parallels China's social, economic, and political
evolution through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.
Also featured is an interview with one of the extant members of the
Jimmy King Big Band of the 1940s, one of the first major
all-Chinese jazz big bands in Shanghai. Ultimately, Jazz in China:
From Dance Hall Music to Individual Freedom of Expression is a
cultural history that reveals the inexorable evolution of a
democratic form of music in a Communist state.
Jazz can be uplifting, stimulating, sensual, and spiritual. Yet
when writers turn to this form of music, they almost always imagine
it in terms of loneliness. In Blue Notes: Jazz, Literature, and
Loneliness, Sam V. H. Reese investigates literary representations
of jazz and the cultural narratives often associated with it,
noting how they have, in turn, shaped readers' judgments and
assumptions about the music. This illuminating critical study
contemplates the relationship between jazz and literature from a
perspective that musicians themselves regularly call upon to
characterize their performances: that of the conversation. Reese
traces the tradition of literary appropriations of jazz, both as
subject matter and as aesthetic structure, in order to show how
writers turn to this genre of music as an avenue for exploring
aspects of human loneliness. In turn, jazz musicians have often
looked to literature- sometimes obliquely, sometimes centrally- for
inspiration. Reese devotes particular attention to how several
revolutionary jazz artists used the written word as a way to
express, in concrete terms, something their music could only allude
to or affectively evoke. By analyzing these exchanges between music
and literature, Blue Notes refines and expands the cultural meaning
of being alone, stressing how loneliness can create beauty,
empathy, and understanding. Reese analyzes a body of prose writings
that includes Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and midcentury short
fiction by James Baldwin, Julio CortA!zar, Langston Hughes, and
Eudora Welty. Alongside this vibrant tradition of jazz literature,
Reese considers the autobiographies of Duke Ellington and Charles
Mingus, as well as works by a range of contemporary writers
including Geoff Dyer, Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Zadie
Smith. Throughout, Blue Notes offers original perspectives on the
disparate ways in which writers acknowledge the expansive side of
loneliness, reimagining solitude through narratives of connected
isolation.
Jazz great Gerald Wilson (1918-2014), born in Shelby, Mississippi,
left a global legacy of paramount significance through his
progressive musical ideas and his orchestra's consistent influence
on international jazz. Aided greatly by interviews that bring
Wilson's voice to the story, Steven Loza presents a perspective on
what the musician and composer called his ""jazz pilgrimage.""
Wilson uniquely adapted Latin influences into his jazz palette,
incorporating many Cuban and Brazilian inflections as well as those
of Mexican and Spanish styling. Throughout the book, Loza refers to
Wilson's compositions and arrangements, including their historical
contexts and motivations. Loza provides savvy musical readings and
analysis of the repertoire. He concludes by reflecting upon
Wilson's ideas on the place of jazz culture in America, its place
in society and politics, its origins, and its future. With a
foreword written by Wilson's son, Anthony, and such sources as
essays, record notes, interviews, and Wilson's own reflections, the
biography represents the artist's ideas with all their
philosophical, historical, and cultural dimensions. Beyond merely
documenting Wilson's many awards and recognitions, this book ushers
readers into the heart and soul of a jazz creator. Wilson emerges a
unique and proud African American artist whose tunes became a
mosaic of the world.
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