Preface jazz technique. It presents an alternative to what is currently being taught in jazz curriculums (such as the over-used chord-scale system). Building upon the original work of Arnold Schonberg in his Structural Functions of Harmony (1954; 1969) this work takes Schonberg's monotonality approach and broadens it for use in the jazz medium. the tonic chord would still be considered related--whether directly or indirectly. With the central chord becoming the primary tonal personality of a work, all melodic and chordal deviations from that prime become but related regions branching off from, but controlled or dominated by, the established tonality. In this handbook the concept of the sixth degree of the scale, and other substitute intervals, is given emphasis as a starting point of melodic improvisation. performer, thus widening both the harmonic and melodic possibilities of creative improvisation. Commercial jazz is the music of the future, and the techniques offered here utilize scientific principles of universal and fundamental implication. Volume I discovers different intervals to play while improvising, using specially outlined solo techniques. hoped that you will find it likewise rewarding, while expanding your own creative horizons.

Contains easy piano arrangements for top jazz complete with song background notes and playing hints and tips.

Pianist George Shearing is that rare thing, a European jazz musician who became a household name in the US, as a result of the "Shearing sound" -- the recordings of his historic late 1940s quintet. Together with his unique "locked hands" approach to playing the piano, Shearing's quintet with guitar and vibraphone in close harmony to his own playing revolutionised small group jazz, and ensured that after seven years as Melody Maker's top British pianist, he achieved even greater success in America. His compositions have been recorded by everyone from Sarah Vaughan to Miles Davis, and his best known pieces include "Lullaby of Birdland," "She" and "Conception." His story is all the more remarkable because Shearing was born blind. As a teenager he joined Claude Bampton's band, and he recounts hilarious anecdotes about the trials and tribulations of this all blind group. By the start of the war years, Shearing was established as one of Britain's most popular and impressive jazz pianists--broadcasting regularly and playing and recording with Stephane Grappelli. In 1947 he emigrated to the US and started his landmark series of records with his quintet as well as performing classical pieces with several leading symphony orchestras. His candid reminiscences include a behind the scenes experience of New York's 52nd Street in its heyday, as well as memories of a vast roll-call of professional colleagues that includes all the great names in jazz.

This book is the first volume in a series designed to help the student of jazz piano learn and apply jazz scales by mastering each scale and its uses in improvisation. Volume 1 focuses on the major scale, illustrating the scale in all twelve keys with complete fingerings. Chords and left hand voicings, exercises and etudes to help apply the material to improvising, ideas for further study and listening, and detailed instructions and suggestions on how to practice the material are also provided. Volume 1 also includes primers on note-reading, theory basics from intervals through seventh chords, and rhythmic notation.

New, expanded and updated edition of the best comprehensive survey of who's who of British jazz musicians. Over 900 biographies detail the work of musicians from every era of British jazz, ranging from those who played professionally before 1920 at the dawn of jazz in Britain, through to today's younger stars. Contains new information on the early careers of those who became famous and the chronological listing of events in each subject's life sheds new light on the development of jazz in Britain. Thousands of facts are presented and some popular myths dispelled. Veteren musicians have been traced, even those who have left the profession or emigrated have been included. One of the most fully documented sources on the jazz musicians of any country outside the USA and a treasury of information covering every jazz style. John Chilton divides his time between plaging his trumpet (his band The Feetwarmers backed singer George Melly for 30 years) and writing his books on jazz. John has written biographies of Billie Holiday, Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, Louis Jordan, Henry 'Red' Allen and Roy Eldridge as well as Who's Who of Jazz - Storyville and Swing Street, the definitive account of the early careers of early American jazz musicians (which is currently in its fifth edition). His writings on jazz have won him in a grammy and the prestigious ARSC award. Down Beat magazine has dubbed him a 'master of the craft of research'.

Most die-hard Brazilian music fans would argue that Getz/Gilberto, the iconic 1964 album featuring "The Girl from Ipanema," is not the best bossa nova record. Yet we've all heard "The Girl from Ipanema" as background music in a thousand anodyne settings, from cocktail parties to telephone hold music. So how did Getz/Gilberto become the Brazilian album known around the world, crossing generational and demographic divides? Bryan McCann traces the history and making of Getz/Gilberto as a musical collaboration between leading figure of bossa nova Joao Gilberto and Philadelphia-born and New York-raised cool jazz artist Stan Getz. McCann also reveals the contributions of the less-understood participants (Astrud Gilberto's unrehearsed, English-language vocals; Creed Taylor's immaculate production; Olga Albizu's arresting, abstract-expressionist cover art) to show how a perfect balance of talents led to not just a great album, but a global pop sensation. And he explains how Getz/Gilberto emerged from the context of Bossa Nova Rio de Janeiro, the brief period when the subtle harmonies and aching melodies of bossa nova seemed to distill the spirit of a modernizing, sensuous city. 33 1/3 Global, a series related to but independent from 33 1/3, takes the format of the original series of short, music-based books and brings the focus to music throughout the world. With initial volumes focusing on Japanese and Brazilian music, the series will also include volumes on the popular music of Australia/Oceania, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and more.

This book is the first volume in a series designed to help the student of jazz piano learn and apply jazz scales by mastering each scale and its uses in improvisation. Volume 1 focuses on the major scale, illustrating the scale in all twelve keys with complete fingerings. Chords and left hand voicings, exercises and etudes to help apply the material to improvising, ideas for further study and listening, and detailed instructions and suggestions on how to practice the material are also provided. Volume 1 also includes primers on note-reading, theory basics from intervals through seventh chords, and rhythmic notation.

Ten classic jazz tunes including transcribed solos and chord symbols in melody line arrangements. With demonstration performances and specially recorded backing tracks, featuring live jazz trio. Ideal for learning and practising jazz improvisation. Includes transcriptions if famous recorded solos and chord symbols for your own improvised solos. On the CD hear the full performance versions of each tune, including demonstation solos, on Tracks 2 - 11. The instrumental part is then omitted from Tracks 12 - 21 so you can play along with the recorded accompaniments.

Written by one of today's great jazz educators, this is a system for building great-sounding jazz lines. the relationship of the individual lines to chords and progressions is analyzed. In addition, original saxophone studies integrate these concepts with technical proficiency.

This study examines the migration of African American jazz musicians to other parts of the world from 1919 to the present. It provides evidence that African American jazz musicians fared better in the diaspora than they did in America where jazz and its inventors were born. Characterized as bereft of 'culture' in America, they were hailed as the epitome of high culture in Europe, Asia, and the Soviet Union: they fraternized with royalty in Europe while Jim Crow laws prevailed in America. The study begins with the emergence of jazz music in America, examines musicians who traveled abroad, and their lives and influences in postwar Europe, including Germany from 1925-1945, and also presents some surprising statistics on the death rates of jazz and classical musicians in the US and abroad. The study, written by an anthropologist who is also a jazz musician, provides a treatment of the cultural, historical, artistic, innovative, and aesthetic aspects of the migration of African American jazz musicians to the diaspora.

As the handsome (and much-married) leader of a series of big bands and small groups in the 1930s and 1940s, clarinetist Artie Shaw achieved measures of fame and fortune that temporarily eclipsed those of his great rival, Benny Goodman. Shaw's five top single recordigs had sold over 65 million copies by 1965; by 1990 his total sales exceeded 100 million records. Yet Shaw was an ambitiously serious and introspective musician. He frequently tired of the music business, often forsaking it for extended periods. He also achieved renown as a writer of fiction. Unlike Goodman, Shaw, now in his 93rd year and the last surviving icon of the Swing Era, has not been well served by jazz writers. In rectifying that omission, the revised edition of this book offers a narrative account and analytical assessment of the life and times of a major figure in American popular music.

Throughout his life as a tenor saxophonist, Theodore Walter 'Sonny' Rollins has been committed to the fundamental truths of jazz, especially swing, while managing also to be consistently experimental and forward looking, and his recorded oeuvre includes at least a dozen albums essential to any serious collection. Yet Rollins is an enigmatic figure. The idealist who wrote the renowned and controversial Freedom Suite and who memorably declared "jazz means no barriers" has also been prey to periods of diffidence, at times withdrawing from the music scene altogether. This new appraisal charts in full the somewhat fitful career of an artist who at his best remains one of jazz's most noble improvisers. Transcriptions of three of Rollins' solos are included.

"This oracular first novel, which unfurls like gossamer [has] characters of a depth seldom found in a debut."—The New Yorker

In Diana Abu-Jaber's "impressive, entertaining" (Chicago Tribune) first novel, a small, poor-white community in upstate New York becomes home to the transplanted Jordanian family of Matussem Ramoud: his grown daughters, Jemorah and Melvina; his sister Fatima; and her husband, Zaeed. The widower Matuseem loves American jazz, kitschy lawn ornaments, and, of course, his daughters. Fatima is obsessed with seeing her nieces married—Jemorah is nearly thirty! Supernurse Melvina is firmly committed to her work, but Jemorah is ambivalent about her identity and role. Is she Arab? Is she American? Should she marry and, if so, whom?

Winner of the Oregon Book Award and finalist for the National PEN/Hemingway Award, Arabian Jazz is "a joy to read.... You will be tempted to read passages out loud. And you should" (Boston Globe). USA Today praises Abu-Jaber's "gift for dialogue...her Arab-American rings musically, and hilariously, true." Reading group guide included.

"[A] joy to read.... You will be tempted to read passages out loud. And you should."—Boston Globe

"[Abu-Jaber's] Arab-American rings musically, and hilariously, true."—USA Today

This book is the 2nd volume in a series designed to help the student of jazz piano learn and apply jazz scales by mastering each scale and its uses in improvisation. Each book focuses on a different scale, illustrating the scale in all twelve keys with complete fingerings. Also provided are chords and left hand voicings to match, exercises and etudes to help apply the material to improvising, ideas for further study and listening, and detailed instructions and suggestions on how to practice the material.

Rebelling against the Elvis-based, American-imported rock scene in late '60s Brazil, Caetano Veloso suffused lyrical Brazilian folksongs with fuzz guitar, avant-jazz, and electronic music-and in doing so blew apart the status quo of Brazilian culture. Caetano and the movement he catalyzed, "tropicalia," urged an adoption of personal freedom in politics, music, and lifestyle. His "rabble-rousing," as the government saw it, would get Caetano and his comrade Gilberto Gil arrested and exiled to London to wait out the military dictatorship. His fame increasing by the year, Caetano focused on writing songs about his homeland, returning to Brazil as a national hero-a mantle he still wears today. His most recent album, "Live in Bahia," was released to international critical and popular acclaim.

Where did Charlie Parker first play with Dizzy Gillespie? What are the coolest clubs in Chicago? Which city has the largest jazz museum? Where is Howlin' Wolf buried? The answers can be found in The Da Capo Jazz and Blues Lover's Guide to the U.S. , an insiders look at all the places where jazz and blues live, from national clubs to unmarked holes in the wall, in twenty-five cities and the Mississippi Delta. With the most up-to-date listings for festivals, historic theatres, record stores, and radio stations-plus anecdotes from club owners and musicians,this is the essential "where-to" for jazz and blues fans everywhere.

A group of resourceful kids start "solution-seekers.com," a website where "cybervisitors" can get answers to questions that trouble them. But when one questioner asks the true meaning of Christmas, the kids seek to unravel the mystery by journeying back through the prophecies of the Old Testament. What they find is a series of "S" words that reveal a "spectacular story!" With creative characters, humorous dialogue and great music, The "S" Files is a children's Christmas musical your kids will love performing.

The acclaimed biography of the legendary tenor
"Lester Leaps In jumps off the page with authenticity and insight. The Prez was an amazing creator with a uniquely wicked sense of humor, and this book captures it all."
--Quincy Jones
"Twenty years in the making, this is the most thorough and penetrating book on the President of the Tenor Saxophone to date."
--Publishers Weekly
"A provocative book, presenting Lester Young in a novel, even controversial light while opening new avenues of possible investigation into one of the most tantalizingly enigmatic of all historic jazz figures."
--Richard Sudhalter, Los Angeles Times
"The lessons learned from Pres' painful life tell us a lot about ourselves and the horrible consequences of racism in America."
--T. Michael Crowell, San Diego Union-Tribune
Douglas Henry Daniels is professor of history and black studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is author of Pioneer Urbanites: A Social and Cultural History of Black San Francisco and lives in Santa Barbara.

Modern jazz and rock 'n' roll, both of which were once identified with youthful insurrection, have reached middle age. So have many longtime listeners -including Francis Davis. Now, in these thirty-one articles, the revered jazz critic considers music young and old, examining performers from Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday to Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra. But what makes this Davis's most surprising book is the inclusion of such pop icons as Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Burt Bacharach, and Lou Reed. Using himself as an example, Davis pinpoints our collective longing for a time when we (and our music) were younger-and more inclined to take risks. Lively, opinionated, gracefully written, and often very funny, Like Young is a book for those who have long savored Davis's writing, as well as for those just now discovering him.

Bayou Jazz Lives is a collection of biographies and autobiographies of jazz and blues musicians who made a vital contribution to the development of these genres. Offering first-hand accounts from the men and women who made the music, as well as scholarly and well-researched life stories by established biographers, this series is an invaluable aid to anyone seeking more information about the conditions in which these key strands of popular music were created.

Marshal Royal was a core member of the Count Basie Orchestra for twenty years during its resurgence in the 1950s and 1960s. Before that, he was a pioneer of jazz on the West Coast, playing with many bands in and around Los Angeles. A child prodigy of both the violin and saxophone, Royal was literally born on the road as his musician parents made their way West.

Royal shares his experiences with Les Hite's band at Sebastian's New Cotton Club, where he worked with jazz legends such as Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. He became a founding member and 'straw boss' of Lionel Hampton's Orchestra after a wartime career in U.S. Navy bands. After leaving Hampton, Royal made countless recordings as a freelancer before joining Basie, where he was responsible for rehearsing the Orchestra. Later, he became internationally known as a soloist while continuing his prolific recording career. His brother, Ernie, who was a star trumpeter in the bands of Woody Herman and Stan Kenton, is also profiled.

The thrill of sitting in a club or concert hall hearing jazz being made is familiar to most fans. But what if you could immerse yourself in the world of the musician, where creating and performing is a profound task, and yet as routine as breathing? When writer Carl Vigeland was invited to tour with Wynton Marsalis and his septet, he was able to do just that. Vigeland's acute observations sweep us into their world as he becomes virtually part of the band. At the same time, Marsalis offers intimate meditations on home, family, creation, and performance- written in the cadence of his inimitable voice. Set on the stage, in the studio, and in great cities and small towns around the world, this richly textured narrative explores how the music is made in America today.

A legend on both the clarinet and the soprano saxophone, one of the most brilliant exponents of New Orleans jazz, Sidney Bechet (1897-1959) played with such fellow jazz legends as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Jelly Roll Morton. Here is his vivid story written in his own words. Expressive, frank, and hilarious, this classic in jazz literature re-creates a man, a music, and an era.