Fred Astaire: one of the great jazz artists of the twentieth century. Astaire is best known for his brilliant dancing in the movie musicals of the 1930s, but in "Music Makes Me", Todd Decker argues that Astaire's work as a dancer and choreographer - particularly in the realm of tap dancing - made a significant contribution to the art of jazz. Decker examines the full range of Astaire's work in filmed and recorded media, from a 1926 recording with George Gershwin to his 1970 blues stylings on television, and analyzes Astaire's creative relationships with the greats, including George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer. He also highlights Astaire's collaborations with African American musicians and his work with lesser known professionals - arrangers, musicians, dance directors, and performers.

"Enka," a sentimental ballad genre, epitomizes for many the "nihonjin no kokoro" (heart/soul of Japanese). To older members of the Japanese public, who constitute "enka"'s primary audience, this music--of parted lovers, long unseen rural hometowns, and self-sacrificing mothers--evokes a direct connection to the traditional roots of "Japaneseness." Overlooked in this emotional invocation of the past, however, are the powerful commercial forces that, since the 1970s, have shaped the consumption of "enka" and its version of national identity. Informed by theories of nostalgia, collective memory, cultural nationalism, and gender, this book draws on the author's extensive fieldwork in probing the practice of identity-making and the processes at work when Japan becomes "Japan."

In The Heart of Rock & Soul, veteran rock critic Dave Marsh offers a polemical guide to the 1,001 greatest rock and soul singles ever made, encompassing rock, metal, R&B, disco, folk, funk, punk, reggae, rap, soul, country, and any other music that has made a difference over the past fifty years. The illuminating essays,complete with music history, social commentary, and personal appraisals,double as a mini-history of popular music. Here you will find singles by artists as wide-ranging as Aretha Franklin, George Jones, Roy Orbison, the Sex Pistols, Madonna, Run-D.M.C., and Van Halen. Featuring a new preface that covers the hits,and misses,of the'90s, The Heart of Rock & Soul remains as provocative, passionate, and timeless as the music it praises.

Traditional jazz studies have tended to see jazz in purely musical terms, as a series of changes in rhythm, tonality, and harmony, or as a parade of great players. But jazz has also entered the cultural mix through its significant impact on novelists, filmmakers, dancers, painters, biographers, and photographers. Representing Jazz explores the "other" history of jazz created by these artists, a history that tells us as much about the meaning of the music as do the many books that narrate the lives of musicians or describe their recordings. Krin Gabbard has gathered essays by distinguished writers from a variety of fields. They provide engaging analyses of films such as Round Midnight, Bird, Mo' Better Blues, Cabin in the Sky, and Jammin' the Blues; the writings of Eudora Welty and Dorothy Baker; the careers of the great lindy hoppers of the 1930s and 1940s; Mura Dehn's extraordinary documentary on jazz dance; the jazz photography of William Claxton; painters of the New York School; the traditions of jazz autobiography; and the art of "vocalese." The contributors to this volume assess the influence of extramusical sources on our knowledge of jazz and suggest that the living contexts of the music must be considered if a more sophisticated jazz scholarship is ever to evolve. Transcending the familiar patterns of jazz history and criticism, Representing Jazz looks at how the music actually has been heard and felt at different levels of American culture. With its companion anthology, Jazz Among the Discourses, this volume will enrich and transform the literature of jazz studies. Its provocative essays will interest both aficionados and potential jazz fans.Contributors. Karen Backstein, Leland H. Chambers, Robert P. Crease, Krin Gabbard, Frederick Garber, Barry K. Grant, Mona Hadler, Christopher Harlos, Michael Jarrett, Adam Knee, Arthur Knight, James Naremore

Notes and Tones is one of the most controversial, honest, and insightful books ever written about jazz. As a black musician himself, Arthur Taylor was able to ask his subjects hard questions about the role of black artists in a white society. Free to speak their minds, these musicians offer startling insights into their music, their lives, and the creative process itself. This expanded edition is supplemented with previously unpublished interviews with Dexter Gordon and Thelonious Monk, a new introduction by the author, and new photographs. Notes and Tones consists of twenty-nine no-holds-barred conversations which drummer Arthur Taylor held with the most influential jazz musicians of the '60s and '70s,including:

Bop Apocalypse, a narrative history from master storyteller Martin Torgoff, details the rise of early drug culture in America by weaving together the disparate elements that formed this new segment of the American fabric. Channeling his decades of writing experience, Torgoff connects the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the first drug laws, Louis Armstrong, Mezz Mezzrow, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, swing, Lester Young, Billie Holliday, the Savoy Ballroom, Reefer Madness, Charlie Parker, the birth of bebop, the rise of the Beat Generation, and the coming of heroin to Harlem. Having spent a lifetime immersed in the world where music and drugs overlap, Torgoff reveals material that is completely new and has never been disclosed before, not even in his own litany of work. Bop Apocalypse is truly a new and fresh contribution to the understanding of jazz, race, and drug culture.

Imagine a pianist playing concerts with Benny Goodman and Cecil Taylor in successive years (1977-78). That pianist was Mary Lou Williams. In a career which spanned over fifty years, Mary was always on the cutting edge.--Bob Jacobsen, www.allaboutjazz

Focusing on blues, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, and soul music, this text explores the rich musical heritage of African-Americans in California. The contributors describe in detail the individual artists, locales, groups, musical styles and regional qualities, and the result is a book which seeks to lay the groundwork for a whole new field of study. The essays draw from oral histories, music recordings, newspaper articles and advertisements, as well as population statistics to provide insightful discussions of topics such as the Californian urban milieu's influence on gospel music, the development of the West Coast blues style, and the significance of Los Angeles's Central Avenue in the early days of jazz. Other esays offer perspectives on how individual musicians have been shaped by their African-American heritage and on the role of the record industry and radio in the making of music. In addition to the diverse range of essays, the book includes a bibliography of African-American music and culture in California.

This text, the first of its kind, deals with some of the problems to be faced. It discusses the new trend of musical thought that jazz has brought about--the new combinations of instruments, a different harmonic and melodic language, a new and an intriguing approach to ensemble writing.

A contribution to the history of the blues in particular and of Afro-American culture in general, new information about a remarkable set of assertive, creative women as well as new insights into the musical heritage they have left behind. Sippie Wallace, Edith Wilson, Victoria Spivey and Alberta Hunter are the collective focus of this work - four influential blues singers with diverse styles, who were big in the 1920s and were still performing in the 1980s. Writing from a firm black/feminist standpoint, Harrison shows the joys, trials, and heartbreaks in the lives of the first popular women blues artists.

For more than seven decades Nick Lucas was an entertainer, beginning as a child street musician and becoming one of the most popular singer-guitarists of all time. He was a popular sideman in bands, and his solo career conquered radio, recordings, vaudeville, Broadway, films, night clubs and television. He is credited with being the first musician to replace the banjo with the guitar in big bands and on records, and with initiating the "intimate style" of singing, making him the first crooner. Nick Lucas' guitar playing contributed significantly to the instrument's popularity, and he influenced generations of players with his instruction books and by having a line of popular guitar picks bearing his name. He was the first guitarist to have a custom-made model, "The Nick Lucas Special." This biography comprehensively covers Nick Lucas' career as he entertained audiences in the United States, England and Australia, becoming a beloved star and influencing popular music to the present day.

Anyone interested in learning about a distinct music--jazz--will welcome this newest addition to the popular 101 reference series. Noted anthropologist, critic, and musical scholar John F. Szwed takes readers on a tour of the music's tangled history, and explores how it developed from an ethnic music to become North America's most popular music and then part of the avant garde in less than fifty years. Jazz 101 presents the key figures, history, theory, and controversies that shaped its development, along with a discussion of some of its most important recordings.