Something to Live For investigates and analyses the entire oeuvre of Billy Strayhorn, who, for over 30 years, was the musical collaborator of Duke Ellington. Nearlly seventy music examples, drawn directly from his original autograph scores, provide insight into the development of Strayhorn's own musical language and style. The author has found hitherto unknown works that permit a closer examination of the composer's development. The author addresses the question of the perceived interchangeability of Strayhorn's and Ellington's styles and argues for each having a unique style. With this work, Strayhorn is detached from Ellington's shadow and readers are given pointers to the most salient features to distinguish their works.

Between 1972 and 1987, freelance teacher and music journalist Roland Baggenaes conducted a series of interviews with jazz musicians for CODA magazine. Upon recently re-discovering the interviews, he was once again fascinated by the enthusiasm of the musicians and their profound dedication to their chosen profession. Jazz Greats Speak: Interviews with Master Musicians brings those fascinating discussions into one bound volume. Such jazz artists as Lee Konitz, Mary Lou Williams, Dexter Gordon, Red Rodney, Stanley Clarke, and John Tchicai talk about their art, how they got interested in playing jazz, their influences, and about the many different musicians with whom they worked. The interviewees openly relate in their own words what jazz means to them and, in some cases, share their viewpoints on politics, religion, and their social life and conditions as a jazz artist in America or elsewhere. The book covers a wide area of jazz but emphasizes the period from the early 1940s into the 1960s. In their entirety, the interviews give an insight into the development of jazz, from the early days of the 1920s, over the formative 1940s and 1950s, and up to the new trends of the 1980s. Complete with a beautiful selection of photographs, brief biographies of each participant, and an index, this volume will appeal to lovers of jazz, students of jazz, and anyone interested in finding out what jazz and its corresponding lifestyle is about.

Stuart Nicholson's biography of Ella Fitzgerald is considered a classic in jazz literature. Drawing on original documents, interviews, and new information, Nicholson draws a complete picture of Fitzgerald's professional and personal life. Along with Billie Holiday, she virtually defined the female voice in jazz, and countless others followed in her wake and acknowledged her enormous influence. Beginning as a singer with the Chick Webb band, Fitzgerald scored her first hits with jazzy novelties, and proved her mettle when Webb suddenly died and she found herself the band's de facto leader. When the big band era ended after World War II, she remade herself as a popular balladeer, recording a famous series of Songbooks that helped establish the classic American song repertory. Through the ups-and-downs of her romantic life, Fitzgerald proved a strong survivor, weathering changes in musical taste and stules to become an American icon who transcended genre. Fitzgerald rarely gave interviews on personal subjects, and discussed her life in only the most general terms. Even her birth date was widely misreported until Nicholson unearthed her original birth certificate. Through painstaking research and personal interviews, Stuart Nicholson offers the first full picture of this singer's life and times. Also includes two 8-page inserts.

Based on lengthy interviews with Ellington's bandmates, family, and friends, Duke Ellington and His World offers a fresh look at this legendary composer. The first biography of the composer written by a fellow musician and African-American, the book traces Ellington's life and career in terms of the social, cultural, political, and economic realities of his times. Beginning with his birth in Washington, DC, through his first bands and work at the legendary Cotton Club, to his final great extended compositions, this book gives a thorough introduction to Ellington's music and how it was made. It also illuminates his personal life because, for Ellington, music was his life and his life was a constant inspiration for music. When A. H. Lawrence was a young trombone player in the '40s, he met Ellington and befriended the elder musician. From that point forward, he closely followed Ellington's career. Because of his deep love for Ellington's music, he began interviewing many of the stars of Ellington's early bands, hoping to capture from them, before they passed away, their memories and insights. Drawing on these interviews with legendary musicians-including many who worked with Ellington from his earliest days, such as drummer Sonny Greer, who played with Ellington's first bands in the '20s and who continued in his bands through the early '50s-the book offers a rounded and human portrait of the great composer and musician. Ellington's son Mercer was particularly forthcoming, offering new information about his childhood and experiences working with his father. The insights into the family that he shared have not previously been published. The result is a thorough biography that offers unique insights into Ellington: the man and his music. This fresh and balanced portrayal will undoubtedly add to our understanding of one of America's greatest artists and bring renewed attention to his distinguished body of work.

Austral Jazz: The Localization of a Global Music Form in Sydney proposes a new theoretical framework for understanding local jazz communities as they develop outside the United States, demonstrating such processes in action by applying the framework to a significant period of the history of jazz in Sydney, Australia after 1973. This volume introduces the notion of 'Austral Jazz,' coined in order to reset the focus on supranational conceptions of jazz expressions in the southwestern Pacific. It makes the case for Austral Jazz chronologically across six chapters that discuss, interpret and critique major events and seminal recordings, tracing the development of the Austral shift from a pre-Austral period prior to 1973. Austral Jazz presents a fresh approach to understanding the development of jazz communities, and while its focus is on the Sydney scene after 1973, the 'Austral' theory can be applied to creative communities globally. A creative shift took place in Sydney in the early 1970s, which led to the flourishing of a new kind of jazz-based expression, one that reflected Australia's increasingly globalized and multicultural outlook. This study is timely, and it builds on the work of local jazz researchers. Historiographical understandings of global developments in jazz can be understood within a framework of four overarching narratives: The 'birth and belonging' narrative; the 'spread and adaptation' narrative; the 'pluralization by localization' narrative; and the 'self-fashioning of the already local' narrative.

Within one of the most complex musical categories yet to surface, Cal Tjader quietly pioneered the genre as a jazz vibraphonist, composer, arranger and bandleader from the 1950s through the 1980s. Reid tells the life story of a humble musician, written in a familiar, conversational tone that reveals Tjader's complex charisma. Tjader left behind a legacy and a labyrinth of influence, attested by his large audience and innovation that would change the course of jazz. Expanded and revised, this intimate biography now includes additional interviews and anecdotes from Tjader's family, bandmates, and community, print research, and rare photographs, presenting a full history of an undervalued musician, as well as a detailed account of the progression of Latin Jazz.

An updated new edition of Ted Gioia's universally acclaimed history of jazz, with a wealth of new insight on this music's past, present, and future. Ted Gioia's The History of Jazz has been universally hailed as the most comprehensive and accessible history of the genre of all time. Acclaimed by jazz critics and fans alike, this magnificent work is now available in an up-to-date third edition that covers the latest developments in the jazz world and revisits virtually every aspect of the music. Gioia's story of jazz brilliantly portrays the most legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the scenes in which they evolved. From Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, Miles Davis's legendary 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, and Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality to current innovators such as Kamasi Washington and Esperanza Spalding, Gioia takes readers on a sweeping journey through the history of jazz. As he traces the music through the swamp lands of the Mississippi Delta, the red light district of New Orleans, the rent parties of Harlem, the speakeasies of Chicago, and other key locales of jazz history, Gioia also makes the social contexts in which the music was born come alive. This new edition finally brings the often overlooked women who shaped the genre into the spotlight and traces the recent developments that have led to an upswing of jazz in contemporary mainstream culture. As it chronicles jazz from its beginnings and most iconic figures to its latest dialogues with popular music, the developments of the digital age, and new commercial successes, Gioia's History of Jazz reasserts its status as the most authoritative survey of this fascinating music.

Few musicians shaped Iberian jazz more than pianist Vicenc "Tete" Montoliu i Massana (1933-97). Fascinated by the modernist aesthetics of mid-century jazz, Montoliu was known for a carefully crafted mix of lyricism and dissonance, a penchant for discordant crashes, and a development of highly original compositions. Over the course of his career, he boasted some 100 recordings spanning Denmark, Germany, Holland, Spain, and the United States, and performed with the most notable jazz luminaries including Lionel Hampton, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, and Archie Shepp. In drawing from the Black American jazz form, Montoliu fashioned an adjacent critical space shaped by his experiences as a Catalan and a person with congenital visual impairment living under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Beyond Sketches of Spain: Tete Montoliu and the Construction of Iberian Jazz explores the artist's life, musical production, and international reception within a cultural studies framework, invoking Fumi Okiji's notion of gathering in difference. In its investigation of this impressive and often overlooked transnational jazz legend, the book moves beyond mere sketches of Spanish nationhood, challenges conventional scholarly narratives, and recovers links between the United States, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, and Europe.

"What a life it was, and what a career...I wouldn't have dreamed that I could get lost in the pages of a bio-discography, but that's exactly what happened when I started to thumb this volume." -from the foreword by Leonard Maltin Who could forget Rock-a-bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody or The Jazz Singer? Al Jolson (1886-1950) was billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer" and to this day is still considered the standard by which entertainers' goals are measured. He achieved the top spot in virtually every medium in which he performed: stage, film, records, and radio. This is a comprehensive study of Jolson's career and touring data, providing extensive information on each of the performances. Bibliography and indexes.

Dave Brubeck's Time Out ranks among the most popular, successful, and influential jazz albums of all time. Released by Columbia in 1959 alongside such other landmark albums as Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um, Time Out became the first jazz album to be certified platinum, while its featured track, "Take Five" became the first jazz single to surpass one million copies sold. In addition to its commercial successes, the album is widely recognized as a pioneering endeavor into the use of odd meters in jazz. With its opening track, "Blue Rondo a la Turk" written in 9/8, its hit single "Take Five" in 5/4, and equally innovative plays on the more common 3/4 and 4/4 meters on other tracks, Take Five has played an important role in the development of modern jazz. In this book, author Stephen A. Crist draws on nearly ten years of archival research to offer the most thorough examination to date of this seminal jazz album. Supplementing his research with interviews with key individuals, including Brubeck's widow Iola and daughter Catherine, as well as interviews conducted with Brubeck himself prior to his passing in 2012, Crist paints a complete picture of the album's origins, creation, and legacy. Couching careful analysis of each of the album's seven tracks within historical and cultural context, he offers fascinating insights into the composition and development of some of the albums best known songs. From Brubeck's 1958 State Department-sponsored tour of Turkey during which he first encountered the aksak rhythms that would from the basis of "Blue Rondo a la Turk" to the backstage jam session that laid the seeds for "Take Five", Crist sheds an exciting new light on one of the most significant albums in jazz history.

Based on lengthy interviews with Ellington's bandmates, family, and friends, Duke Ellington and His World offers a fresh look at this legendary composer. A.H. Lawrence gives us the first biography of the composer written by a fellow musician and African American. This fascinating book traces Ellington's life, from his early years in Washington, D.C. to his death in New York in 1974, and career, from the brothel to the cathedral, in terms of the social, cultural, political and economic realities of his times.

This study examines how early writers of jazz criticism and literature as well as "jazz" performers and composers associated the music directly with questions about identity and with historical developments like industrialization. Going beyond the study of melody, harmony and rhythm, this book's interdisciplinary approach takes seriously the cultural beliefs about jazz that inspired interracial contact, moralistic panic, bohemian slumming, visions of American democracy, and much more. Detailed textual analysis of fiction, nonfiction, film and musical performance illustrates the complexity of these cultural beliefs in the 1920s and also shows their survival to the present day.

This catalogue documents the exhibition Art of Jazz, a collaborative installation at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art with one section ("Form") installed at the Harvard Art Museum. The book explores the intersection of the visual arts and jazz music, and presents a visual feast of full color plates of artworks, preceded by a series of essays. "Form," curated by Suzanne Preston Blier and David Bindman in the teaching gallery of the Harvard Art Museum, ushers in a dialogue between visual representation and jazz music, showcasing artists' responses to jazz. "Performance," also curated by Blier and Bindman, guides us through a rich collection of books, album covers, photographs, and other ephemera installed at the Cooper Gallery. "Notes," curated by Cooper Gallery director Vera Ingrid Grant, fills five of the gallery's curatorial spaces with contemporary art that illustrates how late twentieth- and early twenty-first century artists hear, view, and engage with jazz. Visual artists represented in "Form" include Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Romare Bearden, and Stuart Davis. "Performance" includes art by Hugh Bell, Carl Van Vechten, and Romare Bearden; additional album cover art by Joseph Albers, Ben Shahn, Andy Warhol, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers; and posters and photographs of Josephine Baker and Lena Horne. "Notes" includes art by Cullen Washington, Norman Lewis, Walter Davis, Lina Viktor, Petite Noir, Ming Smith, Richard Yarde, Christopher Myers, Whitfield Lovell, and Jason Moran.

(Real Book Play-Along). The Real Book you know and love has now been updated to include backing tracks for 240 songs on one convenient USB flash drive stick The play-along CDs alone are worth $100 so this is an amazing package price The Real Books are the best-selling jazz books of all time. Since the 1970s, musicians have trusted these volumes to get them through every gig, night after night. The problem is that the books were illegally produced and distributed without any reqard to copyright law or royalties paide to the composers who created these musical masterpieces. Hal Leonard is very proud to present the first legitimate and legal editions of these books ever produced. You won't even notice the difference, other than that all of the notorious errors have been fixed

"Jean-Pierre was himself a musician, but his choice of instrument was a camera, which he never put away." - Michel Legrand "I am so happy to see Leloir's work published, because behind each image is a story - one that needs to be told and appreciated. Leloir was not just a photographer; instead he was a preserver of history. As a result, this book holds hundreds of stories that shine a light onto the lives of those who live in these pages. Leloir had a unique ability to preserve an entire atmosphere and its surrounding emotions. between the four corners of a picture, but beyond his talent as a photographers, he presented himself not as paparazzi, but a friend. He and my other brother Herman Leonard were two of a kind; they had the same passion for photography and an endless supply of vision." - Quincy Jones This book gives ample proof of Jean-Pierre Leloir's amazing ability to immortalise performers and to capture candid moments at the airport, backstage, and in the dressing rooms of the most legendary Paris jazz and concert venues: "I loved the people I photographed, so I made myself as available, yet as discreet as possible", he used to say. "I never wanted to be a paparazzi. I wanted them to forget my presence so I could catch those little unexpected moments." The selection of photographs showcased here has been carefully selected from Leloir's immense catalogue. Many of the images have never been previously published before, and can be easily catalogued as 'atypical' shots, as the musicians were captured primarily in spontaneous situations, away from the fanfare of the stage. Text in English with an introduction in English, French and Spanish.

(Keyboard Instruction). This book presents a concise history, or "survey" of jazz piano. In 13 hands-on lessons and 4 bonus performances, Dick Hyman explores the styles, musical vocabulary, and performers who have defined and shaped this elusive American art form over the last century. Starting with the pre-ragtime music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk and ragtime of Scott Joplin, and ending with the advanced scale types of Nicholas Slonimsky and music of McCoy Tyner, Mr. Hyman discusses and demonstrates the astonishing variety of jazz piano improvisation and the people and techniques that have shaped its evolution. The included DVD, showing all 13 lessons and 4 bonus performances, is filled with closeups of Mr. Hyman's hands as he plays and discusses these techniques. This fascinating package also features a preface and autobiography of Hyman. "From the pre-ragtime genesis of Louis Moreau Gottschalk to the modal post-bop of the great McCoy Tyner, this may be the finest lesson book not only in depth of material but in ease of use ... when you combine the publishing genius of Hal Leonard with the artistic brilliance of Dick Hyman then a five star recommendation is easy " Critical Jazz

Experimentation in Improvised Jazz: Chasing Ideas challenges the notion that in the twenty-first century, jazz can be restrained by a singular, static definition. The worldwide trend for jazz to be marginalized by the mainstream music industry, as well as conservatoriums and schools of music, runs the risk of stifling the innovative and challenging aspects of its creativity. The authors argue that to remain relevant, jazz needs to be dynamic, proactively experimental, and consciously facilitate new ideas to be made accessible to an audience broader than the innovators themselves. Experimentation in Improvised Jazz explores key elements of experimental jazz music in order to discern ways in which the genre is developing. The book begins with an overview of where, when and how new ideas in free and improvised jazz have been created and added to the canon, developing the genre beyond its initial roots. It moves on to consider how and why musicians create free and improvised jazz; the decisions they make while playing. What are they responding to? What are they depending on? What are they thinking? The authors analyse and synthesise the creation of free jazz by correlating the latest research to the reflections provided by some of the world's greatest jazz innovators for this project. Finally, the book examines how we respond to free and improvised jazz: artistically, critically and personally. Free jazz is, the book argues, an environment that develops through experimentation with new ideas.

The Culture of Jazz is a collection of essays that view jazz from an anthropological perspective. It focuses on aspects of jazz culture and the ways in which jazz scrutinizes the American lifestyle. Jazz musicians filter their perspective on culture based on African roots. They have an obligation to tell truth to power and provide views of alternative realities. These essays explore many dimensions of the jazz life and its perspectives on cultural realities. Heavily influenced by the perspectives of Neil Leonard and Alan Merriam, The Culture of Jazz covers a broad range of topics making it an unparalleled compilation.

Mark Anthony Neal reads the story of black communities through the black tradition in popular music. His history challenges the view that hip-hop was the first black cultural movement to speak truth to power. Beginning with the role of music in 19th-century slave culture, Neal covers key black cultural movements (Harlem, jazz, blaxploitation films, Motown, hip-hop, etc.), the social forces and organizations that countered them, including the FBI and the Nixon administration, a myriad of artists (Marvin Gaye figures significantly), and the relation of black music to such forces as the black feminist movement, black liberation, and identity politics.

Beginning with the role of music in nineteenth century slave culture, Neal covers key black cultural movements (Harlem, jazz, blaxploitation films, Motown, hip-hop, etc.), the social forces and organizations that countered them, including the FBI and the Nixon administration, a myriad of artists (Marvin Gaye figures significantly), and the relation of black music to such forces as the black feminist movement, black liberation, and identity politics.

The contributors to Playing for Keeps examine the ways in which musical improvisation can serve as a method for negotiating violence, trauma, systemic inequality, and the aftermaths of war and colonialism. Outlining the relation of improvisatory practices to local and global power structures, they show how in sites as varied as South Africa, Canada, Egypt, the United States, and the Canary Islands, improvisation provides the means for its participants to address the past and imagine the future. In addition to essays, the volume features a poem by saxophonist Matana Roberts, an interview with pianist Vijay Iyer about his work with U.S. veterans of color, and drawings by artist Randy DuBurke that chart Nina Simone's politicization. Throughout, the contributors illustrate how improvisation functions as a model for political, cultural, and ethical dialogue and action that can foster the creation of alternate modes of being and knowing in the world. Contributors. Randy DuBurke, Rana El Kadi, Kevin Fellezs, Daniel Fischlin, Kate Galloway, Reem Abdul Hadi, Vijay Iyer, Mark Lomanno, Moshe Morad, Eric Porter, Sara Ramshaw, Matana Roberts, Darci Sprengel, Paul Stapleton, Odeh Turjman, Stephanie Vos

Imagine an educational television series featuring America's greatest jazz artists in performance, airing every week from 1956 to 1958 on KABC, Los Angeles. Stars of Jazz was hosted by Bobby Troup, the songwriter, pianist and vocalist. Each show provided information about the performance that heightened viewers' appreciation. The series garnered praise from critics and numerous awards including an Emmy from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. A landmark series visually, too, it presented many television firsts including experimental films by designers Charles and Ray Eames. All 130 shows were filmed as kinescopes. Surviving films were donated to the UCLA Film & Television Archive, where 16 shows have been restored; 29 additional shows are in the collection. The remaining 85 kinescopes were long ago discarded. This first full documentation of Stars of Jazz identifies every musician, vocalist, and guest who appeared on the series and lists every song performed on the series along with composer and lyricist credits. More than 100 photographs include images from many of the lost episodes.

Product Note:
Garland Publishing

Brian Ward is Lecturer in American History at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne .; This book is intended for american studies, American history postwar social and cultural history, political history, Black history, Race and Ethnic studies and Cultural studies together with the general trade music.

Offers expansive and intersecting understandings of erotic subjectivity, intimacy, and trauma in performance ethnography and in institutional and disciplinary settings. Focused on research within Africa and the African diaspora, contributors to this volume think through the painful iterations of trauma, systemic racism, and the vestiges of colonial oppression as well as the processes of healing and emancipation that emerge from wounded states. Their chapters explore an acoustemology of intimacy, woman-centered eroticism generated through musical performance, desire and longing in ethnographic knowledge production, and listening as intimacy. On the other end of the spectrum, authors engage with and question the fetishization of race in jazz; examine conceptions of vulgarity and profanity in movement and dance-ethnography; and address pain, trauma, and violation, whether physical, spiritual, intellectual, or political. Authors in this volume strive toward empathetic, ethical, and creative ethnographic engagements that summon vulnerability and healing. They propose pathways to aesthetic, discursive transformation by reorienting conceptions of knowledge as emergent, performative, and sonically enabled. The resulting book explores sensory knowledge that is frequently left unacknowledged in ethnographic work, advancing conversations about performed sonic and somatic modalities through which we navigate our entanglements as engaged scholars.