It was 1969, and Miles Davis, prince of cool, was on the edge of being left behind by a dynamic generation of young musicians, an important handful of whom had been in his band. Rock music was flying off in every direction, just as America itself seemed about to split at its seams. Following the circumscribed grooves and ambiance of In A Silent Way; coming off a tour with a burning new quintet-called 'The Lost Band'-with Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette; he went into the studio with musicians like frighteningly talented guitarist John McLaughlin, and soulful Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul. Working with his essential producer, Teo Macero, Miles set a cauldron of ideas loose while the tapes rolled. At the end, there was the newly minted Prince of Darkness, a completely new way forward for jazz and rock, and the endless brilliance and depth of Bitches Brew. Bitches Brew is still one of the most astonishing albums ever made in either jazz or rock. Seeming to fuse the two, it actually does something entirely more revolutionary and open-ended: blending the most avant-garde aspects of Western music with deep grooves, the album rejects both jazz and rock for an entirely different idea of how music can be made.

This unique text uses a step-by-step approach to guide the reader from fundamental concepts to advanced topics in improvisation. Each subject is broken into easy to understand segments, gradually becoming more complex as improvisational tools are acquired. Designed for the classically trained pianist with little or no experience in improvisation, it uses the readeras previous knowledge of basic theory and technique to help accelerate the learning process. Included are more than 450 music examples and illustrations to reinforce the concepts discussed. These concepts are useful in all improvisational settings and can be applied to any musical style. For pianists interested in jazz, there are three chapters dedicated to introducing jazz improvisation, which can be used as the basis for further study in this idiom. Teachers using this text can go online to www.improvisationatthepiano.com to download lesson plans, ask specific questions about improvisation, and view answers to the most frequently asked questions about this book. 232 pages.

Jazz Theory Workbook accompanies the second edition of the successful Jazz Theory-From Basic to Advanced Study textbook designed for undergraduate and graduate students studying jazz. The overall pedagogy bridges theory and practice, combining theory, aural skills, keyboard skills, and improvisation into a comprehensive whole. While the Companion Website for the textbook features aural and play-along exercises, along with some written exercises and the answer key, this workbook contains brand-new written exercises, as well as as well as four appendices: (1) Rhythmic Exercises, (2) Common-Practice Harmony at the Keyboard, (3) Jazz Harmony at the Keyboard, and (4) Patterns for Jazz Improvisaton. Jazz Theory Workbook works in tandem with its associated textbook in the same format as the 27-chapter book, yet is also designed to be used on its own, providing students and readers with quick access to all relevant exercises without the need to download or print pages that inevitably must be written out. The workbook is sold both on its own as well as discounted in a package with the textbook. Jazz Theory Workbook particularly serves the ever-increasing population of classical students interested in jazz theory or improvisation. This WORKBOOK is available for individual sale in various formats: Print Paperback: 9781138334250 Print Hardback: 9781138334243 eBook: 9780429445477 The paperback WORKBOOK is also paired with the corresponding paperback TEXTBOOK in a discounted PACKAGE (9780367321963).

"Wonderful"-The New York Times. "Provocative, opinionated, and never dull"-Down Beat. "A singular book."-Studs Terkel. When it was first published, Alec Wilder's American Popular Song quickly became a classic and today it remains essential reading for countless musicians, lovers of American Song, and fans of Alec Wilder. Now, in a 50th anniversary edition, popular music scholar Robert Rawlins brings the book fully up-to-date for the 21st century. Whereas previous editions featured only piano scores, the format has been changed to lead sheet notation with lyrics, making it accessible to a wider readership. Rawlins has also added more than sixty music examples to help complete the chapter on Irving Berlin. One of the most fascinating features of the original edition was Wilder's inventive use of language, often revealing his strong and sometimes irreverent opinions. Wilder's prose remains relatively unaltered, but footnotes have been provided that clarify, elucidate, and even correct. Moreover, a new chapter has been added, discussing fifty-three songs by numerous composers that Wilder might have well included but was not able to. Songs by Ann Ronnell, Fats Waller, Jule Styne and many others are capped off with an examination of ten of Wilder's own songs.

In a piano factory tucked away in Richmond, Indiana, Gennett Records produced thousands of records featuring obscure musicians from hotel orchestras and backwoods fiddlers to the future icons of jazz, blues, country music, and rock 'n' roll. From 1916 to 1934, the company debuted such future stars as Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, and Hoagy Carmichael, while also capturing classic performances by Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, Uncle Dave Macon, and Gene Autry. While Gennett Records was overshadowed by competitors such as Victor and Columbia, few record companies documented the birth of America's grassroots music as thoroughly as this small-town label. In this newly revised and expanded edition of Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy, Rick Kennedy shares anecdotes from musicians, employees, and family members to trace the colorful history of one of America's most innovative record companies.

Ralph Ellison famously characterized ensemble jazz improvisation as "antagonistic cooperation." Both collaborative and competitive, musicians play with and against one another to create art and community. In Antagonistic Cooperation, Robert G. O'Meally shows how this idea runs throughout twentieth-century African American culture to provide a new history of Black creativity and aesthetics. From the collages of Romare Bearden and paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat to the fiction of Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison to the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, O'Meally explores how the worlds of African American jazz, art, and literature have informed one another. He argues that these artists drew on the improvisatory nature of jazz and the techniques of collage not as a way to depict a fractured or broken sense of Blackness but rather to see the Black self as beautifully layered and complex. They developed a shared set of methods and motives driven by the belief that art must involve a sense of community. O'Meally's readings of these artists and their work emphasize how they have not only contributed to understanding of Black history and culture but also provided hope for fulfilling the broken promises of American democracy.

The Cultural Politics of Jazz Collectives: This Is Our Music documents the emergence of collective movements in jazz and improvised music. Jazz history is most often portrayed as a site for individual expression and revolves around the celebration of iconic figures, while the networks and collaborations that enable the music to maintain and sustain its cultural status are surprisingly under-investigated. This collection explores the history of musician-led collectives and the ways in which they offer a powerful counter-model for rethinking jazz practices in the post-war period. It includes studies of groups including the New York Musicians Organization, Sweden's Ett minne foer livet, Wonderbrass from South Wales, the contemporary Dutch jazz-hip hop scene, and Austria's JazzWerkstatt. With an international list of contributors and examples from Europe and the United States, these twelve essays and case studies examine issues of shared aesthetic vision, socioeconomic and political factors, local education, and cultural values among improvising musicians.

Jazz as an instrument of global diplomacy transformed superpower relations in the Cold War era and reshaped democracy's image worldwide. Lisa E. Davenport tells the story of America's program of jazz diplomacy practiced in the Soviet Union and other regions of the world from 1954 to 1968. Jazz music and jazz musicians seemed an ideal card to play in diminishing the credibility and appeal of Soviet communism in the Eastern bloc and beyond. Government-funded musical junkets by such jazz masters as Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Benny Goodman dramatically influenced perceptions of the U.S. and its capitalist brand of democracy while easing political tensions in the midst of critical Cold War crises. This book shows how, when coping with foreign questions about desegregation, the dispute over the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, jazz players and their handlers wrestled with the inequalities of race and the emergence of class conflict while promoting America in a global context. And, as jazz musicians are wont to do, many of these ambassadors riffed off script when the opportunity arose.

"Jazz Diplomacy" argues that this musical method of winning hearts and minds often transcended economic and strategic priorities. Even so, the goal of containing communism remained paramount, and it prevailed over America's policy of redefining relations with emerging new nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Jazz Sells: Music, Marketing, and Meaning examines the issues of jazz, consumption, and capitalism through advertising. On television, on the Internet, in radio, and in print, advertising is a critically important medium for the mass dissemination of music and musical meaning. This book is a study of the use of the jazz genre as a musical signifier in promotional efforts, exploring how the relationship between brand, jazz music, and jazz discourses come together to create meaning for the product and the consumer. At the same time, it examines how jazz offers an invaluable lens through which to examine the complex and often contradictory culture of consumption upon which capitalism is predicated.

(Piano Solo Songbook). 17 Latin jazz classics, including: Adios (Perez Prado, Astor Piazzolla) * Brazil (Xavier Cugat, Django Reinhardt) * A Day in the Life of a Fool (Stan Getz, Paul Desmond) * Desafinado (Stan Getz, Antonio Carlos Jobim) * Mambo #5 (Perez Prado, Xavier Cugat) * Manteca (Dizzy Gillespie, Cal Tjader) * Mas Que Nada (Dizzy Gillespie) * Perfidia (Perez Prado, Nat King Cole) * Samba De Orfeu (Paul Desmond, Vince Guaraldi) * Triste (Antonio Carlos Jobim, Cal Tjader) * and more. Includes chord names.

Pee Wee King's birth on February 18, 1914, into a Milwaukee working-class Polish family named Kuczynski was hardly an indicator that he would grow up to become a pioneer and superstar of country and western music. Certainly no one in the Polish-German community of his youth could have foreseen his influence on the direction of American popular music or his enduring fame on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. Even Pee Wee King himself is incredulous at the unlikely twists and turns of his life and career. Pee Wee King is best remembered today as the co-writer of the most popular country music song of all time, The Tennessee Waltz. He is just as important, however, for his vital role in expanding the horizons, and the market potential, of country and western music. He took the polka and waltz rhythms of his youth, mixed them with the sounds of the big bands of the thirties and forties, and flavored it all with the balladry and moods of the Western cowboy. He combined this new sound with folk and country traditions rooted in places like Louisville, Knoxville, and Nashville. The result was a smooth, listenable, danceable, up-to-date sound that has become the most popular form of music in the United States. Recipient of numerous awards, including induction into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Pee Wee King has been one of the most important figures in country music for over sixty years. Told in King's own voice and words, this biography, based on many hours of taped conversations, is the first account of King's incredible life and career. Featuring a star-studded cast of characters from the history of music -- Eddy Arnold, Minnie Pearl, Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Gene Autry, Patti Page, and many others -- this memorable book is a must-read for any fan of country music.

Dave Liebman is one of the leading forces in contemporary jazz. Prominently known for performing with Miles Davis and Elvin Jones, he has exerted considerable influence as a saxophonist, bandleader, composer, author, and educator. In addition to his recent recognition as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, he has received the Order of Arts and Letters from France and holds an honorary doctorate from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. He has mentored many of today's most notable young jazz musicians worldwide and is a prolific writer on jazz. In What It Is: The Life of a Jazz Artist, friend, pianist, and noted jazz scholar Lewis Porter conducts a series of in-depth interviews with Liebman, who discusses his professional, personal, and musical relationships with Davis and Jones, as well as such notable musicians as Chick Corea, Richie Beirach, Michael and Randy Brecker, and many others. Through the interviews, Liebman discusses such personal matters as contracting polio as a child and the difficulties it caused as an adult during his rise as a jazz musician. He offers insights into the life of jazz performers of his generation, particularly the tumultuous period of the 1960s and 1970s. The book also features rare photos from Liebman's personal collection. A fascinating and witty storyteller, Liebman's stories in What It Is will appeal to jazz fans and scholars by providing a firsthand look into the creative life of one of America's leading jazz musicians.

(Music Sales America). A comprehensive study of modern jazz trumpet playing by renowned jazz musician John McNeil. Contains a personal history of jazz trumpet, articulation, valve technique, and alternate fingerings. This complete edition combines and updates the earlier works and includes a CD as a practice aid.

Between Beats: The Jazz Tradition and Black Vernacular Dance offers a new look at the complex intersections between jazz music and popular dance over the last hundred-plus years. Author Christi Jay Wells shows how popular entertainment and cultures of social dancing were crucial to jazz music's formation and development even as jazz music came to earn a reputation as a "legitimate" art form better suited for still, seated listening. Through the concept of choreographies of listening, the book explores amateur and professional jazz dancers' relationships with jazz music and musicians as jazz's soundscapes and choreoscapes were forged through close contact and mutual creative exchange. It also unpacks the aesthetic and political negotiations through which jazz music supposedly distanced itself from dancing bodies. Fusing little-discussed material from diverse historical and contemporary sources with the author's own years of experience as a social jazz dancer, it advances participatory dance and embodied practice as central topics of analysis in jazz studies. As it explores the fascinating history of jazz as popular dance music, it exposes how American anxieties about bodies and a broad cultural privileging of the cerebral over the corporeal have shaped efforts to "elevate" expressive forms such as jazz to elite status.

This enthralling book is the first biography in English of Bill Evans, one of the most influential of all jazz pianists. Peter Pettinger, himself a concert pianist, describes Evans's life (the personal tragedies and commercial successes), his musicmaking (technique, compositional methods, and approach to group playing), and his legacy. The book also includes a full discography and dozens of photographs.

The fundamentals of jazz are here explained and systemized in 70 lessons based on 60 jazz standards. It covers the styles of musicians from Buddy Bolden to Dizzy Gillespie.

Over 480 chords illustrated in standard notation, plus keyboard diagrams for instant note recognition. All the chords you need to play today's jazz music. You don't need to read music to use this chord finder!

This book of jazz piano scales will develop the technical skills you need to play jazz. It introduces patterns characteristic of the idiom, like the blues scales, the b3 pentatonic and various modes. It also explores these patterns on the roots and key centres commonly found in jazz. Regular and flexible practice of these forms, and using them as the basis for improvisation, will give you fluency and technical control and make your playing sound effortless and relaxed. As an accompaniment to the Board's jazz piano syllabus, this book sets out the scales by grade and gives a table of recommended speeds. It also provides details of what the examiner will be looking for in your playing.

How creative freedom, race, class, and gender shaped the rebellion of two visionary artists Postwar America experienced an unprecedented flourishing of avant-garde and independent art. Across the arts, artists rebelled against traditional conventions, embracing a commitment to creative autonomy and personal vision never before witnessed in the United States. Paul Lopes calls this the Heroic Age of American Art, and identifies two artists-Miles Davis and Martin Scorsese-as two of its leading icons. In this compelling book, Lopes tells the story of how a pair of talented and outspoken art rebels defied prevailing conventions to elevate American jazz and film to unimagined critical heights. During the Heroic Age of American Art-where creative independence and the unrelenting pressures of success were constantly at odds-Davis and Scorsese became influential figures with such modern classics as Kind of Blue and Raging Bull. Their careers also reflected the conflicting ideals of, and contentious debates concerning, avant-garde and independent art during this period. In examining their art and public stories, Lopes also shows how their rebellions as artists were intimately linked to their racial and ethnic identities and how both artists adopted hypermasculine ideologies that exposed the problematic intersection of gender with their racial and ethnic identities as iconic art rebels. Art Rebels is the essential account of a new breed of artists who left an indelible mark on American culture in the second half of the twentieth century. It is an unforgettable portrait of two iconic artists who exemplified the complex interplay of the quest for artistic autonomy and the expression of social identity during the Heroic Age of American Art.

Jazz Diaspora: Music and Globalisation is about the international diaspora of jazz, well underway within a year of the first jazz recordings in 1917. This book studies the processes of the global jazz diaspora and its implications for jazz historiography in general, arguing for its relevance to the fields of sonic studies and cognitive theory. Until the late twentieth century, the historiography and analysis of jazz were centred on the US to the almost complete exclusion of any other region. The driving premise of this book is that jazz was not 'invented' and then exported: it was invented in the process of being disseminated. Jazz Diaspora is a sustained argument for an alternative historiography, based on a shift from a US-centric to a diasporic perspective on the music. The rationale is double-edged. It appears that most of the world's jazz is experienced (performed and consumed) in diasporic sites - that is, outside its agreed geographical point of origin - and to ignore diasporic jazz is thus to ignore most jazz activity. It is also widely felt that the balance has shifted, as jazz in its homeland has become increasingly conservative. There has been an assumption that only the 'authentic' version of the music--as represented in its country of origin--was of aesthetic and historical interest in the jazz narrative; that the forms that emerged in other countries were simply rather pallid and enervated echoes of the 'real thing'. This has been accompanied by challenges to the criterion of place- and race-based authenticity as a way of assessing the value of popular music forms in general. As the prototype for the globalisation of popular music, diasporic jazz provides a richly instructive template for the study of the history of modernity as played out musically.

Easy Jazzin' About Standards Piano presents 15 favourite jazz songs especially arranged by Pam Wedgwood for elementary level pianists. Online audio of performances are available for an enhanced learning experience. The selection includes fun original pieces written by Pam, as well as beloved classics such as The Entertainer, Anything Goes, Nice Work If You Can Get It, and more!

(Music Sales America). This complete guide to pedal steel guitar is a simple, straightforward instruction manual starts at the very beginning with tuning and playing fundamentals. It covers beginning to advanced instruction in the E9 tuning and an introduction to the C6 tuning. Includes a CD and discography.