Jazz: The Basics gives a brief introduction to a century of jazz, ideal for students and interested listeners who want to learn more about this important musical style. The heart of the book traces jazz's growth from its folk origins through early recordings and New Orleans stars; the big-band and swing era; bebop; cool jazz and third stream; avant-garde; jazz-rock; and the neo-conservative movement of the 1980s and 1990s.Key figures from each era including: Louis Armstron...

**An Economist Best Book of the YearAn acclaimed music scholar presents an accessible introduction to the art of listening to jazz.“Mr. Gioia could not have done a better job. Through him, jazz might even find new devotees.” ―Economist**In How to Listen to Jazz, award-winning music scholar Ted Gioia presents a lively introduction to one of America's premier art forms. He tells us what to listen for in a performance and includes a guide to ...

“In this book I hope to reach a new audience with the positive message of America’s greatest music, to show how great musicians demonstrate on the bandstand a mutual respect and trust that can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life–from individual creativity and personal relationships to conducting business and understanding what it means to be American in the most modern sense.”–Wynton MarsalisIn this beautiful book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning ...

A guide to the all-time must-have jazz recordings by a maven of the genre.Possibly the twentieth century’s greatest musical innovation, jazz is now more popular than it has been for the past fifty years. But with the plethora of new recordings and the phenomenon in jazz of the same standards being recorded seemingly by almost every artist and band or trio, it’s very hard to know where to start or to improve a CD collection.The Essential Jazz Recordings provides a t...

The essential collection of jazz writing by the celebrated poet and author of Blues People—reissued with a new introduction by the author.In the 1960s, LeRoi Jones—who would later be known as Amiri Baraka—was a pioneering jazz critic, articulating in real time the incredible transformations of the form taking place in the clubs and coffee houses of New York City. In Black Music, he sheds light on the brilliant young jazz musicians of the day: John...

A landmark in jazz studies, Thinking in Jazz reveals as never before how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner documents the lifetime of preparation that lies behind the skilled improviser's every idea.The product of more than fifteen years of immersion in the jazz world, Thinking in Jazz combines partici...

The acclaimed classic biography, now available as an ebook.Please note that this edition does not include illustrations.The revised edition of Ian Carr’s classic biography of Miles Davis throws new light on his life and career from the early days in New York, with Charlie Parker, to his Birth of the Cool band, through his drug addiction in the early 1950s, and the years of extraordinary achievements, 1954-1960, during which he created a whole series of masterpieces on recor...

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 virtu...

A music journalist offers a lively history of modern jazz through its formative and most vital decades—from Charlie Parker to John Coltrane.In Giant Steps, Kenny Mathieson examines the most important figures in the creation of modern jazz, detailing the emergence and evolution of bebop through the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. Using this as its starting point, Mathieson then delves into the developments...

Jazz is the most colorful and varied art form in the world and it was born in one of the most colorful and varied cities, New Orleans. From the seed first planted by slave dances held in Congo Square and nurtured by early ensembles led by Buddy Belden and Joe "King" Oliver, jazz began its long winding odyssey across America and around the world, giving flower to a thousand different forms--swing, bebop, cool jazz, jazz-rock fusion--and a thousand great musicians. Now, in The History of...

"There are no definitive histories," writes Elijah Wald, in this provocative reassessment of American popular music, "because the past keeps looking different as the present changes." Earlier musical styles sound different to us today because we hear them through the musical filter of other styles that came after them, all the way through funk and hip hop. As its blasphemous title suggests, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll rejects the conventional pieties of mainstream jazz...

An intimate exploration into the musical genius of fifteen living jazz legends, from the longtime New York Times jazz criticJazz is conducted almost wordlessly: John Coltrane rarely told his quartet what to do, and Miles Davis famously gave his group only the barest instructions before recording his masterpiece "Kind of Blue." Musicians are often loath to discuss their craft for fear of destroying its improvisational essence, rendering jazz among the most e...