When jazz musicians get together, they often delight one another with stories about the great, or merely remarkable, players and singers they've worked with. One good story leads to another until someone says, "Somebody ought to wrie these down!" With Jazz Anecdotes, somebody finally has. Drawing on a rich verbal tradition, bassist and jazz writer Bill Crow has culled stories from a wide variety of sources, including interviews, biographies and a remarkable oral history collection, which r...

When jazz musicians get together, they often delight one another with stories about the great, or merely remarkable, players and singers they've worked with. One good story leads to another until someone says, "Somebody ought to wrie these down!" With Jazz Anecdotes, somebody finally has. Drawing on a rich verbal tradition, bassist and jazz writer Bill Crow has culled stories from a wide variety of sources, including interviews, biographies and a remarkable oral history collection...

In the 1950s, New York City's Birdland was the center of the world of modern jazz--and a revelation to Bill Crow, a wet-behind-the-ears twenty-two-year-old from Washington State. Located on Broadway between 52nd and 53rd streets, the club named for the incomparable Charlie "Bird" Parker boasted lifesize photo murals of modern jazzmen like Dizzy Gillespie, Lennie Tristano, and, of course, Bird himself, looming large against jet black walls. Exotic live birds perched in cages behind the bar....

In the 1950s, New York City's Birdland was the center of the world of modern jazz--and a revelation to Bill Crow, a wet-behind-the-ears twenty-two-year-old from Washington State. Located on Broadway between 52nd and 53rd streets, the club named for the incomparable Charlie "Bird" Parker boasted lifesize photo murals of modern jazzmen like Dizzy Gillespie, Lennie Tristano, and, of course, Bird himself, looming large against jet black walls. Exotic live birds perched in cages behind the bar....

When the renowned trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis chose the members of his quintet in 1955, he passed over well-known, respected saxophonists such as Sonny Rollins to pick out the young, still untested John Coltrane. What might have seemed like a minor decision at the time would instead set the course not just for each of their careers but for jazz itself.Clawing at the Limits of Cool is the first book to focus on Davis and Coltrane's musical interaction and its histor...

The author of the magisterial A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers now approaches the great singers and their greatest work in an innovative and revelatory way: through considering their finest albums, which is the format in which this music was most resonantly organized and presented to its public from the 1940s until the very recent decline of the CD. It is through their albums that Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Nat King Col...

Of all the major jazz artists, Thelonious Monk was one of the most original musical thinkers--nonconformist, idiosyncratic, imaginative, eccentric--in a word, unique. In The Thelonious Monk Reader, Rob van der Bliek has brought together some of the most revealing pieces ever written on Monk, providing a full portrait of the musician and his impact on the jazz world. Here is a wealth of information that was previously scattered and difficult to locate, including a wide range of art...

My approach is clear and systematic with 78 illustrations. Scales lead to chords and the chords link into sequences. The object is to solo through a jazz standard with a full understanding of scales, modes and chord symbols. We will cover the following topics:The circle of 5thsTurnaroundsThe II-V-I sequenceTurnaroundsExtensions and alterations7th chordsModes and modal musicCompingThe diminished sequenceBook 2 is in pre...

Don't read another book on pentatonic scales until you have read this book. Culture and the Pentatonic Scale is an inside look into the history of the pentatonic scale and its uses. Teachers will be able to use this as an excellent resource for their students. Musicians and non-musicians will read more information about pentatonic scales that they may not have known. Truly a fantastic music guide.

This theoretical book is meant to improve contemporary jazz styles techniques for all musician players of modern jazz.The book is divided into scale exercises, arpeggio exercises, jazz line phrases as well as contemporary chord progressions.

In early 2005, an engineer at the Library of Congress accidentally discovered, in an unmarked box, the recording of Thelonious Monk's and John Coltrane's performance at a 1957 benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. Long considered one of the most important musical meetings in modern jazz, Monk's and Coltrane's work together during a scant few months in 1957 had, until this discovery, been thought to be almost entirely undocumented. In this book, Gabriel Solis provides an historical, cultural, a...

Book 3 focuses on practical advice and strategies for learning jazz pianists. Following on from books 1 and 2, Paul Abrahams guides you through more advanced topics such as bebop blues. He then demonstrates how to navigate chord charts and play jazz standards like a pro. This book also contains a recommended listening list and advice on building a jazz repertoire.