(Fake Book). 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 regard to copyright law, or royalties paid 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: the covers and typeface look the same, the song list is nearly identical, and the price for our edition is even cheaper than the original! Every conscientious musician will appreciate that these books are now produced accurately and ethically, benefitting the songwriters that we owe for some of the greatest tunes of all time! Includes 400 songs: All Blues * Au Privave * Autumn Leaves * Black Orpheus * Bluesette * Body and Soul * Bright Size Life * Con Alma * Dolphin Dance * Don't Get Around Much Anymore * Easy Living * Epistrophy * Falling in Love with Love * Footprints * Four on Six * Giant Steps * Have You Met Miss Jones? * How High the Moon * I'll Remember April * Impressions * Lullaby of Birdland * Misty * My Funny Valentine * Oleo * Red Clay * Satin Doll * Sidewinder * Stella by Starlight * Take Five * There Is No Greater Love * Wave * and hundreds more!

Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic--acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the music, past and present. Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history--Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, cool jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie's advocacy of modern jazz in the 1940s, Miles Davis's 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality, Pat Metheny's visionary extension of jazz-rock fusion, the contemporary sounds of Wynton Marsalis, and the post-modernists of the current day. Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of these and many other great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. He also evokes the many worlds of jazz, taking the reader to the swamp lands of the Mississippi Delta, the bawdy houses of New Orleans, the rent parties of Harlem, the speakeasies of Chicago during the Jazz Age, the after hours spots of corrupt Kansas city, the Cotton Club, the Savoy, and the other locales where the history of jazz was made. And as he traces the spread of this protean form, Gioia provides much insight into the social context in which the music was born.

(Jazz Instruction). A one-of-a-kind book encompassing a wide scope of jazz topics, for beginners and pros of any instrument. A three-pronged approach was envisioned with the creation of this comprehensive resource: as an encyclopedia for ready reference, as a thorough methodology for the student, and as a workbook for the classroom, complete with ample exercises and conceptual discussion. Includes the basics of intervals, jazz harmony, scales and modes, ii-V-I cadences. For harmony, it covers: harmonic analysis, piano voicings and voice leading; modulations and modal interchange, and reharmonization. For performance, it takes players through: jazz piano comping, jazz tune forms, arranging techniques, improvisation, traditional jazz fundamentals, practice techniques, and much more!

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 participant observation with detailed musicological analysis, the author's experience as a jazz trumpeter, interpretations of published material by scholars and performers, and, above all, original data from interviews with more than fifty professional musicians: bassists George Duvivier and Rufus Reid; drummers Max Roach, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Akira Tana; guitarist Emily Remler; pianists Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris; saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Lee Konitz, and James Moody; trombonist Curtis Fuller; trumpeters Doc Cheatham, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, and Red Rodney; vocalists Carmen Lundy and Vea Williams; and others. Together, the interviews provide insight into the production of jazz by great artists like Betty Carter, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, and Charlie Parker.

Thinking in Jazz overflows with musical examples from the 1920s to the present, including original transcriptions (keyed to commercial recordings) of collective improvisations by Miles Davis's and John Coltrane's groups. These transcriptions provide additional insight into the structure and creativity of jazz improvisation and represent a remarkable resource for jazz musicians as well as students and educators.

Berliner explores the alternative ways—aural, visual, kinetic, verbal, emotional, theoretical, associative—in which these performers conceptualize their music and describes the delicate interplay of soloist and ensemble in collective improvisation. Berliner's skillful integration of data concerning musical development, the rigorous practice and thought artists devote to jazz outside of performance, and the complexities of composing in the moment leads to a new understanding of jazz improvisation as a language, an aesthetic, and a tradition. This unprecedented journey to the heart of the jazz tradition will fascinate and enlighten musicians, musicologists, and jazz fans alike.

When Jimi Hendrix transfixed the crowds of Woodstock with his gripping version of "The Star Spangled Banner," he was building on a foundation reaching back, in part, to the revolutionary guitar playing of Howlin' Wolf and the other great Chicago bluesmen, and to the Delta blues tradition before him. But in its unforgettable introduction, followed by his unaccompanied "talking" guitar passage and inserted calls and responses at key points in the musical narrative, Hendrix's performance of the national anthem also hearkened back to a tradition even older than the blues, a tradition rooted in the rings of dance, drum, and song shared by peoples across Africa. Bold and original, The Power of Black Music offers a new way of listening to the music of black America, and appreciating its profound contribution to all American music. Striving to break down the barriers that remain between high art and low art, it brilliantly illuminates the centuries-old linkage between the music, myths and rituals of Africa and the continuing evolution and enduring vitality of African-American music. Inspired by the pioneering work of Sterling Stuckey and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author Samuel A. Floyd, Jr, advocates a new critical approach grounded in the forms and traditions of the music itself. He accompanies readers on a fascinating journey from the African ring, through the ring shout's powerful merging of music and dance in the slave culture, to the funeral parade practices of the early new Orleans jazzmen, the bluesmen in the twenties, the beboppers in the forties, and the free jazz, rock, Motown, and concert hall composers of the sixties and beyond. Floyd dismisses the assumption that Africans brought to the United States as slaves took the music of whites in the New World and transformed it through their own performance practices. Instead, he recognizes European influences, while demonstrating how much black music has continued to share with its African counterparts. Floyd maintains that while African Americans may not have direct knowledge of African traditions and myths, they can intuitively recognize links to an authentic African cultural memory. For example, in speaking of his grandfather Omar, who died a slave as a young man, the jazz clarinetist Sidney Bechet said, "Inside him he'd got the memory of all the wrong that's been done to my people. That's what the memory is....When a blues is good, that kind of memory just grows up inside it." Grounding his scholarship and meticulous research in his childhood memories of black folk culture and his own experiences as a musician and listener, Floyd maintains that the memory of Omar and all those who came before and after him remains a driving force in the black music of America, a force with the power to enrich cultures the world over.

John Coltrane left an indelible mark on the world, but what was the essence of his achievement that makes him so prized forty years after his death? What were the factors that helped Coltrane become who he was? And what would a John Coltrane look like now--or are we looking for the wrong signs?

In this deftly written, riveting study, New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff answers these questions and examines the life of Coltrane, the acclaimed band leader and deeply spiritual man who changed the face of jazz music. Ratliff places jazz among other art forms and within the turbulence of American social history, and he places Coltrane not just among jazz musicians but among the greatest American artists.

Jazz Chords is not just a great reference source. It is a dynamic jazz guitar chord book that focuses on major, minor, and dominant chord voicings and how they function in jazz progressions such as ii-V7-I progressions, turnarounds, and blues progressions. Not only do you learn how to play the chords, you learn how to use them. This is the ideal jazz chord book, and thanks to its layout and depth, this may be the only jazz chord book you'll ever need.

A three volume series that includes the scales, chords and modes necessary to play bebop music. A great introduction to a style that is most influential in today's music. The first volume includes scales, chords and modes most commonly used in bebop and other musical styles. The second volume covers the bebop language, patterns, formulas and other linking exercises necessary to play bebop music. A great introduction to a style that is most influential in today's music.

Nearly 300 useful jazz guitar licks organized by chord type. Examples are shown in easy-to-read TAB and standard music notation. Four voicings are given for each chord type along with easy-to-read chord diagrams. Licks for common progressions such as ii-V-I are shown. Includes sections on Important Scales for Improvisation, Articulation, ""Feel"" and other important topics.

The long-awaited memoir by one of the most influential and beloved musicians of our time

In Herbie Hancock the legendary jazz musician and composer reflects on a life and a thriving career that has spanned seven decades. A true innovator, Hancock has had an enormous influence on both acoustic and electric jazz, R&B and hip-hop, with his ongoing exploration of different musical genres, winning fourteen Grammy awards along the way.

From his beginnings as a child prodigy to his work in Miles Davis’s second great quintet; from his innovations as the leader of his own groundbreaking sextet to his collaborations with everyone from Wayne Shorter to Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder; Herbie Hancock reveals the method behind Hancock’s undeniable musical genius.

Hancock shares his musical influences, colorful behind-the-scenes stories, his long and happy marriage, and how Buddhism inspires him creatively and personally. Honest, enlightening, and as electrifyingly vital as the man who wrote it, Herbie Hancock promises to be an invaluable contribution to jazz literature and a must-read for fans and music lovers.

A new book from the man who has set the standard for jazz and improvisation learning materials. A compilation of 15 years of teaching jazz keyboard at several universities. The book also contains a Teacher's Supplement. Usable for classroom or individual study. If you are a pianist, or arrange, compose, accompany, play any instrument, read fake books, coach groups, teach or earn a living in the music field, you need this book.

The Jazz Standards, a comprehensive guide to the most important jazz compositions, is a unique resource, a browser's companion, and an invaluable introduction to the art form. This essential book for music lovers tells the story of more than 250 key jazz songs, and includes a listening guide to more than 2,000 recordings. Many books recommend jazz CDs or discuss musicians and styles, but this is the first to tell the story of the songs themselves. The fan who wants to know more about a jazz song heard at the club or on the radio will find this book indispensable. Musicians who play these songs night after night now have a handy guide, outlining their history and significance and telling how they have been performed by different generations of jazz artists. Students learning about jazz standards now have a complete reference work for all of these cornerstones of the repertoire. Author Ted Gioia, whose body of work includes the award-winning The History of Jazz and Delta Blues, is the perfect guide to lead readers through the classics of the genre. As a jazz pianist and recording artist, he has performed these songs for decades. As a music historian and critic, he has gained a reputation as a leading expert on jazz. Here he draws on his deep experience with this music in creating the ultimate work on the subject. An introduction for new fans, a useful handbook for jazz enthusiasts and performers, and an important reference for students and educators, The Jazz Standards belongs on the shelf of every serious jazz lover or musician.

Bossa nova is one of the most popular musical genres in the world. Songs such as The Girl from Ipanema (the fifth most frequently played song in the world), The Waters of March, and Desafinado are known around the world. Bossa Novaa number-one bestseller when originally published in Brazil as Chega de Saudadeis a definitive history of this seductive music. Based on extensive interviews with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jo+o Gilberto, and all the major musicians and their friends, Bossa Nova explains how a handful of Rio de Janeiro teenagers changed the face of popular culture around the world. Now, in this outstanding translation, the full flavor of Ruy Castro s wisecracking, chatty Portuguese comes through in a feast of detail. Along the way he introduces a cast of unforgettable characters who turned Gilberto s singular vision into the sound of a generation."

Winner of the Best Book of 2009, Jazz Division, sponsored by AllAboutJazz-New York, 2009.
Selected for "The Best of the Best" from University Presses, ALA Conference, 2010.
Winner of the 2010 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research in Jazz, 2010.
Jade Visions is the first biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential jazz musicians, bassist Scott LaFaro. Best known for his landmark recordings with Bill Evans, LaFaro played bass a mere seven years before his life and career were tragically cut short by an automobile accident when he was only 25 years old. Told by his sister, this book uniquely combines family history with insight into LaFaro's music by well-known jazz experts and musicians Gene Lees, Don Thompson, Jeff Campbell, Phil Palombi, Chuck Ralston, Barrie Kolstein, and Robert Wooley. Those interested in Bill Evans, the history of jazz, and the lives of working musicians of the time will appreciate this exploration of LaFaro’s life and music as well as the feeling they’ve been invited into the family circle as an intimate.

(Fake Book). 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 copyrights or royalties paid to the master composers who created these musical canons. 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...the covers look the same, the engravings look the same, the songlist is nearly identical, and the price remains fair even on a musician's salary! But every conscientious musician will appreciate that these books are now produced legally and ethically, benefitting the songwriters that we owe for some of the greatest music ever written! 400 songs, including: Air Mail Special * Birdland * Bye Bye Blackbird * Caravan * Doxy * Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words) * Georgia * Girl Talk * I Remember You * I Thought About You * In Walked Bud * The Jodi Grind * Just the Way You Are * Killer Joe * Little Sunflower * Mercy, Mercy, Mercy * Moanin' * The Nearness of You * Now's the Time * Old Devil Moon * Phase Dance * St. Thomas * Speak Low * Stardust * Tangerine * Tenor Madness * Watch What Happens * Whisper Not * Willow Weep for Me * Yardbird Suite * and more.

Stan Kenton (1911–1979) formed his first full orchestra in 1940 and soon drew record-breaking crowds to hear and dance to his exciting sound. He continued to tour and record unrelentingly for the next four decades. Stan Kenton: This Is an Orchestra! sums up the mesmerizing bandleader at the height of his powers, arms waving energetically, his face a study of concentration as he cajoled, coaxed, strained, and obtained the last ounce of energy from every musician under his control.

Michael Sparke's narrative captures that enthusiasm in words: a lucid account of the evolution of the Kenton Sound, and the first book to offer a critical evaluation of the role that Stan played in its creation. Insightful and thought-provoking throughout, and supported by liberal quotes from the musicians who made the magic, even at his most contentious the author's high regard and admiration for his subject shines through. The most knowledgeable of Stan's fans will learn new facts from this far-reaching biography of a man and his music. Stan Kenton will be essential reading for every Kenton devotee and jazz historian.

Saxophone virtuoso Charlie "Bird" Parker began playing professionally in his early teens, became a heroin addict at 16, changed the course of music, and then died when only 34 years old. His friend Robert Reisner observed, "Parker, in the brief span of his life, crowded more living into it than any other human being." Like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, he was a transitional composer and improviser who ushered in a new era of jazz by pioneering bebop and influenced subsequent generations of musicians. Meticulously researched and written, Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker tells the story of his life, music, and career. This new biography artfully weaves together firsthand accounts from those who knew him with new information about his life and career to create a compelling narrative portrait of a tragic genius. While other books about Parker have focused primarily on his music and recordings, this portrait reveals the troubled man behind the music, illustrating how his addictions and struggles with mental health affected his life and career. He was alternatively generous and miserly; a loving husband and father at home but an incorrigible philanderer on the road; and a chronic addict who lectured younger musicians about the dangers of drugs. Above all he was a musician, who overcame humiliation, disappointment, and a life-threatening car wreck to take wing as Bird, a brilliant improviser and composer. With in-depth research into previously overlooked sources and illustrated with several never-before-seen images, Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker corrects much of the misinformation and myth about one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century.

Recording artist, saxophonist, educator, and author Gary Campbell presents an effective strategy for constructing fresh-sounding melodic lines. He progresses step by step through the concept, the practice exercises, and the practical application of Triad Pairs for Jazz. Concepts include: deriving triad pairs from the most used chord-scales, determining the best pairs for various chords and progressions, practice patterns for mastery, and exploring linear possibilities. Recommended for intermediate to advanced players as an expansion of the chord-scale approach.

An excellent book designed to assist musicians with their performance of contemporary (post be-bop) jazz. It focuses on utilizing fourths, pentatonics, modes, bitonals and other contemporary materials when improvising. Numerous examples, suggested reading and recording examples are also included.

Billie Holiday (1915-1959), the legendary jazz singer whose vocal stylings were deeply affecting, continues to enthrall. This biography conveys her hard-luck youth, career triumphs, and then decline and early death. At age 14, despite growing up with an absentee musician father, little schooling, a rape at 10, and jail time for prostitution, this extraordinary girl moved to New York City to find work as a dancer or singer. She soon became the toast of Harlem and went on to tour and record with the biggest names in jazz.

Holiday's career took off in the 1930s, during the Depression, and the biography evokes the era and atmosphere of the jazz club scene. The state of race relations in the country is discussed as Holiday tours with white bandleaders such as Artie Shaw and even as she sings about lynching in the controversial Strange Fruit. The narrative further chronicles Holiday's relationships, descent into drug addiction, the subsequent diminishment of her talent, and tragic early death. Readers today will then want to seek out Holiday's recordings to more fully appreciate her interpretations of the songs of that classic era.

Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967) was one of the most accomplished composers in American music, the creator of such standards as "Take the 'A' Train", yet all his life he was overshadowed by his friend and collaborator, Duke Ellington. Through scrutiny of Strayhorn's private papers and more than five hundred interviews, Hajdu revives Strayhorn as one of the most complex and tragic figures in jazz history.

The "Second Quintet" -- the Miles Davis Quintet of the mid-1960s -- was one of the most innovative and influential groups in the history of the genre. Each of the musicians who performed with Davis--saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams--went on to a successful career as a top player. The studio recordings released by this group made profound contributions to improvisational strategies, jazz composition, and mediation between mainstream and avant-garde jazz, yet most critical attention has focused instead on live performances or the socio-cultural context of the work. Keith Waters' The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68 concentrates instead on the music itself, as written, performed, and recorded. Treating six different studio recordings in depth--ESP, Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, and Filles de Kilimanjaro--Waters has tracked down a host of references to and explications of Davis' work. His analysis takes into account contemporary reviews of the recordings, interviews with the five musicians, and relevant larger-scale cultural studies of the era, as well as two previously unexplored sources: the studio outtakes and Wayne Shorter's Library of Congress composition deposits. Only recently made available, the outtakes throw the master takes into relief, revealing how the musicians and producer organized and edited the material to craft a unified artistic statement for each of these albums. The author's research into the Shorter archives proves to be of even broader significance and interest, as Waters is able now to demonstrate the composer's original conception of a given piece. Waters also points out errors in the notated versions of the canonical songs as they often appear in the main sources available to musicians and scholars. An indispensible resource, The Miles Davis Quintet Studio Recordings: 1965-1968 is suited for the jazz scholar as well as for jazz musicians and aficionados of all levels.

Beautiful, romantic and spirited, Pannonica, known as Nica, named after her father’s favorite moth, was born in 1913 to extraordinary, eccentric privilege and a storied history. The Rothschild family had, in only five generations, risen from the ghetto in Frankfurt to stately homes in England. As a child, Nica took her daily walks, dressed in white, with her two sisters and governess around the parkland of the vast house at Tring, Hertfordshire, among kangaroos, giant tortoises, emus and zebras, all part of the exotic menagerie collected by her uncle Walter. As a debutante, she was taught to fly by a saxophonist and introduced to jazz by her brother Victor; she married Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, settled in a château in France and had five children. When World War II broke out, Nica and her five children narrowly escaped back to England, but soon after, she set out to find her husband who was fighting with the Free French Army in Africa, where she helped the war effort by being a decoder, a driver and organizing supplies and equipment.

In the early 1950s Nica heard “’Round Midnight” by the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and, as if under a powerful spell, abandoned her marriage and moved to New York to find him. She devoted herself to helping Monk and other musicians: she bailed them out of jail, paid their bills, took them to the hospital, even drove them to their gigs, and her convertible Bentley could always be seen parked outside downtown clubs or up in Harlem. Charlie Parker would notoriously die in her apartment in the Stanhope Hotel. But it was Monk who was the love of her life and whom she cared for until his death in 1982.

Hannah Rothschild has drawn on archival material and her own interviews in this quest to find out who her great-aunt really was and how she fit into a family that, although passionate about music and entomology, was reactionary in always favoring men over women. Part musical odyssey, part love story,  The Baroness is a fascinating portrait of a modern figure ahead of her time who dared to live as she wanted, finally, at the very center of New York’s jazz scene.

Louis Armstrong. "Satchmo." To millions of fans, he was just a great entertainer. But to jazz aficionados, he was one of the most important musicians of our times--not only a key figure in the history of jazz but a formative influence on all of 20th-century popular music. Set against the backdrop of New Orleans, Chicago, and New York during the "jazz age", Collier re-creates the saga of an old-fashioned black man making it in a white world. He chronicles Armstrong's rise as a musician, his scrapes with the law, his relationships with four wives, and his frequent feuds with fellow musicians Earl Hines and Zutty Singleton. He also sheds new light on Armstrong's endless need for approval, his streak of jealousy, and perhaps most important, what some consider his betrayal of his gift as he opted for commercial success and stardom. A unique biography, knowledgeable, insightful, and packed with information, it ends with Armstrong's death in 1971 as one of the best-known figures in American entertainment.

Here is the book jazz lovers have eagerly awaited, the second volume of Gunther Schuller's monumental The History of Jazz. When the first volume, Early Jazz, appeared two decades ago, it immediately established itself as one of the seminal works on American music. Nat Hentoff called it "a remarkable breakthrough in musical analysis of jazz," and Frank Conroy, in The New York Times Book Review, praised it as "definitive.... A remarkable book by any standard...unparalleled in the literature of jazz." It has been universally recognized as the basic musical analysis of jazz from its beginnings until 1933. The Swing Era focuses on that extraordinary period in American musical history--1933 to 1945--when jazz was synonymous with America's popular music, its social dances and musical entertainment. The book's thorough scholarship, critical perceptions, and great love and respect for jazz puts this well-remembered era of American music into new and revealing perspective. It examines how the arrangements of Fletcher Henderson and Eddie Sauter--whom Schuller equates with Richard Strauss as "a master of harmonic modulation"--contributed to Benny Goodman's finest work...how Duke Ellington used the highly individualistic trombone trio of Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Juan Tizol, and Lawrence Brown to enrich his elegant compositions...how Billie Holiday developed her horn-like instrumental approach to singing...and how the seminal compositions and arrangements of the long-forgotten John Nesbitt helped shape Swing Era styles through their influence on Gene Gifford and the famous Casa Loma Orchestra. Schuller also provides serious reappraisals of such often neglected jazz figures as Cab Calloway, Henry "Red" Allen, Horace Henderson, Pee Wee Russell, and Joe Mooney. Much of the book's focus is on the famous swing bands of the time, which were the essence of the Swing Era. There are the great black bands--Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Earl Hines, Andy Kirk, and the often superb but little known "territory bands"--and popular white bands like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsie, Artie Shaw, and Woody Herman, plus the first serious critical assessment of that most famous of Swing Era bandleaders, Glenn Miller. There are incisive portraits of the great musical soloists--such as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Bunny Berigan, and Jack Teagarden--and such singers as Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Helen Forest.

Anyone with a knowledge of basic chords and guitar scale fingerings can dig right in and start learning to play jazz right away. Spanning from the major scale and basic triad theory all the way up to extended chords and the modes, this book features a full-length etude or song to go with every new concept introduced. Beginning Jazz Guitar breaks the age-old tradition of dry, intimidating and confusing jazz books, and provides an actual step-by-step and enjoyable method for learning to play in this style.
Clearly organized into easily mastered segments, each chapter is divided into separate lessons on harmony or improvisation. All music is shown in standard notation and TAB.

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 resides at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, to paint fascinating and very human portraits of jazz musicians. Organized around general topics--teaching and learning, life on the road, prejudice and discrimination, and the importance of a good nickname--Jazz Anecdotes shows the jazz world as it really is. In this fully updated edition, which contains over 150 new anecdotes and new topics like Hiring and Firing, Crow regales us with new stories of such jazz greats as Benny Goodman, Chet Baker, Ravi Coltrane, Buddy Rich and Paul Desmond. He offers extended sections on old favorites--Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, and the fabulous Eddie Condon, who seems to have lived his entire life with the anecdotist in mind. With its unique blend of sparkling dialogue and historical and social insight, Jazz Anecdotes will delight anyone who loves a good story. It offers a fresh perspective on the joys and hardships of a musician's life as well as a rare glimpse of the personalities who created America's most distinctive music.

In his new book, Richard Brent Turner explores the history and contemporary significance of the popular religious traditions, identities, and performance forms celebrated in the second lines of the jazz street parades of black New Orleans. The second line is the group of dancers who follow the first procession of church and club members, brass bands, and grand marshals. Here musical and religious traditions interplay. Jazz Religion, the Second Line, and Black New Orleans examines the relationship of jazz to indigenous religion and spirituality. It explores how the African diasporist religious identities and musical traditions -- from Haiti and West and Central Africa -- are reinterpreted in New Orleans jazz and popular religious performances, while describing how the participants in the second line create their own social space and become proficient in the arts of political disguise, resistance, and performance.

For jazz historians, Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings mark the first revolution in the history of a music riven by upheaval. Yet few traces of this revolution can be found in the historical record of the late 1920s, when the discs were made. Even black newspapers covered Armstrong as just one name among many, and descriptions of his playing, while laudatory, bear little resemblance to those of today. Through a careful analysis of seven seminal recordings in this compact and engaging book, author Brian Harker recaptures the perspective of Armstrong's original audience without abandoning that of today's listeners. The world of vaudeville and show business provide crucial context to his readings, revealing how the demands of making a living in a competitive environment catalyzed Armstrong's unique artistic gifts. Invoking a breadth of influences ranging from New Orleans clarinet style to Guy Lombardo, and from tap dancing to classical music, Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings offers bold insights, fresh anecdotes, and, ultimately, a new interpretation of Louis Armstrong and his most influential body of work.

When Jimi Hendrix transfixed the crowds of Woodstock with his gripping version of "The Star Spangled Banner," he was building on a foundation reaching back, in part, to the revolutionary guitar playing of Howlin' Wolf and the other great Chicago bluesmen, and to the Delta blues tradition before him. But in its unforgettable introduction, followed by his unaccompanied "talking" guitar passage and inserted calls and responses at key points in the musical narrative, Hendrix's performance of the national anthem also hearkened back to a tradition even older than the blues, a tradition rooted in the rings of dance, drum, and song shared by peoples across Africa. Bold and original, The Power of Black Music offers a new way of listening to the music of black America, and appreciating its profound contribution to all American music. Striving to break down the barriers that remain between high art and low art, it brilliantly illuminates the centuries-old linkage between the music, myths and rituals of Africa and the continuing evolution and enduring vitality of African-American music. Inspired by the pioneering work of Sterling Stuckey and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author Samuel A. Floyd, Jr, advocates a new critical approach grounded in the forms and traditions of the music itself. He accompanies readers on a fascinating journey from the African ring, through the ring shout's powerful merging of music and dance in the slave culture, to the funeral parade practices of the early new Orleans jazzmen, the bluesmen in the twenties, the beboppers in the forties, and the free jazz, rock, Motown, and concert hall composers of the sixties and beyond. Floyd dismisses the assumption that Africans brought to the United States as slaves took the music of whites in the New World and transformed it through their own performance practices. Instead, he recognizes European influences, while demonstrating how much black music has continued to share with its African counterparts. Floyd maintains that while African Americans may not have direct knowledge of African traditions and myths, they can intuitively recognize links to an authentic African cultural memory. For example, in speaking of his grandfather Omar, who died a slave as a young man, the jazz clarinetist Sidney Bechet said, "Inside him he'd got the memory of all the wrong that's been done to my people. That's what the memory is....When a blues is good, that kind of memory just grows up inside it." Grounding his scholarship and meticulous research in his childhood memories of black folk culture and his own experiences as a musician and listener, Floyd maintains that the memory of Omar and all those who came before and after him remains a driving force in the black music of America, a force with the power to enrich cultures the world over.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of British novelist CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870) not only to literature in the English language, but to Western civilization on the whole. He is arguably the first fiction writer to have become an international celebrity. He popularized episodic fiction and the cliffhanger, which had a profound influence on the development of film and television. He is entirely responsible for the popular image of Victorian London that still lingers today, and his characters-from Oliver Twist to Ebenezer Scrooge, from Miss Havisham to Uriah Heep-have become not merely iconic, but mythic. But it was his stirring portraits of ordinary people-not the upper classes or the aristocracy-and his fervent cries for social, moral, and legal justice for the working poor, and in particular for poor children, in the grim early decades of the Industrial Revolution that powerfully impacted social concerns well into the 20th century. Without Charles Dickens, we may never have seen the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Upton Sinclair, or even Bob Dylan. Here, in 30 beautiful volumes-complete with all the original illustrations-is every published word written by one of the most important writers ever. The essential collector's set will delight anyone who cherishes English literature...and who takes pleasure in constantly rediscovering its joys. This volume contains Oliver Twist, Dickens's second novel, which was serialized in Bentley's Miscellany from February 1837 to April 1839. A stunning example of the social novel-and the first novel ever to focus on a child character-it is one of Dickens's most compelling works.

Originally released by Doubleday in 1956, Harlem Moon Classics celebrates the publication with the fiftieth-anniversary edition of Billie Holiday’s unforgettable and timeless memoir, updated with an insightful introduction and a revised discography, both written by celebrated music writer David Ritz.

Lady Sings the Blues is the fiercely honest, no-holds-barred autobiography of Billie Holiday, the legendary jazz, swing, and standards singing sensation. Taking the reader on a fast-moving journey from Holiday’s rough-and-tumble Baltimore childhood (where she ran errands at a whorehouse in exchange for the chance to listen to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith albums), to her emergence on Harlem’s club scene, to sold-out performances with the Count Basie Orchestra and with Artie Shaw and his band, this revelatory memoir is notable for its trenchant observations on the racism that darkened Billie’s life and the heroin addiction that ended it too soon. We are with her during the mesmerizing debut of “Strange Fruit”; with her as she rubs shoulders with the biggest movie stars and musicians of the day (Bob Hope, Lana Turner, Clark Gable, Benny Goodman, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, and more); and with her through the scrapes with Jim Crow, spats with Sarah Vaughan, ignominious jailings, and tragic decline. All of this is told in Holiday’s tart, streetwise style and hip patois that makes it read as if it were written yesterday.

Featuring 100 photographs of Frank Sinatra working with orchestras and arrangers, listening to playbacks, and, of course, singing, this book tells the whole story of how he created the Sinatra sound and translated the most intense personal emotions into richly worked-out songs of unrivalled expressiveness. One of the thrills of listening to Sinatra is wondering how he did it--and this book explains it all, bringing the dedicated fan and the casual music lover alike into the recording studio to witness the fascinating working methods he introduced and mastered in his quest for recorded perfection. Revealed is how, in addition to introducing and perfecting a unique vocal style, Sinatra was also his own in-studio producer--personally supervising every aspect of his recordings, from choosing the songs and arrangers to making minute adjustments in microphone placement.

"May be the best book ever written about jazz."—David Thomson, Los Angeles Times

In eight poetically charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skillfully evokes the music and the men who shaped modern jazz. Drawing on photos, anecdotes, and, most important, the way he hears the music, Dyer imaginatively reconstructs scenes from the embattled lives of some of the greats: Lester Young fading away in a hotel room; Charles Mingus storming down the streets of New York on a too-small bicycle; Thelonious Monk creating his own private language on the piano. However, music is the driving force of But Beautiful, and wildly metaphoric prose that mirrors the quirks, eccentricity, and brilliance of each musician's style.

An important volume on both the harmonic and melodic aspects of the modern guitarist with an emphasis on improvisation. Subjects include chord construction, embellishment, substitution, connection, resolution and chromatic movement. Also covers whole tone, blues, altered scales, chord scales and much more.

From the moment it was recorded more than 40 years ago, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue was hailed as a jazz classic. To this day it remains the bestselling jazz album of all time, embraced by fans of all musical genres. The album represented a true watershed moment in jazz history, and helped to usher in the first great jazz revolution since bebop.

The Making of Kind of Blue is an exhaustively researched examination of how this masterpiece was born. Recorded with pianist Bill Evans, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, composer/theorist George Russell and Miles himself, the album represented a fortuitous conflation of some of the real giants of the jazz world, at a time when they were at the top of their musical game. The end result was a recording that would forever change the face of American music.

Through extensive interviews and access to rare recordings Nisenson pieced together the whole story of this miraculous session, laying bare the genius of Miles Davis, other musicians, and the heart of jazz itself.

"Comprehensive and intelligently organized. . . .  Jazz aficionados . . . should be grateful to have so much good writing on the subject in one place."--The New York Times Book Review

"Alluring. . . . Capture[s] much of the breadth of the music, as well as the passionate debates it has stirred, more vividly than any other jazz anthology to date."--Chicago Tribune

No musical idiom has inspired more fine writing than jazz, and nowhere has that writing been presented with greater comprehensiveness and taste than in this glorious collection. In Reading Jazz, editor Robert Gottlieb combs through eighty years of autobiography, reportage, and criticism by the music's greatest players, commentators, and fans to create what is at once a monumental tapestry of jazz history and testimony to the elegance, vigor, and variety of jazz writing.  
        Here are Jelly Roll Morton, recalling the whorehouse piano players of New Orleans in 1902; Whitney Balliett, profiling clarinetist Pee Wee Russell; poet Philip Larkin, with an eloquently dyspeptic jeremiad against bop. Here, too, are the voices of Billie Holiday and Charles Mingus, Albert Murray and Leonard Bernstein, Stanley Crouch and LeRoi Jones, reminiscing, analyzing, celebrating, and settling scores. For anyone who loves the music--or the music of great prose--Reading Jazz is indispensable.  

"The ideal gift for jazzniks and boppers everywhere. . . . It gathers the best and most varied jazz writing of more than a century."--Sunday Times (London)


From the Trade Paperback edition.

How do you keep up in the age of information when there's so much to know and so little time? Here's the ideal solution: a practical book of knowledge offering in-depth analysis, detailed interpretation, and penetrating insight into the key concepts, the most influential minds, and the major intellectual movements in history. A World of Ideas is an essential tool for anyone who wants to be fully informed and stay ahead of the curve in today's world.

Now you can get to the bottom of the big bang theory; find out where Freud's ideas were coming from, and where Einstein's may ultimately take us; demystify surrealism and survivalism, nature and nurture, communism and capitalism. With hundreds of in-depth entries, drawn from a wide range of fields--including religion, philosophy, psychology, economics, politics, history, art, literature, and science--A World of Ideas enables you to turn immediately to the term in question for a comprehensive description of its history, meaning, and context.

- Hundreds of entries, alphabetically arranged, with key words and concepts highlighted and cross-referenced
- Reviewed and approved by an academic board of leading scholars
- A unique emphasis on multicultural influences and the long-neglected impact of women on the history of ideas
- An extensive bibliography of further readings and resources

Here are the concepts that shaped civilization . . . the minds that made history . . . the thinkers, the thoughts, and the theories--everything you need to know to fully understand the world we live in. Concise and authoritative, meticulously researched and lucidly written, this invaluable resource is sure to become a standard reference for years to come.


From the Hardcover edition.

(Fake Book). Since the 1970s, The Real Book has been the most popular book for gigging jazz musicians. Hal Leonard is proud to publish completely legal and legitimate editions of the original volumes as well as exciting new volumes to carry on the tradition to new generations of players in all styles of music! All the Real Books feature hundreds of time-tested songs in accurate arrangements in the famous easy-to-read, hand-written notation. This all-new 4th volume presents 400 more songs, not previously available in any other volume! Includes: Ashes to Ashes * Button up Your Overcoat * Cocktails for Two * Days of Wine and Roses * Down with Love * A Foggy Day (In London Town) * The Good Life * Home * I Got Rhythm * I Hadn't Anyone Till You * If You Could See Me Now * Just Friends * Kansas City * Linus and Lucy * Lonely Girl * Maybe This Time * My Bells * Night and Day * On Broadway * On Green Dolphin Street * Only the Lonely * The Pink Panther * Puttin' on the Ritz * Relaxin' at the Camarillo * Reunion Blues * The Sermon * The Shadow of Your Smile * Side by Side * Smile * Summertime * Sunny * Them There Eyes * and many more. Editions also available in C, E-flat, and Bass Clef.

"The best book ever produced about Louis Armstrong by anyone other than the man himself."—Terry Teachout, Commentary In the early twentieth century, New Orleans was a place of colliding identities and histories, and Louis Armstrong was a gifted young man of psychological nimbleness. A dark-skinned, impoverished child, he grew up under low expectations, Jim Crow legislation, and vigilante terrorism. Yet he also grew up at the center of African American vernacular traditions from the Deep South, learning the ecstatic music of the Sanctified Church, blues played by street musicians, and the plantation tradition of ragging a tune.

Louis Armstrong's New Orleans interweaves a searching account of early twentieth-century New Orleans with a narrative of the first twenty-one years of Armstrong's life. Drawing on a stunning body of first-person accounts, this book tells the rags-to-riches tale of Armstrong's early life and the social and musical forces that shaped him. The city and the musician are both extraordinary, their relationship unique, and their impact on American culture incalculable.
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PREVIEWS is your ultimate guide to comics, graphic novels and pop-culture merchandise available from your local comic book shop... revealed up to 2 months in advance! Read product descriptions and storylines for hundreds of English-language comic books and graphic novels from the top comic book publishers; the coolest toys and pop-culture merchandise on Earth; plus PREVIEWS exclusive items you’ll find nowhere else! Also contains Marvel PREVIEWS Supplement, filled with descriptions and art for every Marvel title! This December issue features items scheduled to ship in February 2015. Preorder items at your local comic book shop by December 18th. Find a comic shop near you at www.comicshoplocator.com. This Month’s Cover Art: DC Comics: Suiciders from Vertigo, Dark Horse Comics: Goon 50th Dark Horse Issue.

(Berklee Press). When you think of jazz composers, who comes to mind? Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Bob Brookmeyer. This book is about what they (and many others) do. Jazz composition has evolved into a disciplined art that often evidences great emotional depth and breadth of sophistication. Berklee College of Music legend Ted Pease demystifies the processes involved in writing jazz tunes and in composing episodic and extended jazz works. Jazz Composition: Theory and Practice is a by-product of Pease's 25 years of teaching jazz composition. The accompanying audio helps demonstrate melody, harmony and rhythmic elements of jazz. Also included are a variety of music-writing exercises focused on learning these same elements to help you begin producing your own effective jazz compositions.

Discover the music of renowned jazz artist Joshua Redman with this book of transcribed solos. Trent Kynaston has meticulously captured on paper all the magic of today's leading young jazz tenor saxophonist. The book includes a biography, discography, and an analysis of each solo. This great new folio will give insight into the style of Joshua Redman, and is an invaluable addition to any jazz musician's library.

On January 16, 1938 Benny Goodman brought his swing orchestra to America's venerated home of European classical music, Carnegie Hall. The resulting concert - widely considered one of the most significant events in American music history - helped to usher jazz and swing music into the American cultural mainstream. This reputation has been perpetuated by Columbia Records' 1950 release of the concert on LP. Now, in Benny Goodman's Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert, jazz scholar and musician Catherine Tackley provides the first in depth, scholarly study of this seminal concert and recording. Combining rigorous documentary and archival research with close analysis of the recording, Tackley strips back the accumulated layers of interpretation and meaning to assess the performance in its original context, and explore what the material has come to represent in its recorded form. Taking a complete view of the concert, she examines the rich cultural setting in which it took place, and analyzes the compositions, arrangements and performances themselves, before discussing the immediate reception, and lasting legacy and impact of this storied event and album. As the definitive study of one of the most important recordings of the twentieth-century, Benny Goodman's Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert is a must-read for all serious jazz fans, musicians and scholars.

From his emergence in the 1950s as an uncannily beautiful young Oklahoman who became the prince of "cool" jazz seemingly overnight to his violent, drug-related death in Amsterdam in 1988, Chet Baker lived a life that has become an American myth. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and previously untapped sources, this first major biography of one of the most romanticized icons in jazz gives a thrilling account of the trumpeter's dark journey. Author James Gavin delves deeply into Baker's tormented childhood, the origins of his melancholic trumpet playing, and even reveals the long-unsolved riddle of Baker's demise. Baker's otherworldly personal aura struck a note of menace and mystery that catapulted him to fame in the staid 1950s but as time wore on, his romance with drugs became highly publicized. Gavin narrates the harrowing spiral of dependency down which Baker tumbled and illustrates how those who dared to get close were dragged down with him. This is the portrait of a musician whose singular artistry and mystique has never lost the power to enchant and seduce.

(Book). Culled from the DownBeat archives includes in-depth interviews with literally every great jazz artist and personality that ever lived! In honor of its 75th anniversary, DownBeat 's editors have brought together in this one volume the best interviews, insights, and photographs from the illustrious history of the world's top jazz magazine, DownBeat . This anthology includes the greatest of DownBeat 's Jazz Hall of Famers: from early legends like Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman; to bebop heroes like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Miles Davis; to truly unique voices like Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk; to the pioneers of the electric scene like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, and Joe Zawinul. The Great Jazz Interviews delivers the legends of jazz, talking about America's music and America itself, in their own words. Features classic photos and magazine covers fron Downbeat 's vast archive.

<p>PREVIEWS is your ultimate guide to comics, graphic novels and pop-culture merchandise available from your local comic book shop... revealed up to 2 months in advance! Read product descriptions and storylines for hundreds of English-language comic books and graphic novels from the top comic book publishers such as Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, IDW Publishing, Image Comics, Marvel Comics, Avatar Press, BOOM! Studios, Dynamite Entertainment, Fantagraphics, Oni Press, Valiant Entertainment, Viz Media, and more. Plus, you’ll also find the coolest toys and pop-culture merchandise from manufacturers such as DC Collectibles, Diamond Select Toys, Eaglemoss Publications, Funko, Gentle Giant, Kotobukiya, Hasbro, Mattel, Playmates and more. Plus, tons of other great products each categorized into easy to find sections: Comics & Graphic Novels, Books, Magazines, Trading Cards, Apparel, Toys, Statues, Models, Import Toys, Collectibles & Novelties, Games, and DVDs & Digital Media. Add in PREVIEWS exclusive apparel and merchandise you’ll find nowhere else—and it’s great monthly read to find out what’s at comic shops! 500+ catalog pages with over 2,000+ items featured each month with detailed storylines and product descriptions! Also contains Marvel PREVIEWS Supplement, filled with descriptions and art for every Marvel title!  </p><p> This October issue features items scheduled to ship in December, 2014. Preorder items at your local comic book shop by October 18th. Find a comic shop near you at www.comicshoplocator.com. </p><p> This Month’s Cover Art: DC Comics: Robin Rises: Alpha #1 and Diamond Select Toys: Cable Marvel Select Action Figure. This Month’s Theme: Sci-Fi & Fantasy!</p>

The Jazz Guitar Chord Bible Complete solves one of the greatest problems in jazz...the knowledge and use of chords. It is a complete guide to three- and four-string guitar chords. Every application is covered including passing chords and altered chords, but only the most logical, practical and applicable chord voicings are presented.

 For fifty years The Jazz Book has been the most encyclopedic
interpretive history of jazz available in one volume.

Our language is changing faster than ever before, thanks to the influence of the media, e-mail, the Internet and text messaging. Modern communications are breaking down distinctions between formal and informal English, raising ever more questions as to how to speak and write correctly.

This fully updated edition of the bestselling Good Word Guide offers information and advice on spelling, grammar, punctuation, pronunciation, confusables and the latest buzzwords, and provides clear, straightforward answers to everyday language problems.

With a foreword by Martin Cutts, Research Director, Plain Language Commission.

'In every sense, a good word guide' Times Educational Supplement

'This intelligent guide is an essential addition to the bookshelves of all readers and writers' Good Book Guide

Giant Steps examines the most important figures in the creation of modern jazz, detailing the emergence of bebop through the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk. Using this as its starting point, Giant Steps subsequently delves into the developments of jazz composition, modal jazz and free jazz. The music of each of these great masters is examined in detail and will provide both a fine introduction for the large audience newly attracted to the music but unsure of their direction through it, as well as an entertaining and informative read for those with a more substantial background.

Following on from Giant Steps, comes the second instalment in Kenny Mathieson's series of jazz histories. Cookin' examines the birth and development of two of the key jazz styles of the post-war era, hard bop and its related offshoot, soul jazz. Hard bop was the most exciting jazz style of its day, and remains at the core of the modern jazz mainstream even now. It drew on the twin poles of bebop and the blues for its foundation, spiced up with gospel, Latin and rhythm and blues influences. The book looks at the founding fathers of the form, Art Blakey and Horace Silver, and goes on to trace the music through its peak decade.

Django Reinhardt was arguably the greatest guitarist who ever lived, an important influence on Les Paul, Charlie Christian, B.B. King, Jerry Garcia, Chet Atkins, and many others. Yet there is no major biography of Reinhardt. Now, in Django, Michael Dregni offers a definitive portrait of this great guitarist. Handsome, charismatic, childlike, and unpredictable, Reinhardt was a character out of a picaresque novel. Born in a gypsy caravan at a crossroads in Belgium, he was almost killed in a freak fire that burned half of his body and left his left hand twisted into a claw. But with this maimed left hand flying over the frets and his right hand plucking at dizzying speed, Django became Europe's most famous jazz musician, commanding exorbitant fees--and spending the money as fast as he made it. Dregni not only chronicles this remarkably colorful life--including a fascinating account of gypsy culture--but he also sheds much light on Django's musicianship. He examines his long musical partnership with violinist Stéphane Grappelli--the one suave and smooth, the other sharper and more dissonant--and he traces the evolution of their novel string jazz ensemble, Quintette du Hot Club de France. Indeed, the author spotlights Django's amazing musical diversity, describing his swing-styled Nouveau Quintette, his big band Django's Music, and his later bebop ensemble, as well as his many compositions, including symphonic pieces influenced by Ravel and Debussy and his unfinished organ mass inspired by Bach. And along the way, the author offers vivid snapshots of the jazz scene in Paris--colorful portraits of Josephine Baker, Bricktop, Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and countless others--and of Django's vagabond wanderings around France, Europe, and the United States, where he toured with Duke Ellington. Capturing the extraordinary life and times of one of the great musicians of the twentieth century, Django is a must-read portrait of a true original.

This new volume in the JPS Guides series is a fiction reader?s dream: a guide to 125 remarkable works of fiction. The selection includes a wide range of classic American Jewish novels and story collections, from 1867 to the present, selected by the author in consultation with a panel of literary scholars and book industry professionals. Roth, Mailer, Kellerman, Chabon, Ozick, Heller, and dozens of other celebrated writers are here, with their most notable works. Each entry includes a book summary, with historical context and background on the author. Suggestions for further reading point to other books that match readers? interests and favorite writers. And the introduction is a fascinating exploration of the history of and important themes in American Jewish Fiction, illustrating how Jewish writing in the U.S. has been in constant dialogue with popular entertainment and intellectual life. Included in this guide are lists of book award winners; recommended anthologies; title, author, and subject indexes; and more.

"Mr. Gioia could not have done a better job. Through him, jazz might even find new devotees." --The Economist
In How to Listen to Jazz, award-winning music scholar Ted Gioia presents a lively introduction to the art of listening to jazz. He tells us what to listen for in a performance and includes a guide to today's leading jazz musicians. From Louis Armstrong's innovative sounds to the jazz-rock fusion of Miles Davis, Gioia covers the music's history and reveals the building blocks of improvisation. A true love letter to jazz by a foremost expert, How to Listen to Jazz is a must-read for anyone who's ever wanted to understand America's greatest contribution to music.

Poised to become a classic of jazz literature, Visions of Jazz: The First Century offers seventy-nine chapters illuminating the lives of virtually all the major figures in jazz history. From Louis Armstrong's renegade-style trumpet playing to Sarah Vaughan's operatic crooning, and from the swinging elegance of Duke Ellington to the pioneering experiments of Ornette Coleman, jazz critic Gary Giddins continually astonishes the reader with his unparalleled insight. Writing with the grace and wit that have endeared his prose to Village Voice readers for decades, Giddins also widens the scope of jazz to include such crucial American musicians as Irving Berlin, Rosemary Clooney, and Frank Sinatra, all primarily pop performers who are often dismissed by fans and critics as mere derivatives of the true jazz idiom. And he devotes an entire quarter of this landmark volume to young, still-active jazz artists, boldly expanding the horizons of jazz--and charting and exploring the music's influences as no other book has done.

In this richly detailed and prodigiously researched book, jazz scholar and musician Ricky Riccardi reveals for the first time the genius and remarkable achievements of the last 25 years of Louis Armstrong’s life, providing along the way a comprehensive study of one of the best-known and most accomplished jazz stars of our time. Much has been written about Armstrong, but the majority of it focuses on the early and middle stages of his career. During the last third of his career, Armstrong was often dismissed as a buffoonish if popular entertainer. Riccardi shows us instead the inventiveness and depth of his music during this time. These are the years of his highest-charting hits, including “Mack the Knife” and “Hello, Dolly"; the famed collaborations with Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington; and his legendary recordings with the All Stars. An eminently readable and insightful book, What a Wonderful World completes and enlarges our understanding of one of America’s greatest and most beloved musical icons.

Edited by prominent musician and scholar Leonard Brown, John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music is a timely exploration of Coltrane's sound and its spiritual qualities that are rooted in Black American music-culture and aspirations for freedom. A wide-ranging collection of essays and interviews featuring many of the most eminent figures in Black American music and jazz studies and performance --Tommy Lee Lott, Anthony Brown, Herman Gray, Emmett G. Price III, Tammy Kernodle, Salim Washington, Eric Jackson, TJ Anderson ,Yusef Lateef, Billy Taylor, Olly Wilson, George Russell, and a never before published interview with Elvin Jones -- the book examines the full spectrum of Coltrane's legacy. Each work approaches this theme from a different angle, in both historical and contemporary contexts, focusing on how Coltrane became a quintessential example of the universal and enduring qualities of Black American culture.

 The 20th century produced only a handful of musicians who could be called geniuses – people who would have achieved timeless fame no matter when they were born. Miles Davis is one of those individuals. He primarily played the trumpet, though he was an accomplished multi-instrumentalist. His signature style was minimalist and improvisational. 

Those closest to him described a shy person who used anger and arrogance as a shield to keep others away. Likewise, his addictive personality – he battled drugs and alcohol for virtually his entire adult life – made his creative achievements all the more remarkable. Miles died younger than he might have were it not for those self-destructive tendencies, but not before creating dozens of the most important jazz albums in the history of the genre.

This book explores Davis’ fascinating life.

Since its publication in 1992, Jazz, probably Toni Morrison's most difficult novel to date, has illicited a wide array of critical response. Many of these analyses, while both thoughtful and thought-provoking, have provided only partial or inherently inconclusive interpretations. The title, and certain of the author's own pronouncements, have led other critics to focus on the music itself, both as medium and aesthetic support for the narration. Choosing an entirely different approach for The Story of Jazz, Justine Tally further develops her hypothesis, first elaborated in her study of Paradise, that the Morrison trilogy is undergirded by the relationship of history, memory and story, and discusses "jazz" not as the music, but as a metaphor for language and storytelling. Taking her cue from the author's epigraph for the novel, she discusses the relevance of storytelling to contemporary critics in many different fields, explains Morrison's choice of the hard-boiled detective genre as a ghost-text for her novel, and guides the reader through the intricacies of Bakhtinian theory in order to elucidate and ground her interpretation of this important text, finally entering into a chapter-by-chapter analysis of the novel which leads to a surprising conclusion.