Author: Francis Davis
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786749814
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
From Frank Sinatra to Sun Ra, from the jazz age to middle age, with thoughts on everything in-between, Francis Davis has been writing about American music and American culture for more than twenty years. His essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and the Village Voice among countless other publications from coast to coast. And now, for the first time, here are his most important writings of his impressive career-the quintessential Davis on everything from why Rent set musicals back two decades, to what Ken Burns should have filmed. And Davis's writing is as enjoyable as the music of which he writes. The New York Times Book Review has compared Davis's work to "a well-blown solo."
Jazz And Its Discontents
Author: Francis Davis
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786749814
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
From Frank Sinatra to Sun Ra, from the jazz age to middle age, with thoughts on everything in-between, Francis Davis has been writing about American music and American culture for more than twenty years. His essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and the Village Voice among countless other publications from coast to coast. And now, for the first time, here are his most important writings of his impressive career-the quintessential Davis on everything from why Rent set musicals back two decades, to what Ken Burns should have filmed. And Davis's writing is as enjoyable as the music of which he writes. The New York Times Book Review has compared Davis's work to "a well-blown solo."
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786749814
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
From Frank Sinatra to Sun Ra, from the jazz age to middle age, with thoughts on everything in-between, Francis Davis has been writing about American music and American culture for more than twenty years. His essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and the Village Voice among countless other publications from coast to coast. And now, for the first time, here are his most important writings of his impressive career-the quintessential Davis on everything from why Rent set musicals back two decades, to what Ken Burns should have filmed. And Davis's writing is as enjoyable as the music of which he writes. The New York Times Book Review has compared Davis's work to "a well-blown solo."
Blowin' Hot and Cool
Author: John Gennari
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226289249
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 495
Book Description
In the illustrious and richly documented history of American jazz, no figure has been more controversial than the jazz critic. Jazz critics can be revered or reviled—often both—but they should not be ignored. And while the tradition of jazz has been covered from seemingly every angle, nobody has ever turned the pen back on itself to chronicle the many writers who have helped define how we listen to and how we understand jazz. That is, of course, until now. In Blowin’ Hot and Cool, John Gennari provides a definitive history of jazz criticism from the 1920s to the present. The music itself is prominent in his account, as are the musicians—from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Roscoe Mitchell, and beyond. But the work takes its shape from fascinating stories of the tradition’s key critics—Leonard Feather, Martin Williams, Whitney Balliett, Dan Morgenstern, Gary Giddins, and Stanley Crouch, among many others. Gennari is the first to show the many ways these critics have mediated the relationship between the musicians and the audience—not merely as writers, but in many cases as producers, broadcasters, concert organizers, and public intellectuals as well. For Gennari, the jazz tradition is not so much a collection of recordings and performances as it is a rancorous debate—the dissonant noise clamoring in response to the sounds of jazz. Against the backdrop of racial strife, class and gender issues, war, and protest that has defined the past seventy-five years in America, Blowin’ Hot and Cool brings to the fore jazz’s most vital critics and the role they have played not only in defining the history of jazz but also in shaping jazz’s significance in American culture and life.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226289249
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 495
Book Description
In the illustrious and richly documented history of American jazz, no figure has been more controversial than the jazz critic. Jazz critics can be revered or reviled—often both—but they should not be ignored. And while the tradition of jazz has been covered from seemingly every angle, nobody has ever turned the pen back on itself to chronicle the many writers who have helped define how we listen to and how we understand jazz. That is, of course, until now. In Blowin’ Hot and Cool, John Gennari provides a definitive history of jazz criticism from the 1920s to the present. The music itself is prominent in his account, as are the musicians—from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Roscoe Mitchell, and beyond. But the work takes its shape from fascinating stories of the tradition’s key critics—Leonard Feather, Martin Williams, Whitney Balliett, Dan Morgenstern, Gary Giddins, and Stanley Crouch, among many others. Gennari is the first to show the many ways these critics have mediated the relationship between the musicians and the audience—not merely as writers, but in many cases as producers, broadcasters, concert organizers, and public intellectuals as well. For Gennari, the jazz tradition is not so much a collection of recordings and performances as it is a rancorous debate—the dissonant noise clamoring in response to the sounds of jazz. Against the backdrop of racial strife, class and gender issues, war, and protest that has defined the past seventy-five years in America, Blowin’ Hot and Cool brings to the fore jazz’s most vital critics and the role they have played not only in defining the history of jazz but also in shaping jazz’s significance in American culture and life.
The Williamsburg Avant-Garde
Author: Cisco Bradley
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478024011
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
In The Williamsburg Avant-Garde Cisco Bradley chronicles the rise and fall of the underground music and art scene in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn between the late 1980s and the early 2010s. Drawing on interviews, archival collections, musical recordings, videos, photos, and other ephemera, Bradley explores the scene’s social, cultural, and economic dynamics. Building on the neighborhood’s punk DIY approach and aesthetic, Williamsburg's free jazz, postpunk, and noise musicians and groups---from Mary Halvorson, Zs, and Nate Wooley to Matana Roberts, Peter Evans, and Darius Jones---produced shows in a variety of unlicensed venues as well as in clubs and cafes. At the same time, pirate radio station free103point9 and music festivals made Williamsburg an epicenter of New York’s experimental culture. In 2005, New York’s rezoning act devastated the community as gentrification displaced its participants farther afield in Brooklyn and in Queens. With this portrait of Williamsburg, Bradley not only documents some of the most vital music of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; he helps readers better understand the formation, vibrancy, and life span of experimental music and art scenes everywhere.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478024011
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
In The Williamsburg Avant-Garde Cisco Bradley chronicles the rise and fall of the underground music and art scene in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn between the late 1980s and the early 2010s. Drawing on interviews, archival collections, musical recordings, videos, photos, and other ephemera, Bradley explores the scene’s social, cultural, and economic dynamics. Building on the neighborhood’s punk DIY approach and aesthetic, Williamsburg's free jazz, postpunk, and noise musicians and groups---from Mary Halvorson, Zs, and Nate Wooley to Matana Roberts, Peter Evans, and Darius Jones---produced shows in a variety of unlicensed venues as well as in clubs and cafes. At the same time, pirate radio station free103point9 and music festivals made Williamsburg an epicenter of New York’s experimental culture. In 2005, New York’s rezoning act devastated the community as gentrification displaced its participants farther afield in Brooklyn and in Queens. With this portrait of Williamsburg, Bradley not only documents some of the most vital music of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; he helps readers better understand the formation, vibrancy, and life span of experimental music and art scenes everywhere.
Jazz on the River
Author: William Howland Kenney
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226437337
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
'Jazz on the River' describes how musical entrepreneurs gave the music of New Orleans to mainstream America in the 1920s, by quite literally sending their musicians upstream, aboard riverboats that plied the Mississippi waterways every summer.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226437337
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
'Jazz on the River' describes how musical entrepreneurs gave the music of New Orleans to mainstream America in the 1920s, by quite literally sending their musicians upstream, aboard riverboats that plied the Mississippi waterways every summer.
Is Jazz Dead?
Author: Stuart Nicholson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136730931
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Is Jazz Dead? examines the state of jazz in America at the turn of the twenty-first century. Musicians themselves are returning to New Orleans, Swing, and Bebop styles, while the work of the '60s avant-garde and even '70s and '80s jazz-rock is roundly ignored. Meanwhile, global jazz musicians are creating new and exciting music that is just starting to be heard in the United States, offering a viable alternative to the rampant conservatism here. Stuart Nicholson's thought-provoking book offers an analysis of the American scene, how it came to be so stagnant, and what it can do to create a new level of creativity. This book is bound to be controversial among jazz purists and musicians; it will undoubtedly generate discussion about how jazz should grow now that it has become a recognized part of American musical history. Is Jazz Dead? dares to ask the question on all jazz fan's minds: Can jazz survive as a living medium? And, if so, how?
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136730931
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
Is Jazz Dead? examines the state of jazz in America at the turn of the twenty-first century. Musicians themselves are returning to New Orleans, Swing, and Bebop styles, while the work of the '60s avant-garde and even '70s and '80s jazz-rock is roundly ignored. Meanwhile, global jazz musicians are creating new and exciting music that is just starting to be heard in the United States, offering a viable alternative to the rampant conservatism here. Stuart Nicholson's thought-provoking book offers an analysis of the American scene, how it came to be so stagnant, and what it can do to create a new level of creativity. This book is bound to be controversial among jazz purists and musicians; it will undoubtedly generate discussion about how jazz should grow now that it has become a recognized part of American musical history. Is Jazz Dead? dares to ask the question on all jazz fan's minds: Can jazz survive as a living medium? And, if so, how?
A Power Stronger Than Itself
Author: George E. Lewis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226477037
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 726
Book Description
Founded in 1965 and still active today, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is an American institution with an international reputation. George E. Lewis, who joined the collective as a teenager in 1971, establishes the full importance and vitality of the AACM with this communal history, written with a symphonic sweep that draws on a cross-generational chorus of voices and a rich collection of rare images. Moving from Chicago to New York to Paris, and from founding member Steve McCall’s kitchen table to Carnegie Hall, A Power Stronger Than Itself uncovers a vibrant, multicultural universe and brings to light a major piece of the history of avant-garde music and art.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226477037
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 726
Book Description
Founded in 1965 and still active today, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is an American institution with an international reputation. George E. Lewis, who joined the collective as a teenager in 1971, establishes the full importance and vitality of the AACM with this communal history, written with a symphonic sweep that draws on a cross-generational chorus of voices and a rich collection of rare images. Moving from Chicago to New York to Paris, and from founding member Steve McCall’s kitchen table to Carnegie Hall, A Power Stronger Than Itself uncovers a vibrant, multicultural universe and brings to light a major piece of the history of avant-garde music and art.
Jazz Improv
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jazz
Languages : en
Pages : 590
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jazz
Languages : en
Pages : 590
Book Description
Chasin' The Trane
Author: J. C. Thomas
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Always elusive, constantly moving, incessantly changing, John Coltrane stood astride the jazz world of the late ‘50s and ‘60s. He was a giant of the saxophone and a major composer. His music influenced both rock stars and classical musicians. There was a mystical quality, a profound melancholy emanating from this quiet, self-contained man that moved listeners—some of whom knew little about music but heard something beyond music's boundaries in the sounds his saxophone created. J. C. Thomas traces John Coltrane's life and career from his North Carolina childhood through his apprenticeship with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis, to its culmination in the saxophonist's classic quartet that played to steadily increasing audiences throughout America, Europe, and Japan.The author has drawn on the recollections of the people who knew Coltrane best—boyhood friends, band members like Elvin Jones, spiritual mentors like Ravi Shankar, and the women who loved him. Chasin' the Trane is the story of a man who struggled against drug addiction, studied African and Eastern music and philosophy, admired both Einstein's expanding universe and the shimmering sounds a harp makes, and left behind the enduring legacy of a master musician who was also a beautiful man.
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Always elusive, constantly moving, incessantly changing, John Coltrane stood astride the jazz world of the late ‘50s and ‘60s. He was a giant of the saxophone and a major composer. His music influenced both rock stars and classical musicians. There was a mystical quality, a profound melancholy emanating from this quiet, self-contained man that moved listeners—some of whom knew little about music but heard something beyond music's boundaries in the sounds his saxophone created. J. C. Thomas traces John Coltrane's life and career from his North Carolina childhood through his apprenticeship with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis, to its culmination in the saxophonist's classic quartet that played to steadily increasing audiences throughout America, Europe, and Japan.The author has drawn on the recollections of the people who knew Coltrane best—boyhood friends, band members like Elvin Jones, spiritual mentors like Ravi Shankar, and the women who loved him. Chasin' the Trane is the story of a man who struggled against drug addiction, studied African and Eastern music and philosophy, admired both Einstein's expanding universe and the shimmering sounds a harp makes, and left behind the enduring legacy of a master musician who was also a beautiful man.
Better Git It in Your Soul
Author: Krin Gabbard
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520260376
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Book Description
"This biography traces the output of jazz master Charles Mingus--his recordings, his compositions, and his writings--highlighting key moments in his life and musicians who influenced him and were influenced by him. As a young man, Mingus played with Louis Armstrong as well as with Kid Ory. Mingus also played in bands led by Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo, Art Tatum, and many others. He began leading his own bands in New York City in 1955. Eric Dolphy, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jimmy Knepper, Jackie McLean, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Cat Anderson, and Jaki Byard are among the many distinguished jazz artists who made music with Mingus during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. In addition to leaving behind a large collection of compelling recordings by large and small units, Mingus was also a talented writer. His autobiography, Beneath the Underdog: His World Composed by Mingus, is unlike any other book by a major jazz artist. Mingus creates vivid portraits of the many people who passed through his life and tells his story with compelling prose. Mingus also wrote a good deal of poetry and prose, all of it reflecting his unique vision. In 1977 he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. After several months of steady deterioration, he died in 1979 in Mexico"--Provided by publisher.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520260376
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Book Description
"This biography traces the output of jazz master Charles Mingus--his recordings, his compositions, and his writings--highlighting key moments in his life and musicians who influenced him and were influenced by him. As a young man, Mingus played with Louis Armstrong as well as with Kid Ory. Mingus also played in bands led by Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo, Art Tatum, and many others. He began leading his own bands in New York City in 1955. Eric Dolphy, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jimmy Knepper, Jackie McLean, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Cat Anderson, and Jaki Byard are among the many distinguished jazz artists who made music with Mingus during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. In addition to leaving behind a large collection of compelling recordings by large and small units, Mingus was also a talented writer. His autobiography, Beneath the Underdog: His World Composed by Mingus, is unlike any other book by a major jazz artist. Mingus creates vivid portraits of the many people who passed through his life and tells his story with compelling prose. Mingus also wrote a good deal of poetry and prose, all of it reflecting his unique vision. In 1977 he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. After several months of steady deterioration, he died in 1979 in Mexico"--Provided by publisher.
Swing Changes
Author: David Ware Stowe
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674858268
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, newspapers, magazines, recordings, photographs, literature, and films, Stowe looks at New Deal America through its music and shows us how the contradictions and tensions within swing--over race, politics, its own cultural status, the role of women--mirrored those played out in the larger society.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674858268
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, newspapers, magazines, recordings, photographs, literature, and films, Stowe looks at New Deal America through its music and shows us how the contradictions and tensions within swing--over race, politics, its own cultural status, the role of women--mirrored those played out in the larger society.