April is Jazz Appreciation Month, dedicated to the celebration of the rich history of jazz music and its importance to American music culture.
This virtual display coincides with the displays located in Reed Library from April 1 - 30.
Jazz Music Library contains over 10,000 albums, including thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres. It's the largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online (part of Music Online from Alexander Street Press).
Visions of Jazz by
Poised to become a jazz classic, Gary Giddins' Visions of Jazz: The First Century contains no less than 78 chapters illuminating the lives of virtually all major figures in jazz history. From Louis Armstrong's renegade style trumpet playing to Frank Sinatra's intimate crooning, jazz critic Gary Giddins continually astonishes us with his unparalleled insight.
The History of Jazz by
Gioia's story of jazz brilliantly portrays the most legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the scenes in which they evolved. From Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, Miles Davis's legendary 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, and Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality to current innovators such as Kamasi Washington and Esperanza Spalding, Gioia takes readers on a sweeping journey through the history of jazz. As he traces the music through the swamp lands of the Mississippi Delta, the red light district of New Orleans, the rent parties of Harlem, the speakeasies of Chicago, and other key locales of jazz history, Gioia also makes the social contexts in which the music was born come alive.
Jazz Worlds/World Jazz by
Many regard jazz as the soundtrack of America, born and raised in its cities and echoing throughout its tumultuous century of progress. So when Ernest Hemingway wrote about seeing jazz in 1920s Paris, and when British colonial officials danced to jazz in the clubs of Calcutta in the waning years of the Raj, how, exactly, had it gotten there? Jazz Worlds/World Jazz aims to answer these questions and more, bringing together voices from countries as far flung as Azerbaijan, Armenia, and India to show that the story of jazz is not trapped in American history books but alive in global modernity.
Monumental in scope, this book explores the relationship between jazz and culture and how they influence each other across a range of themes and settings. Contributors offer an analysis of the social meaning of jazz in Iran, a look at the genesis of Ethiopian jazz and at Indian fusion, and chapters on jazz diplomacy, Balkan swing, and that French export par excellence: Django Reinhardt. Altogether the contributors approach jazz—in these global iterations—through the themes that have always characterized it at home: place, history, mobility, media, and race. The result is a first-of-its-kind map of jazz around the globe that pays tribute to the players who have given the form its seemingly infinite possibilities.
Keeping Time by
Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History brings to life the controversies and critical issues that have accompanied over 100 years of jazz history. This unique volume gives voice to a wide range of perspectives which stress different reactions to and uses of jazz, both within and across communities, enabling readers to see that jazz is not just about names, dates, and chords, but rather about issues and ideas, cultural activities, and experiences that have affected people deeply in a great variety of ways.
The 101 Best Jazz Albums by
Through a description of various phonograph albums available, a history of jazz and its greats is given.
The Jazz Revolution by
Born of African rhythms, the spiritual "call and response," and other American musical traditions, jazz was by the 1920s the dominant influence on this country's popular music. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston) and the "Lost Generation" (Malcolm Cowley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein), along with many other Americans celebrated it--both as an expression of black culture and as a symbol of rebellion against American society. But an equal number railed against it. Whites were shocked by its raw emotion and sexuality, and blacks considered it "devil's music" and criticized it for casting a negative light on the black community. In this illuminating work, Kathy Ogren places this controversy in the social and cultural context of 1920s America and sheds new light on jazz's impact on the nation as she traces its dissemination from the honky-tonks of New Orleans, New York, and Chicago, to the clubs and cabarets of such places as Kansas City and Los Angeles, and further to the airwaves. Ogren argues that certain characteristics of jazz, notably the participatory nature of the music, its unusual rhythms and emphasis, gave it a special resonance for a society undergoing rapid change. Those who resisted the changes criticized the new music; those who accepted them embraced jazz. In the words of conductor Leopold Stowkowski, "Jazz [had] come to stay because it [was] an expression of the times, of the breathless, energetic, superactive times in which we [were] living, it [was] useless to fight against it." Numerous other factors contributed to the growth of jazz as a popular music during the 1920s. The closing of the Storyville section of New Orleans in 1917 was a signal to many jazz greats to move north and west in search of new homes for their music. Ogren follows them to such places as Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, and, using the musicians' own words as often as possible, tells of their experiences in the clubs and cabarets. Prohibition, ushered in by the Volstead Act of 1919, sent people out in droves to gang-controlled speak-easies, many of which provided jazz entertainment. And the 1920s economic boom, which made music readily available through radio and the phonograph record, created an even larger audience for the new music. But Ogren maintains that jazz itself, through its syncopated beat, improvisation, and blue tonalities, spoke to millions. Based on print media, secondary sources, biographies and autobiographies, and making extensive use of oral histories, The Jazz Revolution offers provocative insights into both early jazz and American culture.
The Culture of Jazz by
The Culture of Jazz is a collection of essays that view jazz from an anthropological perspective. It focuses on aspects of jazz culture and the ways in which jazz scrutinizes the American lifestyle. Jazz musicians filter their perspective on culture based on African roots. They have an obligation to tell truth to power and provide views of alternative realities. These essays explore many dimensions of the jazz life and its perspectives on cultural realities. Heavily influenced by the perspectives of Neil Leonard and Alan Merriam, The Culture of Jazz covers a broad range of topics making it an unparalleled compilation.
Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet by
"Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet" tackles the stubborn and controversial question of whether jazz is the product of an insulated African-American environment, shut off from the rest of society by the stricture of segregation and discrimination; or whether it is more properly understood as the juncture of a wide variety of influences under the broader umbrella of American culture. This book takes the latter course, and shows how the widely accepted separatist view has led to decades of misunderstanding surrounding the true history and nature of jazz.
Jazz in New Orleans by
Jazz in New Orleans provides accurate information about, and an insightful interpretation of, jazz in New Orleans from the end of World War II through 1970.
Jazz à la Creole by
During the formative years of jazz (1890-1917), the Creoles of Color-as they were then called-played a significant role in the development of jazz as teachers, bandleaders, instrumentalists, singers, and composers. As such, they belong to the Black American and the Franco-American folk music traditions that reflect the rich cultural heritage of Louisiana.
The Contradictions of Jazz by
In The Contradictions of Jazz, Paul Rinzler takes a new approach to jazz aesthetics and theory by exploring four pairs of opposites present in jazz: individualism and interconnectedness, assertion and openness, freedom and responsibility, and creativity and tradition. By themselves, these eight values speak volumes about the meaning of jazz and its significance. Understanding how these opposites coexist in jazz leads to an exploration of the connections linking jazz with the experiential and existential, which contrast with the connections between composition and science. Rinzler explains the various concepts, including either/or and dialectic thinking, and then examines the pairs of opposites individually, describing their position and presence in jazz. He then demonstrates how the larger meaning of these contradictory opposites depends on ideas from the philosophies of phenomenology and existentialism. Rinzler considers the opposites inherent in the product and process of jazz, as well as mistakes and the challenge of perfection, presenting these values in light of the contradictions inherent in jazz. With a full bibliography and an index, The Contradictions of Jazz is a fascinating read for fans and scholars of jazz history and aesthetics.
Billie Holiday by
Published in celebration of Holiday's centenary, the first biography to focus on the singer's extraordinary musical talent When Billie Holiday stepped into Columbia's studios in November 1933, it marked the beginning of what is arguably the most remarkable and influential career in twentieth-century popular music. Her voice weathered countless shifts in public taste, and new reincarnations of her continue to arrive, most recently in the form of singers like Amy Winehouse and Adele. Most of the writing on Holiday has focused on the tragic details of her life--her prostitution at the age of fourteen, her heroin addiction and alcoholism, her series of abusive relationships--or tried to correct the many fabrications of her autobiography. But now, Billie Holiday stays close to the music, to her performance style, and to the self she created and put into print, on record and on stage. Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade, critically acclaimed jazz writer John Szwed considers how her life inflected her art, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy.
Charlie Parker by
As one of the architects of modern jazz (often called "bebop"), Charlie Parker (1920-55) had a profound effect on American music that continues to this day. This book opens with a chapter of biography and then progresses to four chapters focusing on Charlie Parker's music by tracing his artistic evolution and major achievements as a jazz improviser. Much like a guided tour through an artist's retrospective, the book introduces readers to a sampling of Charlie Parker's most illustrative works. The musical discussions and transcribed musical examples are keyed to compact disc timings for easy location--a feature unique to this book.
Dave Brubeck by
In Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time, Clark provides us with a thoughtful, thorough, and long-overdue biography of an extraordinary man whose influence continues to inform and inspire musicians today.
Dizzy by
Dizzy Gillespie has secured his place in the jazz pantheon as one of the most expressive and virtuosic improvisers in the history of music. But he was much more than that. As one of the primary creators of the bebop and Afro-Cuban revolutions, he twice fundamentally changed the way jazz improvisation was done. And he later extended his revolutionary reach by transforming the aesthetic of big band jazz. This vivid biography chronicles Dizzy's saga from the lowest rung on the American social and political ladder to the highest. Born black in fiercely racist Cheraw, South Carolina, in 1917, Dizzy combined great energy, a furious drive to succeed, and a one-in-a-million talent to climb quickly out of rural poverty to a role among the Swing Era jazz elite before his twenty-first birthday. Author Donald L. Maggin shows how, with bebop during the late 1930s and early 1940s, Dizzy and four colleagues -- Charlie Parker, Kenny Clarke, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Christian -- radically expanded the rhythmic and harmonic foundations of jazz. And he illustrates how Dizzy and Mario Bauzá recast the music during the late 1940s by enriching it with invigorating and exciting Afro-Cuban polyrhythms. He also relates how Dizzy and his colleagues endured a torrent of criticism before their innovations were accepted into the mainstream. Dizzy's story takes us on the road with the great Calloway, Hines, and Eckstine bands and to Cheraw's cotton fields, Harlem's afterhours clubs, the teeming 1940s Fifty-second Street jazz scene, the rhythmic barrios of Havana, Rio's samba festivals, the White House, and the world's great concert halls as Dizzy teamed up with prodigious talents to make great music during a career spanning fifty-five years. It also records his spiritual growth over the decades and the intense love he earned from those close to him. As an entertainer Dizzy combined his electrifying musicianship with an infectious warmth and rare comedic skills, becoming beloved worldwide and achieving a popularity that few jazz musicians have ever enjoyed.
Ella Fitzgerald by
Stuart Nicholson's biography of Ella Fitzgerald is considered a classic in jazz literature. Drawing on original documents, interviews, and new information, Nicholson draws a complete picture of Fitzgerald's professional and personal life. Fitzgerald rose from being a pop singer with chart-novelty hits in the late '30s to become a bandleader and then one of the greatest interpreters of American popular song. Along with Billie Holiday, she virtually defined the female voice in jazz, and countless others followed in her wake and acknowledged her enormous influence.
His Eye Is on the Sparrow by
Ethel Waters's His Eye Is on the Sparrow stands as perhaps the greatest autobiography of a black female performer, capturing both the horror and the joy of the African American woman's experience through the often bitter yet always forgiving voice of an indomitable spirit. This edition is supplemented with a new historical preface and over a dozen photographs.
In Search of Buddy Bolden by
The beginnings of jazz and the story of Charles “Buddy” Bolden (1877–1931) are inextricably intertwined. Just after the turn of the century, New Orleanians could often hear Bolden’s powerful horn from the city’s parks and through dance hall windows. Despite his lack of formal training, his unique style―both musical and personal―made him the first “king” of New Orleans jazz and the inspiration for such later jazz greats as King Oliver, Kid Ory, and Louis Armstrong.
For years the legend of Buddy Bolden was overshadowed by myths about his music, his reckless lifestyle, and his mental instability. In Search of Buddy Bolden overlays the myths with the substance of reality. Interviews with those who knew Bolden and an extensive array of primary sources enliven and inform Donald M. Marquis’s absorbing portrait of the brief but brilliant career of the first man of jazz. This paperback edition includes a new preface and appendix relating events and discoveries that have occurred since the book’s original publication in 1978.
John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom by
Edited by prominent jazz musician and scholar Leonard Brown, John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom is a timely exploration of Coltrane's sound and its spiritual qualities as they relate to Black American music culture and aspirations for freedom. A wide-ranging collection of essays and interviews featuring many of the most eminent figures in jazz studies and performance.
Miles by
Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles Davis was one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. Here, Miles speaks out about his extraordinary life. Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it. He condemns the racism he encountered in the music business and in American society generally. And he discusses the women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played with over the years: Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Trane, Mingus, and many others. The man who gave us some of the most exciting music of the twentieth century here gives us a compelling and fascinating autobiography, featuring a concise discography and thirty-two pages of photographs.
Monk's Music by
Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) was one of jazz's greatest and most enigmatic figures. As a composer, pianist, and bandleader, Monk both extended the piano tradition known as Harlem stride and was at the center of modern jazz's creation during the 1940s, setting the stage for the experimentalism of the 1960s and '70s. This pathbreaking study combines cultural theory, biography, and musical analysis to shed new light on Monk's music and on the jazz canon itself. Gabriel Solis shows how the work of this stubbornly nonconformist composer emerged from the jazz world's fringes to find a central place in its canon. Solis reaches well beyond the usual life-and-times biography to address larger issues in jazz scholarship--ethnography and the role of memory in history's construction. He considers how Monk's stature has grown, from the narrowly focused wing of the avant-garde in the 1960s and '70s to the present, where he is claimed as an influence by musicians of all kinds. He looks at the ways musical lineages are created in the jazz world and, in the process, addresses the question of how musicians use performance itself to maintain, interpret, and debate the history of the musical tradition we call jazz.
The Musical World of J. J. Johnson by
This work documents the various turning points in the life of jazz legend J.J. Johnson, including his childhood and his first compositions. It also examines his classical roots thereby illustrating the composer known as the spiritual father of the trombone's technical and stylistic development.
Music Is My Life by
Music Is My Life is the first comprehensive analysis of Louis Armstrong's autobiographical writings (including his books, essays, and letters) and their relation to his musical and visual performances. Combining approaches from autobiography theory, literary criticism, intermedia studies, cultural history, and musicology, Daniel Stein reconstructs Armstrong's performances of his life story across various media and for different audiences, complicating the monolithic and hagiographic views of the musician. The book will appeal to academic readers with an interest in African American studies, jazz studies, musicology, and popular culture, as well as general readers interested in Armstrong's life and music, jazz, and twentieth-century entertainment. While not a biography, it provides a key to understanding Armstrong's oeuvre as well as his complicated place in American history and twentieth-century media culture.
Music Is My Mistress by
'Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.' This is the story of Duke Ellington-the story of Jazz itself. Told in his own way, in his own words, a symphony written by the King of Jazz. His story spans and defines a half-century of modern music.
Soul on Soul by
The jazz musician-composer-arranger Mary Lou Williams spent her sixty-year career working in--and stretching beyond--a dizzying range of musical styles. Her integration of classical music into her works helped expand jazz's compositional language. Her generosity made her a valued friend and mentor to the likes of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. Her late-in-life flowering of faith saw her embrace a spiritual jazz oriented toward advancing the civil rights struggle and helping wounded souls. Tammy L. Kernodle details Williams's life in music against the backdrop of controversies over women's place in jazz and bitter arguments over the music's evolution. Williams repeatedly asserted her artistic and personal independence to carve out a place despite widespread bafflement that a woman exhibited such genius. Embracing Williams's contradictions and complexities, Kernodle also explores a personal life troubled by lukewarm professional acceptance, loneliness, relentless poverty, bad business deals, and difficult marriages. In-depth and epic in scope, Soul on Soul restores a pioneering African American woman to her rightful place in jazz history.
Stan Getz by
A profile of Stan Getz follows his wild commercial successes with "The Girl from Ipanema," Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Woody Herman; describes his life-threatening addictions to heroin and alcohol; and recounts his death in 1991.
Stride: The Music of Fats Waller by
Stride: The Music of Fats Waller is a full analysis of the piano music of Waller as composer, soloist and recording artist. 38 music examples illustrate Waller's complex keyboard style and improvisatory techniques. The discussion of Waller's piano music is set in the context of a biographical study, and a discography listing all known recordings by the pianist.
Swing, Swing, Swing by
Before Elvis Presley and rock-'n'-roll, another King ruled the roost of American popular music. His name was Benny Goodman and his domain, the gilded age of Swing. Benny's concerts, records, and radio shows catapulted the hot and controversial sounds of jazz into the hearts and homes of a hungry public. Swing, Swing, Swing at once illustrates Goodman's enormous impact on American music and culture, reflects the rich textures of the times in which he lived, and evokes the very private life of a complicated, difficult man. Raised in a tenement in Chicago's Maxwell Street ghetto, he grew up to become the symbol of glamorous high-society living. Benny's undeniable position as social groundbreaker --his were the nation's first racially integrated bands--was characteristically downplayed by the man himself: he simply wanted the finest musicians he could find. Here are the sounds and stories that define the remarkable life of the world's most demanding and idiosyncratic band leader. The violent clashes between his smiling public persona and his intensely private nature; the infamous "Goodman Ray" (no musician who played with Benny escaped its wrath); the conflicting stories of Goodman's parsimony and his largess--these stories and many more paint a vibrant portrait of a truly original, undeniably American artist.
You Just Fight for Your Life by
A Danish musician here presents the most accurate, comprehensive work on a major figure in American jazz: Lester Willis Young (1909-1959), better known as `Pres' or `Prez,' from the nickname `President' given to him by Billie Holiday. Based on interviews with Young's colleagues and friends, and often presenting his own vulgar scatological words, the book faithfully chronicles the ups and downs of his life and career.
Free Jazz, Harmolodics, and Ornette Coleman by
Free Jazz, Harmolodics, and Ornette Coleman discusses Ornette Coleman's musical philosophy of "Harmolodics," an improvisational system deeply inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. Falling under the guise of "free jazz," Harmolodics can be difficult to understand, even for seasoned musicians and musicologists. Yet this book offers a clear and thorough approach to these complex methods, outlining Coleman's position as the developer of a logical--and historically significant--system of jazz improvisation. Included here are detailed musical analyses of improvisations, accompanied by full transcriptions. Intimate interviews between the author and Coleman explore the deeper issues at work in Harmolodics, issues of race, class, sex, and poverty. The principle of human equality quickly emerges as a central tenet of Coleman's life and music. Harmolodics is best understood when viewed in its essential form, both as a theory of improvisation and as an artistic expression of racial and human equality.
Analysis of Jazz by
Analysis of Jazz: A Comprehensive Approach, originally published in French as Analyser le jazz, is available here in English for the first time. In this groundbreaking volume, Laurent Cugny examines and connects the theoretical and methodological processes that underlie all of jazz. Jazz in all its forms has been researched and analyzed by performers, scholars, and critics, and Analysis of Jazz is required reading for any serious study of jazz; but not just musicians and musicologists analyze jazz. All listeners are analysts to some extent. Listening is an active process; it may not involve questioning but it always involves remembering, comparing, and listening again. This book is for anyone who attentively listens to and wants to understand jazz. Divided into three parts, the book focuses on the work of jazz, analytical parameters, and analysis. In part one, Cugny aims at defining what a jazz work is precisely, offering suggestions based on the main features of definition and structure. Part two he dedicates to the analytical parameters of jazz in which a work is performed: harmony, rhythm, form, sound, and melody. Part three takes up the analysis of jazz itself, its history, issues of transcription, and the nature of improvised solos. In conclusion, Cugny addresses the issues of interpretation to reflect on the goals of analysis with regard to understanding the history of jazz and the different cultural backgrounds in which it takes place. Analysis of Jazz presents a detailed inventory of theoretical tools and issues necessary for understanding jazz.
Teaching Improv in Your Jazz Ensemble by
See the joys, challenges, and exciting possibilities associated with jazz ensemble improvisation with Teaching Improv in Your Jazz Ensemble: A Complete Guide for Music Educators. Zachary B. Poulter presents scholarly research, professional performance techniques, and nuts-and-bolts rehearsal strategies, all of which will help teachers bring the joy of improvisation more fully into the jazz ensemble class. Over 180 arrangements of jazz standards are indexed to correlate with the sequence of improvisation study. Complete lead sheets are provided for each chart so you can determine the exact improvisational requirements of the charts before purchasing them. Using this invaluable resource, you can design an effective sequence for teaching improvisation, and then reinforce it with correlating jazz ensemble charts. Learn how to design a sequence of instruction, interpret chord symbols, rehearse improvisation in a group format, and assess jazz improvisation. Also learn about the philosophy and history of the educational jazz ensemble. See how to integrate different types of resources into a cohesive improvisation curriculum from the resource guide. Uniquely designed to help jazz ensemble directors make the most of the many different improvisation resources available today, this book will be a vital reference for school jazz ensemble directors, as well as in college and university jazz pedagogy courses.
Teaching Music through Performance in Jazz by
Teaching Music through Performance in Jazz brings together insights from top jazz educators and invaluable analysis of the best repertoire published for jazz ensembles of all skill levels. This huge, 600+ page hardbound book is the ideal tool for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the preeminent music for jazz ensembles by seminal jazz composers. In addition, leading jazz educators and musicians contribute chapters on topics such as: - Why Teach Jazz? - by Wynton Marsalis - A Multi-Cultural Approach to Jazz Education - by Ronald Carter - Rehearsal Techniques: A Holistic Approach Integrating Composition, Improvisation, Theory, and Cultural Considerations in the Rehearsal - by Ron McCurdy - The Rhythm Section: The Band within the Band - by Reginald Thomas - Promoting a High School Jazz Band - by Ron Modell. In addition, this book includes Teacher Resource Guides to more than 65 of the top jazz charts, broken down into developing, intermediate, and advanced categories. Each Teacher Resource Guide includes vital information on the composer, the composition, historical background, technical requirements, stylistic considerations, musical elements, form and structure, listening suggestions, and additional references. Teaching Music through Performance in Jazz is an essential resource for jazz leaders at all levels and a major contribution to the jazz field.
Teaching School Jazz by
Written by an experienced and diverse lineup of veteran jazz educators, Teaching School Jazz presents a comprehensive approach to teaching beginning through high school-level jazz. Thoroughly grounded in the latest research, chapters are supported by case studies woven into the narrative.
Jazz Pedagogy by
A comprehensive guide that opens the doors to the world of jazz education. Find practical solutions to challenges such as the jazz concept, understanding the rhythm section, jazz improvisation and jazz styles, including a great section on Latin jazz. This innovative, one-of-a-kind handbook incorporates the Web as an ongoing resource tool that provides the ultimate in reference information. The included online media presents over three hours of audio/video demonstrations of rehearsal techniques, how to really teach jazz improvisation, and how to understand and improve the rhythm section. An essential addition to every library and/or jazz pedagogy class.
The Jazz Standards by
The Jazz Standards is an essential comprehensive guide to some of the most important jazz compositions, telling the story of more than 250 key jazz songs and providing a listening guide to more than 2,000 recordings.
So You Want to Sing Jazz by
Since the 1930s and ̕40s, jazz has stood tall in American popular music, drawing into its embrace not only great horn players, percussionists, guitarists, bassists, and pianists, but also some of the greatest singers in America's musical history. Jazz has laid the groundwork for important innovations in modern singing, opening up entirely new ways of delivering songs through what would eventually become jazz standards--songs that formed the basis of the American Songbook. In So You Want to Sing Jazz, singer and professor of voice Jan Shapiro gives a guided tour through the art and science of the jazz vocal style. Throughout, Shapiro hones in on what makes jazz singing distinctive, suggesting along the way how other types of singers can make use of jazz. She looks at such key matters in jazz singing as the role of improvisation, the place of specific singers who influenced and even defined vocal jazz as we know it today, and the unique way in which jazz incorporates vibrato, conversational delivery, rhythmic phrasing, and melodic embellishment and improvisation. The book includes guest-authored chapters by singing voice researchers Dr. Scott McCoy and Dr. Wendy LeBorgne. In So You Want to Sing Jazz, singers and voice teachers finally have the go-to resource they need for singing vocal jazz. The So You Want to Sing series is produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Like all books in the series, So You Want to Sing Jazz features online supplemental material on the NATS website. Please visit www.nats.org to access style-specific exercises, audio and video files, and additional resources.
Creative Jazz Composing and Arranging by
This book is for anyone who writes, plays or listens to jazz. It explains the writing process and the construction of jazz pieces. I've attempted to answer many of the questions that arrangers and composers ask themselves when they are writing. Players who read this book will better understand the arrangements that they play and will get more from their listening which will make them better at interpreting the music they perform. Listeners will get into the creators' heads and appreciate the jazz experience to a greater degree.
Jazz singing : a guide to pedagogy and performance by
Tish Oney presents a cutting-edge guide for those teaching and singing jazz, combining jazz voice stylization techniques and various improvisational approaches with classic voice pedagogy. Legendary jazz singers' approaches and techniques are described to illustrate the various approaches available to jazz singers.
Improvising the score : rethinking modern film music through jazz by
The first book of its kind, Improvising the Score vividly investigates unique collaborations between contemporary jazz artists and influential film directors, providing a behind-the-scenes look at innovative and integrative jazz-film productions that challenge us to rethink the possibilities of movie music. These in-depth case studies include collaborations between Terence Blanchard and Spike Lee (Malcolm X, When the Levees Broke), Dick Hyman and Woody Allen (Hannah and Her Sisters), Antonio Sanchez and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (Birdman), and Mark Isham and Alan Rudolph (Afterglow). Grounded in fascinating personal interviews, detailed film production analysis, and examinations of jazz artists' "creative labor" in the context of film production expectations, this book illustrates the dynamic possibilities of integrative artistic collaborations between jazz and film, and more broadly, music and media.
The sonic gaze : jazz, Whiteness, and racialized listening by
This book argues that whiteness is not only a visual orientation; it is a way of hearing. Inspired by formulations of race and whiteness in the existential writings of Frantz Fanon, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Lewis Gordon, Angela Davis, bell hooks and Sara Ahmed, this book introduces students to the notion of the white sonic gaze.
Expanding the canon : black composers in the music theory classroom by
Directly addressing the underrepresentation of Black composers in core music curricula, Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom aims to both demonstrate why diversification is badly needed and help faculty expand their teaching with practical, classroom-oriented lesson plans that focus on teaching music theory with music by Black composers. This collection of 21 chapters is loosely arranged to resemble a typical music theory curriculum, with topics progressing from basic to advanced and moving from fundamentals, diatonic harmony, and chromatic harmony to form, popular music, and music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Duke Ellington by
Another stunning picture book biography of a prominent twentieth-century African-American in the arts, from the creative team behind Alvin Ailey.
Herman and Rosie by
Once upon a time in a very busy city, on a very busy street, in two very small apartments, lived...
Herman and Rosie.
Herman liked playing the oboe, the smell of hot dogs in the winter, and watching films about the ocean.
Rosie liked pancakes, listening to old jazz records, and watching films about the ocean.
They both loved the groovy rhythm of the city, but sometimes the bustling crowds and constant motion left them lonely, until one night...
Jazz by
Fifteen poems, infused with the rhythm and wordplay of jazz music, are paired with bold, stylized illustrations of performers and dancers to convey the history and breadth of this unique musical style. From bebop to New Orleans, from ragtime to boogie, and every style in between, Jazz takes readers on a musical journey from jazz's beginnings to the present day. Created by a celebrated father-son team, Jazz is a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and a Kirkus Best Children's Books Editor's Choice.
Jazz A-B-Z by
The award-winning book by celebrated jazz composer Wynton Marsalis is now available with an exclusive art print by illustrator Paul Rogers.
Jazz Day by
When Esquire magazine planned an issue to salute the American jazz scene in 1958, graphic designer Art Kane pitched a crazy idea: how about gathering a group of beloved jazz musicians and photographing them? He didn't own a good camera, didn't know if any musicians would show up, and insisted on setting up the shoot in front of a Harlem brownstone. Could he pull it off? In a captivating collection of poems, Roxane Orgill steps into the frame of Harlem 1958, bringing to life the musicians' mischief and quirks, their memorable style, and the vivacious atmosphere of a Harlem block full of kids on a hot summer's day. Francis Vallejo's vibrant, detailed, and wonderfully expressive paintings do loving justice to the larger-than-life quality of jazz musicians of the era. Includes bios of several of the fifty-seven musicians, an author's note, sources, a bibliography, and a foldout of Art Kane's famous photograph.
Little Melba and Her Big Trombone by
Melba Doretta Liston loved the sounds of music from as far back as she could remember. As a child, she daydreamed about beats and lyrics, and hummed along with the music from her family's Majestic radio. At age seven, Melba fell in love with a big, shiny trombone, and soon taught herself to play the instrument. By the time she was a teenager, Melba's extraordinary gift for music led her to the world of jazz. She joined a band led by trumpet player Gerald Wilson and toured. Overcoming obstacles of race and gender, Melba went on to become a famed trombone player and arranger, spinning rhythms, harmonies, and melodies into gorgeous songs for all the jazz greats of the twentieth century: Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billie Holliday and Quincy Jones to name just a few.
Mysterious Thelonious by
Audacious and extraordinary, this picture book is not a portrait of the great pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. Imagine, instead, that the music of Mr. Monk were to sit for a portrait. It might look something like this -- enticing and unexpected, richly colored and patterned, brilliantly executed. Inspired by one of Monk's best-loved compositions, "Mysterioso", Mr. Raschka matched the twelve musical tones of the diatonic scale to the twelve color values of the color wheel, then set paint strokes for notes and color washes for harmonies. "There were", the text says of Mr. Monk, "no wrong notes on his piano". There are, as well, no wrong notes in this astonishing tribute to his genius.
Sweethearts of Rhythm by
In the 1940s, as the world was at war, a remarkable jazz band performed on the American home front. This all-female band, originating from a boarding school in the heart of Mississippi, found its way to the most famous ballrooms in the country, offering solace during the hard years of the war. They dared to be an interracial group despite the cruelties of Jim Crow laws, and they dared to assert their talents though they were women in a ?man's? profession. Told in thought-provoking poems and arresting images, this unusual look at our nation's history is deep and inspiring.
When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat by
In a CRACKITY-SNAPPITY-POPPITY-POP bubblegum dream, a young girl learns to scat from the master himself, Louis Armstrong! Written in prose and scat with wild and wonderful illustrations by R. Gregory Christie, this joyful tribute is downright contagious. CHEW-ITEE CHEW-ITEE CHEW-ITEE CHOP, CRACKITY SNAPPITY POPPITY POP!
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