Book Description
"The path the slave took to 'citizenship' is what I want to look at. And I make my analogy through the slave citizen's music -- through the music that is most closely associated with him: blues and a later, but parallel development, jazz... [If] the Negro represents, or is symbolic of, something in and about the nature of American culture, this certainly should be revealed by his characteristic music."
So says Amiri Baraka in the Introduction to Blues People, his classic work on the place of jazz and blues in American social, musical, economic, and cultural history. From the music of African slaves in the United States through the music scene of the 1960's, Baraka traces the influence of what he calls "negro music" on white America -- not only in the context of music and pop culture but also in terms of the values and perspectives passed on through the music. In tracing the music, he brilliantly illuminates the influence of African Americans on American culture and history.
Customer Reviews:
An American Treasure.......2007-06-29
This is one of the most important books on America and American history, culture and citizenship. It would benefit the world if it were incorporated into public education. Someone said that nations are judged by their art and this book examines that subject superlatively. This study of the blues examines the evolving cosmology of the Africans and their journey and creation: the blues, one of the singular most powerful beauties of America. He shows how from the blues came all and embraced all other peoples and cultures. Baraka's ability to live the thoughts of the originators enables us to understand the profoundity of their sorrow and sublimity of their joy.
gone where the Southern cross the yella dog.......2007-02-22
The other day a friend rashly claimed that art and music were equally hard to describe in words. I asked him to tell me about a certain painting of Picasso's. He did, but claimed it wasn't accurate. "OK," I said, "you're right, but now tell me about Mozart's Jupiter Symphony." He opened his mouth, closed it, looked at me, and said, "Yeah, I see what you mean." Writing a book about the blues would be equally hard, it seems to me. So, LeRoi Jones did what he could, back in 1963, to tie the indescribable to the more concrete. He wrote a social history of African-Americans in the USA through the prism of music or---maybe on the principle of red and yellow tile floors (are they red with yellow designs or yellow with red designs ?)---he wrote a book on African-American music through the prism of social history. It is one of the most important books on American music (and American society) that you can find. It has stood the test of time. He begins from the Africans who came to North America as slaves bearing very different cultures, confronted by an absolutely different view of the world emanating from their new masters. Here he tries to show how African music became transformed into African-AMERICAN music and then American. He continues then up through the generations of slavery, to Emancipation, migration to the cities, World War I, the Depression, World War II and the bebop age of the Fifties. The book is pre-Civil Rights movement, pre-Martin Luther King. Jones may have looked down on the NAACP and its allies as "white liberal supported organizations", I'm not sure, but they don't appear. The times are symbolized by the use of "Negro" throughout. I agree, the tome is dated, but don't reject it, don't pooh-pooh the man. This is a very intelligent, very worthwhile book. Anyone, particularly from outside the USA, who wants to know the history of African-American music within its social environment ought still to read BLUES PEOPLE. He writes, "If Negro music can be seen to be the result of certain attitudes, certain specific ways of thinking about the world (and only ultimately about the ways in which music can be made), then the basic hypothesis of this book is understood." [p.153] Jones goes to great lengths to get to the bottom of those attitudes and thoughts.
My main criticism, apart from the fact that history dictates that we must be left a half century behind contemporary realities, is that though Jones obviously knew and loved the blues and jazz and all the various styles ( if not swing), his approach is coldly academic, highly dispassionate. He may criticize people who tried to make money, he may downplay all those who "abandoned" their roots, but my disappointment is that there is nothing of himself in the work barring a few mentions of his family. He does not share his enthusiasm. Music is beauty after all. I am sure he wanted the book to be taken as a serious essay, which it is. But in keeping himself removed from the discussion, being so analytic and professional in the style of the day, he has robbed us "readers of the future" of many insights.
African-American experience in the USA expressed itself most particularly in the blues, only later did that musical mode become part of the general American culture, often watered down, sometimes imitated by those who didn't wish to fit in or who wished to cash in. When conditions have changed, when the black middle class has entered mainstream America, and the urban underclass is wrapped up in hip-hop, gangsta rap culture, which is relentlessly commercialized by the powerful media, talking about the blues may seem a matter for historians or ethnomusicologists. Still, BLUES PEOPLE resonates strongly if we try to understand where we have been. As for where we are going---that old line sums it up---we're goin where the Southern cross the yella dog.
Blues People.......2005-09-22
This is a really interesting look at the evolution of black culture through the lense of music. Some of the author's opinions about later music (50's-60's) may seem out of touch to today's readers, but overall it is well worth reading.
The Best Starting Point.......2005-08-24
I actually purchased the first paperback edition this book a long time ago, and I learned that it had been out of print for quite some time. It was a time when I was a casual listener of blues and jazz, and didn't think about the roots of the music I was listening to. The book was interesting enough, but it didn't have information about more contemporary stuff, as it was printed in 1963.
Recently, I found this book in the upper shelves of my library, having completely forgotten about it in spite of my infatuation with the blues for the better part of the last two decades. It was a most welcome surprise for me, as it contained a compact but comprehensive introduction to the time period from the first Africans came to America to the 1920s when their music was first recorded, and laid the groundwork to how this music evolved in a sociological context. The rural lifestyle, the reflections of the exodus from the south on the music and subsequent refined, urban sound are discussed in this framework.
Although it would not really appeal to the casual reader and listener, "Blues People" is invaluable for the serious blues and jazz fan for setting the music into the general context of social life and external effects that made this music what it is today.
Very honest&breaks all chains.......2003-01-16
this book not only puts the music into perspective but also the struggle that still goes on too this day.very upfront&honest about problems that still linger.it traces the journey&challenges it's reader too better understand the reason for the whys??one of the best Books that I have ever read from start too finish.
Amazon.com
First off, let's get the kudos down: Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns deserve far more than simple gratitude for bringing jazz to the limelight with this lavishly illustrated volume. The book features among its 500-plus pictures many of the previously unseen shots of musicians and venues glimpsed in Burns's 10-part documentary, Jazz. (See our Ken Burns Jazz Store for the lowdown on the series.) Jazz: An Illustrated History follows the film episode by episode, and it's filled with rich historical detail in the early chapters. Like the series, however, the book trails off after a certain point in chronicling jazz's history. It gives background aplenty on early New Orleans music, the migration of jazz up the Mississippi to major urban centers, and the developments of swing and bebop. After bebop, the history gets a bit perfunctory. Dozens of major figures get mere sidebar coverage. Little is said of substance on Latin or Brazilian jazz, European contributions to the music, fusion, or umpteen smaller deviations from the mainstream. There are wonderful essays that highlight elements of jazz culture, particularly Gerald Early's consideration of race and white musicians in jazz and Gary Giddins's five-page essay on avant jazz. And there are fine sidebars as well. But developments during and after the 1960s are dealt with primarily in impressionistic guest essays rather than detail-oriented historical narrative. It is, of course, difficult to capture all jazz history in any single volume. So perhaps this ought to have been called Jazz: A Historical Appreciation, since the hundreds of images certainly create an intense sense of the music's milieu. --Andrew Bartlett
Book Description
The companion volume to the ten-part PBS TV series by the team responsible for
The Civil War and Baseball.
Continuing in the tradition of their critically acclaimed works, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns vividly bring to life the story of the quintessential American music—jazz. Born in the black community of turn-of-the-century New Orleans but played from the beginning by musicians of every color, jazz celebrates all Americans at their best.
Here are the stories of the extraordinary men and women who made the music: Louis Armstrong, the fatherless waif whose unrivaled genius helped turn jazz into a soloist's art and influenced every singer, every instrumentalist who came after him; Duke Ellington, the pampered son of middle-class parents who turned a whole orchestra into his personal instrument, wrote nearly two thousand pieces for it, and captured more of American life than any other composer. Bix Beiderbecke, the doomed cornet prodigy who showed white musicians that they too could make an important contribution to the music; Benny Goodman, the immigrants' son who learned the clarinet to help feed his family, but who grew up to teach a whole country how to dance; Billie Holiday, whose distinctive style routinely transformed mediocre music into great art; Charlie Parker, who helped lead a musical revolution, only to destroy himself at thirty-four; and Miles Davis, whose search for fresh ways to sound made him the most influential jazz musician of his generation, and then led him to abandon jazz altogether. Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum, Count Basie, Dave Brubeck, Artie Shaw, and Ella Fitzgerald are all here; so are Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and a host of others.
But Jazz is more than mere biography. The history of the music echoes the history of twentieth-century America. Jazz provided the background for the giddy era that F. Scott Fitzgerald called the Jazz Age. The irresistible pulse of big-band swing lifted the spirits and boosted American morale during the Great Depression and World War II. The virtuosic, demanding style called bebop mirrored the stepped-up pace and dislocation that came with peace. During the Cold War era, jazz served as a propaganda weapon—and forged links with the burgeoning counterculture. The story of jazz encompasses the story of American courtship and show business; the epic growth of great cities—New Orleans and Chicago, Kansas City and New York—and the struggle for civil rights and simple justice that continues into the new millennium.
Visually stunning, with more than five hundred photographs, some never before published, this book, like the music it chronicles, is an exploration—and a celebration—of the American experiment.
Customer Reviews:
Best for Nostalgia Buffs.......2007-08-26
If you've seen the PBS miniseries "Ken Burns: Jazz" you'll know exactly what you are getting into.
This oversized, photograph-laden text concentrates almost exclusively on two periods of Jazz' history - the 1920s variety and Swing. These were also Jazz' glory days as million-selling popular music and it's impossible to look at the photos in this book without also marvelling at the wonderful cityscapes and beautiful vintage fashions. There was a stylish classiness about the look of the 1930s and 1940s that still towers over almost anything since. Immersing yourself in these photographs and listening to some choice Jazz CDs from the era is the next best thing to a time machine.
This book is also a labor of love for both Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, two equally important but very different titans in Jazz of this time period. I love the music of both men, and the huge sections devoted in each chapter to both of them is a welcome antidote to the relative lack of attention they currently receive in other media nowadays.
Why I have I given this book a mediocre rating?
Ken Burns is a historian, which means that his interests lie primarily in the past. Burns focuses almost exclusively on pre-1950s Jazz. This would not be such a bad thing if the book ended the story with, perhaps, the end of the Korean War. Burns, however, makes an attempt to cover the more modern era in Jazz to disasterous result. The development of Jazz guitar is largely ignored (Wes Montgomery, where are you?), fusion is distained, smooth jazz is dismissed as aural wallpaper, non-American jazz players are barely mentioned (except for Django Reinhardt), and Marsalis is glorified to a point that even he must find embarassing. These flaws, while they probably accurately reflect Burns' personal taste, present a very skewed - possibly damaging - image to a jazz neophyte.
Ken Burns also devoted almost all his career to exploring black-white race relations. While this is a particularly American way to explore a largely American artform, it's also a very limiting one. Jazz of the period cannot be discussed without understanding mid-century Black American culture, but Jazz by definition transcends all our human smallness. Time and time again, Burns veers away from telling truly interesting and appropriate stories about the content of jam sessions to remind us of how segregated American society was. This gets very old very quickly and if this material had been edited there would have been more room to cover more Jazz greats - such as Montgomery, Count Basie, George Benson - in far more detail. Jazz itself should be the primary focus to an introductory primer such as this.
I purchased this book at a steep discount and keep it on my coffeetable. It's a great book if you are nostalgic, and it's a nice introduction to Jazz as long as you are aware of Ken Burns' biases. If you really want to learn more about Jazz, you're going to have to dig deeper, find a knowledgeable and supportive CD store, and explore this beautiful world in alternate ways.
Jazz.......2007-07-07
This history of Jazz is not only one of the best reads but with the addition of all the pictures this book is such a great insight to our culture not only for music lovers but all of society. A tuely remarkable book.
Great book...until the last chapter.......2007-06-27
This is a very well-written, entertaining and informative book, and I learned a great deal while reading it and enjoying the many beautiful pictures. However, the last four decades of jazz are compressed into the last chapter, and some omissions (like George Shearing!) are inexplicable. Overall, this is a great introduction to jazz, but be aware of the shortcomings.
Interesting and entertaining book.......2007-02-20
I brought this for a class and it is one of the few books I continue to read afterword. This is an excellent book.
Should be "Jazz Origins: Popular Jazz & It's Evolution.".......2004-06-16
I really liked this book because it gave great detail to the Founding Giants of Jazz. I get disapointed with books that try to be all things to all people and end up just skiming over everything. I like that this book went in-depth with the most popular artists. To try to fully cover the "Complete History of Jazz" would take about 10,000 pages of similairly over-sized books broken into about 20 volumes. Critics I have read on this page do a lot of name dropping to show off some knowledge. Perhaps they should write a book or two on the subject; I would love to read such a book. "Fusion: The Complete Evolution" would be a great volume in the above mentioned theoretical 10,000 pager, but most people have no interest in fusion. If you start going into Anthony Braxton's complex sheet music you are just going to loose people. This book sticks to the popular art form which is an evolution of sorts on it's own. An evolution of popular music and the evolution of the "musician's music" are two different things. I think the authors gave people what they wanted with this book. The REALITY of publishing a book like this is that it has to have broad appeal. You just aren't going to get funding to do a book that spends 25 pages on an extremely talented yet popularly obscure artist. This book is great for the novice or for the more educated jazz historian who wants to read some great stories and see some great photo's even if many of them are "common jazz knowledge" and repeats. (The story of Armstrong running into Oliver while selling tomatoes is a classic. I hadn't heard that one.) It is not as comprehensive with the modern era but I feel that it is proportional to the popularity of Jazz. If you want a complete Jazz history, you will need a library of about 100 books. This book should be in that library.
Book Description
Latin jazz-the perfect combination of Latin rhythms and hot jazz phrasing-energizes audiences like no other music.. As part of the Smithsonian Institution’s series of major exhibitions on jazz music, Latin Jazz traces the music’s roots and routes, from the Caribbean to New Orleans and the clubs of New York City to its booming international popularity today. More than 100 rare photos from the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s show musicians and audiences in full swing, along with dozens of album covers and posters from the heyday. Stories told by the greats who were there, such as Mario Bauzá and Cal Tjader, convey all the zest for life that has made the music so exciting, and contributions by renowned musicians Andy González and Al McKibbon attest to its legacy. With all text in both English and Spanish, Latin Jazz is a spectacular and fitting tribute to this exciting musical fusion.
Average customer rating:
- Truly inspirational to a budding musician.......
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Portrait of the Blues: America's Blues Musicians in Their Own Words
Paul Trynka
Manufacturer: Da Capo Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Blues
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ASIN: 0306807793 |
Customer Reviews:
Truly inspirational to a budding musician..............2000-04-16
I have read countless books on the Blues and this one has shown me, in numerous, short, and to the point descriptions and interviews, that this music will never die. It starts out with some background, then chronologically reaches out to the people who were influenced. A great book to start with because of the number of photos taken during the time that all of this was taking place. It even goes as far out to show you the influences on "white boys". Simply amazing.
Book Description
This Is Our Music, declared saxophonist Ornette Coleman's 1960 album title. But whose music was it? At various times during the 1950s and 1960s, musicians, critics, fans, politicians, and entrepreneurs claimed jazz as a national art form, an Afrocentric race music, an extension of modernist innovation in other genres, a music of mass consciousness, and the preserve of a cultural elite. This original and provocative book explores who makes decisions about the value of a cultural form and on what basis, taking as its example the impact of 1960s free improvisation on the changing status of jazz.
By examining the production, presentation, and reception of experimental music by Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, and others, Iain Anderson traces the strange, unexpected, and at times deeply ironic intersections between free jazz, avant-garde artistic movements, Sixties politics, and patronage networks. Anderson emphasizes free improvisation's enormous impact on jazz music's institutional standing, despite ongoing resistance from some of its biggest beneficiaries. He concludes that attempts by African American artists and intellectuals to define a place for themselves in American life, structural changes in the music industry, and the rise of nonprofit sponsorship portended a significant transformation of established cultural standards. At the same time, free improvisation's growing prestige depended in part upon traditional highbrow criteria: increasingly esoteric styles, changing venues and audience behavior, European sanction, withdrawal from the marketplace, and the professionalization of criticism. Thus jazz music's performers and supporters--and potentially those in other arts--have both challenged and accommodated themselves to an ongoing process of cultural stratification.
Book Description
From the turn of the century to the 1960s, the songwriters of Tin Pan Alley dominated American music. Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart--even today these giants remain household names, their musicals regularly revived, their methods and styles analyzed and imitated, and their songs the bedrock of jazz and cabaret. In The Poets of Tin Pan Alley Philip Furia offers a unique new perspective on these great songwriters, showing how their poetic lyrics were as important as their brilliant music in shaping a golden age of American popular song. Furia writes with great perception and understanding as he explores the deft rhymes, inventive imagery, and witty solutions these songwriters used to breathe new life into rigidly established genres. He devotes full chapters to all the greats, including Irving Berlin, Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstain II, Howard Dietz, E.Y. Harburg, Dorothy Fields, Leo Robin, and Johnny Mercer. Furia also offers a comprehensive survey of other lyricists who wrote for the sheet-music industry, Broadway, Hollywood, and Harlem nightclub revues. This was the era that produced The New Yorker, Don Marquis, Dorothy Parker, and E.B. White--and Furia places the lyrics firmly in this fascinating historical context. In these pages, the lyrics emerge as an important element of American modernism, as the lyricists, like the great modernist poets, took the American vernacular and made it sing.
Customer Reviews:
SING ALONG WITH THIS ONE, FOR SURE!!.......2007-09-23
I loved this book!! I picked it up somewhere, and sang inside my head on almost every single page! It is a terrific overview of the Tin Pan Alley days of GREAT music, and in this book Philip Furia has provided enough lyrics to remind us of all the songs, and it is great fun to read. I marked up my copy, and then had to buy another, clean copy to re-read. I have also bought a couple more copies of the book for friends who also love the old music.
Philip Furia is a lover of this great music, and his bio of Johnny Mercer is very well written and, again, lots of fun to read. Oh for the good ole music of yesterday! I do miss it. But because of these books -- and others like them -- it is not gone forever. Thank you to Philip Furia for sharing your love of this music with all of us! The men and women who wrote this popular music were poets indeed, and one can tell they had a lot of fun while writing the songs.
Excellent overview.......2004-01-02
This is an excellent book. Furia provides a fine overview with lyric analyses of all the major lyricists of the first half of the 20th Century. He also touches upon the history of Tin Pan Alley itself and other developments that were happening at the same time in music, like the rise of the film studios, the creation of ASCAP and BMI, and the "race" and "hillbilly" recordings which helped bring about the end of Tin Pan Alley dominance. Furia later wrote full biographies of Ira Gershwin and Johnny Mercer that are more complete. (He would do the world a great service if he would write a decent book on Dorothy Fields.) THE POETS OF TIN PAN ALLEY is highly recommended for all lyricists and anyone who has in interest in American popular song.
O.K. for dipping........2002-06-05
I have to wonder if the impressive endorsements on the back cover (by Sammy Cahn, Steve Allen, Michael Feinstein) are from musical celebrities who actually read the book. The author deserves praise for bringing concentrated focus to and careful analysis of the lyrics of America's best wordsmiths, but this is not a book that seduces the reader into staying with it for extended stretches. There's historical context, learned analysis of prosody with lots of concise examples, and pithy scholarly prose. But when all is said and done, the chapters devoted to individual lyricists, as well as the book as a whole, are quite bloodless. I don't sense any clear thesis, any driving passion, even any strong personal preferences from the author.
The author's justification for such a book--that composers of melody are given credit at the expense of the lyricist--strikes me as a bit of a straw man. How many listeners can immediately associate a familiar popular standard with either its composer or lyricist? Also, the analysis of prosody and technique often overshadows consideration of the thematic integrity, or meaning, of a song. Moreover, the analyses pay too little heed to melody and harmony to make a persuasive case for the poetic power of the lyrics themselves. Finally, with song lyrics how can you separate the dancer from the dance? Were it not for Billie Holiday, Mabel Mercer and, above all, Frank Sinatra, most of these songs would be long forgotten. Certainly some consideration of the actual performance of the lyrics would seem requisite to any demonstration of their continuing vitality and importance.
Most of the above challenges are met by a book to which the author frequently alludes--Gerald Mast's "Can't Help Singin'." Any reader interested in the art and lives of the composers and the songs, not to mention the lyricists and lyrics, cannot afford to pass by Mast's singular achievement. In the neglected, taken-for-granted field of the American popular song, it remains the one "must read."
Issue a new printing.......1999-07-01
I erroneously entered this as an author's review. I thought I was communicating with the author. Please delete what I erroneously submitted, and accept it as a customer's review.
I would like to have several compies of this book available. I am thinking of putting on an adult education course with this book as the principal text.
Peak pleasure for this reader........1999-03-27
Delightful detailed insight into the creativity of the lyric writers of the 20th century [prior to 1960]. Furia's writing style is a pleasure to read, wonderfully free of cliches. If you appreciate genius {I do, but I'm not one} and you have a rudimentary knowledge of music [I do}, you'll love this book.
Amazon.com
According to Scott DeVeaux, who has been called the Bud Powell of jazz historians, no single, completely inclusive definition of jazz exists; all that remains to define it is its vigorous evolution. Accordingly, jazz historians are "obsessed with continuity and consensus, even--perhaps especially-- when the historical record suggests disruption and dissent." Bebop, such a self-effacing, clownish term that in no way suggests the complexities of its sounds and rhythms, would become synonymous with a whole new musical sensibility, thought by some to herald nothing less than a revolution. DeVeaux succumbs neither to the evolution nor revolution analysis, but creates an intricate historical weave that sets bebop in the broader social and political contexts.
Bebop burst onto the scene more than evolved out of it. Sundry other forms, musical and literary, also blew the minds of cultural conservatives; modernism was born, exemplified by James Joyce and Arnold Schoenberg. But, unlike literature and classical music, jazz before 1945 enjoyed no such classical standing. It was a form utterly dependent on and responsive to its audience. Suddenly, that relationship was reversed; jazz became avant-garde, newly inaccessible. DeVeaux offers the reader myriad such connections, asking questions that have large cultural repercussions in the artistic and commercial realms. What happened, for example, when the gap between composers and performers closed; who, then, would "own" the music; what was the impact of improvisation, the backbone of the form, on the recording industry?
Not written for the casual jazz fan (although certainly a highly readable chronicle of popular, midcentury culture), The Birth of Bebop combines the historian's breathtaking overview, the scholar's insistence on detail, and first-person accounts of such greats as Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Eckstine. The oral histories and in-depth analyses of jazz compositions edge bebop beyond its usual treatment; DeVeaux presents a more encompassing, more exciting argument than the more typical evolution/revolution theories. By addressing the impact of bebop on the commercial, political, and aesthetic aspects of American culture, DeVeaux reveals it in all its richness--as artistic movement, cultural ideology, and commercial breakthrough.
Book Description
The richest place in America's musical landscape is that fertile ground occupied by jazz. Scott DeVeaux takes a central chapter in the history of jazz--the birth of bebop--and shows how our contemporary ideas of this uniquely American art form flow from that pivotal moment. At the same time, he provides an extraordinary view of the United States in the decades just prior to the civil rights movement.
DeVeaux begins with an examination of the Swing Era, focusing particularly on the position of African American musicians. He highlights the role played by tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, a "progressive" committed to a vision in which black jazz musicians would find a place in the world commensurate with their skills. He then looks at the young musicians of the early 1940s, including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, and links issues within the jazz world to other developments on the American scene, including the turmoil during World War II and the pervasive racism of the period.
Throughout, DeVeaux places musicians within the context of their professional world, paying close attention to the challenges of making a living as well as of making good music. He shows that bebop was simultaneously an artistic movement, an ideological statement, and a commercial phenomenon.
In drawing from the rich oral histories that a living tradition provides, DeVeaux's book resonates with the narratives of individual lives. While The Birth of Bebop is a study in American cultural history and a critical musical inquiry, it is also a fitting homage to bebop and to those who made it possible.
Customer Reviews:
Groovin' High!.......2005-03-06
A 500-page history of bebop that takes 400 pages to get up to the "Groovin' High" Bird & Diz recording session? Whose first 164 pages are all about Coleman Hawkins? Unusual, to say the least, but DeVaux shows how it all makes sense. Hawkins is portrayed as the central motif around which everything else turns: Hawk welcomed progress and a new style, played on the first bop record date (done for Asch in 1944), and opened at Billy Berg's in Los Angeles before Bird & Diz got there. DeVaux is a very good writer, thorough and judicious. Highly recommended.
entertaining, interesting, authoritative.......2004-09-24
It's hard to explain the excitement a 13 year old had on first hearing Dizzy Gillespie's THINGS TO COME on Side A and TWO BASS HIT on Side B. Or for that matter, as a 25 year old, on hearing KUSH from AN ELECTRIFYING EVENING WITH DIZZY GILLESPIE relayed on the VOICE OF AMERICA by Willis Conover. Undoubtedly there was something electrifying about the music which Mr Deveaux suggests had a "sense of frustration embedded in its core" p.446. Certainly, it was a musical world away from that of the great Thomas Fats Waller for example whose genius was usually sublimated beneath jumping and jive. It was SERIOUS music and demanded attention. This fine book by Mr Devaux puts the evolution of this revolutionary music in context and inspires one to revisit many of the records including those who inspired the great John Coltrane - Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five. It is also of interest to musicians, musicologists, sociologists, historians but as a general reader who loves America's classical music - called jazz - it is a very fine read indeed and about the best book I own on Bebop.
Professor of Bop.......1999-12-16
I am a music major at the University of Virginia, particularly interested in jazz studies, and have had the pleasure of taking several classes under DeVeaux, in particular, one based on this book. DeVeaux's humor, in combination with his musical genius when it comes to the topic of jazz, is expemplified by this book. He explains the hayday of jazz as well as the transition from the swing era into the bop era with incredible detail. Special features in the book are vignettes into the lives of the great artists such as Hawkins and Parker. He compares the styles of several of the pioneers which causes further investigation on the part of the reader to trail the modern jazz progression from the 1940's and 50's on into today. If you've ever wanted to know why the cats play the way the do and how jazz moved from big band swing clubs into bebop jam sessions, this is the author you're looking for.
Bebop Matters.......1998-12-11
The nomenclature "Bebop" referring to an extension of American jazz development is, in itself somewhat unfortunate. It is not surprising that many of the musicians at the core of the movement hated the phrase "Bebop" themselves. The jokey sound of the word tends to trivialize the significance and the integrity of the music to which is referring. We tend to think of Bebop as an amusing, but irrelevant, phase of the urban jazz scene. The contribution of Bebop to musical development is both pervasive and irreversible.
Scott DeVeaux's book, "The Birth of Bebop" takes on squarely the issue of the Bebop's place in American music and in America's cultural development of the middle of the 20th-century. He has made excellent use of first-hand accounts, anecdotes, and obscure or original recordings to bring this story to life. He has applied an academic's discipline to documentation of his source material with a high degree of integrity. He achieves a remarkable balance between understanding and dealing with the details of the musical construction in the context of the "race" environments of the 1930s and '40s
This was an important era of American history. In a sense, we would like to forget the gross cultural inequities of the time. There are not many tangible reminders around, although the cultural imprint is still here and not likely disappear in the near future. Fortunately, the music of the era, Bebop, is still accessible through CD re-issues and is continuing to influence modern musical performance right through to a saxophone-toting Lisa Simpson. A key value of "The Birth of Bebop" is to remind us of this continuing connection. This book helps us appreciate the courage and commitment of the proponent musicians exploring this new medium, particularly in the context of nearly-overwhelming daily obstacles in the form of American cultural "Jim Crow" mores and laws.
In a perfect World, this book would come with a companion CD filled with aural samples of the music Mr. DeVeaux discusses organized to illustrate his musical points. This short-coming means that the fullest appreciation of the author's points is only available to those with access to fabulous recording collections of the era or, even more remotely, those with sufficient age and musical memory to bring the musical notation to life.
Average customer rating:
- The best introduction so far!
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Jazz: America's Classical Music
Grover Sales
Manufacturer: Da Capo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Jazz: The American Theme Song
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Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (History of Jazz)
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Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz As Told by the Men Who Made It
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Cats of Any Color: Jazz, Black and White
ASIN: 0306804913 |
Book Description
Jazz: America's Classical Music is a delightful introduction and guide to this complex and compelling music and to its rich history. In an engaging and conversational style, renowned jazz teacher Grover Sales tells of the lives and music of the greats-Ellington, Tatum, Hawkins, Coltrane, Parker, Hines, Goodman, Armstrong, and many others-with a mix of important facts, fascinating anecdotes, and brilliant interpretations. Illustrated with astonishing photographs of the artists in performance, Jazz: America's Classical Music is a classic text, an ideal book for beginners and an inspiring one for serious students of the art of jazz.
Customer Reviews:
The best introduction so far!.......2004-12-11
This book is by far the best introduction to Jazz available. The text is clear and entertaining and the books on the "further reading" section are pretty well picked.
Customer Reviews:
Valuable but grating.......2005-03-11
I will keep this short and simple: Friedwald is a bad writer. This book contains a lot of bad jokes, forced analogies, a juvenile prose style and some occasional mistakes. However, this book is invaluable for someone who knows little about jazz singing, for it contains much information and most, if not all, the really important names in vocal jazz. However, if you are a more experienced listener, you will be put off by his off-handed dismissals of legends like Helen Merrill and talented minor figures like Lee Morse and Julie London, with little or no justification for his dislike of them. But he praises people like Perry Como, Dinah Shore and Doris Day.
Hmmmm.
Love and grumbling.......2003-12-17
Jazz Singing covers 20th jazz singing from classic blues to post-bop singers. The book is notable for breadth, Friedwald's often sharp humor, and a knack for exploring underrated singers such as Kay Starr and Helen Humes. Though I don't always agree with him he is passionate and knowing.
Jazz Singing is more of a commentary than a history of jazz singing and lacks the thoroughness and balance of a book written by a cultural historian as opposed to a fan/critic/liner note writer/compiler.
The book is haunted by a defeatist nostalgia the author is too young for and obvious theses repeated ad nauseam. The author holds simplistic notions of how black and whites sing and never actually differentiates between adult and kiddie pop. Is this simply a matter of musical sophistication or assumptions about how love can be expressed? The assertion (one shared w/ Stanley Crouch and Donald Clarke) that adult pop is dead, is one that must be argued not simply asserted.
It is also peculiar that Friedwald never devotes any attention to the fact that kiddie pop novelties, pre and post Mitch Miller largely define the careers of many singers he praises including Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford, Peggy Lee and Doris Day--(who,for example indulged w/ novelties during her Les Brown stint).
Jazz Singing is also growing dated, a hazard of such a nostalgically minded, cynical book. Strangely even in the 1996 edition Jimmy Scott (who came back in the '90s) and Shirley Horn (who came back in the '80s) are absent, [except very brief comments] Blues/R&B-based singers w/ jazz-oriented careers (i.e. Ruth Brown, Etta James, early Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin) are overlooked. Finally, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kevin Mahogany, Dianne Reeves, Patricia Barber, Diana Krall, Kurt Elling, etc. whose careers overlap the 1996 edition are barely mentioned [except a mention of Elling]
This is a fun book but more useful as a consumer guide based on its discography and several choice passages. If you want a history of jazz singing you would do better to check out Gary Giddins' anthologies (where is his jazz singing book?!) and instrumental and vocal jazz histories by Giola and Shipton, respectively.
Four and a half stars.......2002-12-03
Friedwald has definitely got to be the currently most prolific writer on all matters related to the "Great American Songbook" and its performers. His name appears constantly on CD liner notes, his voice is regularly heard on NPR, and his face appears on television whenever an assessment of a recently expired pop star or jazz great is called for. It stands to reason that his opinions wield influence, so as a champion of the music that is the subject of his discourse, I can only hope that his pronouncements are for the better.
In most instances, his judgements seem sound, and he usually expresses them with a directness and verve that make for engaging reading. Among the better moments in the book are his dismissal of a Michael Feinstein, a Johnny Mathis, or an Andy Williams as subjects worthy of discussion in a serious book about American popular music.
The musicians he devotes chapters to are all deserving, and he provides no small amount of insight into the historical significance and unique talents of his subjects. Still, he can strain a bit too hard to make a case for a singer such as Bing Crosby, proclaiming him a better all-around musician than Sinatra and insisting that the man, if anything, got better with the passing of time. I get the sense that Friedwald knows quite a bit about music, but perhaps not quite enough. And it's not clear that he's ever had much experience performing music. If he had, he'd be more aware of the differences in vocal production, say, between a stand-up singer and a pianist-singer. Or of the kind of risk that is present not only in Sinatra's persona but in the approach to a lyric and its elocution that are part of his music. Bing may have a good ear and good time, but even on his noisy (thanks to Bregman's orchestration) Sinatra-style 1950's session, his time is leaden. He's thinking two-beat instead of 4/4 swing, and he plops his syllables right on top of each beat in order to be able to "think" the 2nd beat that characterizes his Dixieland approach.
But if there's any genuine disappointment with the book, it's with what's been left out. Whether it's because he's too busy writing or completing his Crosby collection, Friedwald seems totally unaware of singers like Jack Jones, Shirley Horn, Nancy Lamott and, most notably of all, Etta Jones. One can only hope that a book such as this will lead readers to make their discovery.
Brings You Back to the Music.......2000-10-08
Friedwald has written a great book--precisely because it's opinionated, un-pretentious, filled with passionate likes and dislikes. Friedwald has apparently listened to every jazz-sung record in history, and his book makes you want to listen to all of it too--in my case, for the first time. For that I'd love to thank him personally. If you believe that understanding the conventions of an art form helps you appreciate it fully, "Jazz Singing" is an eduacation in what to listen for...in how to listen to jazz singing. I don't always agree with Friedwald and neither will you, but so what? A wonderful book about an art that seems unfortunately to be dying out--a book that helps, along with all the CD re-issues that thankfully come out, to keep it alive.
A Jazz Affair.......2000-08-28
Will Friedwald loves his subject and it shows. I learned a lot and agree with, perhaps, 95% of his judgments. But some of his dismissals sound perfunctory and I'm not even sure that he even reviewed the relevant material. Example: Jonny Mathis in the "Must Avoid" Department. Generally true, but certainly not the very first albumn (CK 64890) which has some excellent vocals and arrangements in the jazz idiom. "Easy to Love" and "Star Eyes" are splendid and his "It Might as Well be Spring" is one of the best, at least to my ear. But I almost forgive him since he praises the much-neglected Dakota Staton. Almost, but not quite. And, please, David Raksin deserves to have his name spelled straight. Anyone who could compose "Laura" and "The Bad and the Beautiful" deserves editorial accuracy.
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