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This compilation of essays takes the study of the blues to a welcome new level. Distinguished scholars and well-established writers from such diverse backgrounds as musicology, anthropology, musicianship, and folklore join together to examine blues as literature, music, personal expression, and cultural product. Ramblin' on My Mind contains pieces on Ella Fitzgerald, Son House, and Robert Johnson; on the styles of vaudeville, solo guitar, and zydeco; on a comparison of blues and African music; on blues nicknames; and on lyric themes of disillusionment. Contributors are Lynn Abbott, James Bennighof, Katharine Cartwright, Andrew M. Cohen, David Evans, Bob Groom, Elliott Hurwitt, Gerhard Kubik, John Minton, Luigi Monge, and Doug Seroff.
This book tells the story of the Mwandishi band; the author examines the ingredients that would come to form this band's sound. He analyzes the group's instrumentation, their use of electronics, and their transformation of the studio into a compositional tool.
"Everyday minutiae...soon evaporate into a meaningless mist of forgotten busy work." Thus asserts Ron Strothers about contemporary American society in this "tribute to people who have made valuable contributions to society that should neither be overlooked nor forgotten..." The author enlists his hometown of Newark, New Jersey to look at American culture through the lens of sports, music and local leaders in the academic and religious communities. The key sport is basketball and the music is jazz. All are employed by Strothers to underscore his basic theme--the importance of history. Committed to bringing to light, sometimes back to light, the histories of gifted ballplayers from the 1950s a...
Dr. Herb Wong (1926-2014) was an internationally recognized jazz industry leader and the author of more than 400 liner notes from the 1940s through the early 2000s. He reviewed not only the tracks on those albums but the artists and their eras as well. This book features the best of Wong's liner notes, articles and album selections, his personal stories about the artists, and his illuminating one-on-one conversations with many jazz greats, providing an insightful jazz primer and invaluable discography.
Nat Hentoff, renowned jazz critic, civil liberties activist, and fearless contrarian—"I’m a Jewish atheist civil-libertarian pro-lifer"—has lived through much of jazz’s history and has known many of jazz’s most important figures, often as friend and confidant. Hentoff has been a tireless advocate for the neglected parts of jazz history, including forgotten sidemen and -women. This volume includes his best recent work—short essays, long interviews, and personal recollections. From Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong to Ornette Coleman and Quincy Jones, Hentoff brings the jazz greats to life and traces their art to gospel, blues, and many other forms of American music. At the Jazz Band Ball also includes Hentoff’s keen, cosmopolitan observations on a wide range of issues. The book shows how jazz and education are a vital partnership, how free expression is the essence of liberty, and how social justice issues like health care and strong civil rights and liberties keep all the arts—and all members of society—strong.
In the first major book devoted to the trumpet in more than two decades, John Wallace and Alexander McGrattan trace the surprising evolution and colorful performance history of one of the world's oldest instruments. They chart the introduction of the trumpet and its family into art music, and its rise to prominence as a solo instrument, from the Baroque "golden age," through the advent of valved brass instruments in the nineteenth century, and the trumpet's renaissance in the jazz age. The authors offer abundant insights into the trumpet's repertoire, with detailed analyses of works by Haydn, Handel, and Bach, and fresh material on the importance of jazz and influential jazz trumpeters for the reemergence of the trumpet as a solo instrument in classical music today. Wallace and McGrattan draw on deep research, lifetimes of experience in performing and teaching the trumpet in its various forms, and numerous interviews to illuminate the trumpet's history, music, and players. Copiously illustrated with photographs, facsimiles, and music examples throughout, The Trumpet will enlighten and fascinate all performers and enthusiasts [Publisher description].
Ruby Braff's uncompromising standards, musical taste, and creative imagination informed his consummate artistry in creating music beautifully played. He achieved swiftly what few musicians accomplish in a lifetime by developing a unique and immediately recognizable style. Alth...
Despite the plethora of writing about jazz, little attention has been paid to what musicians themselves wrote and said about their practice. An implicit division of labor has emerged where, for the most part, black artists invent and play music while white writers provide the commentary. Eric Porter overturns this tendency in his creative intellectual history of African American musicians. He foregrounds the often-ignored ideas of these artists, analyzing them in the context of meanings circulating around jazz, as well as in relationship to broader currents in African American thought. Porter examines several crucial moments in the history of jazz: the formative years of the 1920s and 1930s;...
Ready to feel the beating heart of existence? Kick-off your shoes and discover the ultimate way to navigate uncharted waters. Andrew Pacholyk was a gawky kid with big ideas. Awkward and out-of-place as a teen, he relished the moment he discovered dancing and the ecstasy of the rhythm of his body. But it wasn’t until he caught his first wave on the wide-open ocean that this nature-lover truly began to comprehend the vast balance on tap in the cosmos. Barefoot ~ A Surfer's View of the Universe is the unvarnished true tale of a spirited man’s life with sand between his toes and senses on high alert. With stunning lessons of solace and eye-opening insights, the lifelong surfer, professional ...
Most studies of 1960s jazz underscore the sounds of famous avant-garde musicians like John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Albert Ayler. Conspicuously absent from these narratives are the more popular jazz artists of the decade that electrified dance clubs, permeated radio waves, and released top-selling records. Names like Eddie Harris, Nancy Wilson, Ramsey Lewis, and Jimmy Smith are largely neglected in most serious work today. Mike Smith rectifies this oversight and explores why critical writings have generally cast off best-selling 1960s jazz as unworthy of in-depth analysis and reverent documentation. The 1960s were a time of monumental political and social shifts. Avant-garde jazz, made...