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Martin provides a new overall assessment of the importance of Charlie Parker through an analysis of his improvisations in a variety of genres. Earlier studies of Parker argue that his style is based on an extensive network of melodic formulas that are combined to create solos. Because the same formulas appear throughout his improvisations regardless of the theme, these studies concluded that the solos do not usually relate to the original melodies. Charlie Parker and Thematic Improvisation provides a much-needed reassessment by showing that Parker's solos are often related to the original themes in unexpected and sometimes ingenious ways. Numerous transcriptions are provided. This groundbreaking technical study will be of interest to musicologists and serious students of jazz.
Watching Jazz: Encounters with Jazz Performance on Screen is the first systematic study of jazz on screen media, covering its role across a plethora of technologies from film and television to recent developments in online media, and featuring the music of such legends as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Pat Metheny.
Music and the Creative Spirit is a book of interviews with today's innovators in Jazz, Improvisation, and the Avant Garde, including Pat Metheny, Regina Carter, Fred Anderson, John Zorn, Joshua Redman, and others.
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...
Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong was not only jazz's greatest musician and innovator, but also arguably its most famous entertainer and the frontal figure in the development of contemporary popular music. Overcoming social and political obstacles, he created a long and impressive career and an enormous musical output. Now, his ground breaking musical career is amassed and detailed in this discography of all his works, from professionally made commercial releases, to amateur and unissued recordings. All of Me is a comprehensive, chronological discography born out of love and admiration for Louis Armstrong, and devotion to years of collecting his musical accomplishments. Author Jos Willems has meticu...
Dave Liebman is one of the leading forces in contemporary jazz. Prominently known for performing with Miles Davis and Elvin Jones, he has exerted considerable influence as a saxophonist, bandleader, composer, author, and educator. In What It Is: The Life of a Jazz Artist, friend, pianist, and noted jazz scholar Lewis Porter conducts a series of in-depth interviews with Liebman, who discusses his professional, personal, and musical relationships with notable musicians, as well as such personal matters as contracting polio as a child. Featuring rare photos from Liebman's personal collection, this fascinating and witty story will not only appeal to jazz fans and scholars but also to those readers interested in the story of how a young man followed his dream to become one of the leading jazz artists of our time.
Fake books—anthologies of songs notated in a musical shorthand—have been used by countless pop and jazz musicians in both professional and amateur settings for more than half a century. The Story of Fake Books: Bootlegging Songs to Musicians traces the entertaining and previously unknown account of the origins of pop song fake books, which evolved through the bootlegging of a now obscure musical subscription service, the Tune-Dex. The book follows the history of fake books through their increased popularity among musicians to their prosecution by the government and the music industry, resulting in America's first full-blown federal trial for criminal copyright infringement. Through accou...
When Sheila Jordan dropped a nickel in the juke box of a Detroit diner in the 1940s and heard “Now’s The Time” by Charlie Parker, she was instantly hooked—and so began a seventy-year jazz journey. In 1962, she emerged as the first jazz singer to record on the prestigious Blue Note label with her debut album Portrait of Sheila. Exploding on the jazz scene, this classic work set the bar for her career as an iconic jazz vocalist and mentor to other promising female vocalists. As The New York Times then announced, “Her ballad performances are simply beyond the emotional and expressive capabilities of most other vocalists.” Jazz Child: A Portrait of Sheila Jordan, as the first complet...
More than 25 muscians who first came to prominence during the 1950s are the subject of this collection of interviews. The author's purpose has been to help preserve the oral history of a great American artform, and this book reveals that jazz musicians who can 'tell a story' with their horn when improvising can be just as articulate in conversation.
The Annual Review of Jazz Studies provides a forum for the ever-expanding range and depth of jazz scholarship, from technical analyses to oral history to cultural interpretation. Addressed to specialists and fans alike, all volumes include feature articles, book reviews, and previously unpublished photographs.