Music : Jazz

Burt Korall is widely recognized as the most authoritative writer on jazz drumming. His first book Drummin' Men--The Heartbeat of Jazz: The Swing Era is considered a classic. Now, in this exciting sequel, Korall offers a richly informative history of drumming in the Bebop era. Korall looks at this music through the eyes of the musicians themselves, covering a whole range of important jazz drummers, but focusing upon the most original and significant--principally Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, and Art Blakey. Korall provides a knowledgeable background about the history of bebop--and the unfortunate and almost universal heroin addiction that swept through the jazz world in the wake of Charlie Parker's habit. The book contains Korall's own memoir of nearly 50 years in the jazz world, linked by his narrative of the careers of these drummers and their place in the bebop jazz scene. more...

Price: $30.00

A biography that incorporates Duke Ellington's talents into engaging activities for children. Enlisting the musician's gifts as a pianist, composer, and band leader, it presents an interdisciplinary that approach shows how to create a ragtime rhythm, make a washtub bass, write song lyrics, dance the Lindy Hop, and design an album cover. more...

Price: $11.95

How have American writers written about jazz, and how has jazz influenced American literature? In Fascinating Rhythm, David Yaffe explores the relationship and interplay between jazz and literature, looking at jazz musicians and the themes literature has garnered from them by appropriating the style, tones, and innovations of jazz, and demonstrating that the poetics of jazz has both been assimilated into, and deeply affected, the development of twentieth-century American literature.Yaffe explores how Jewish novelists such as Norman Mailer, J. D. Salinger, and Philip Roth engaged issues of racial, ethnic, and American authenticity by way of jazz; how Ralph Ellison's descriptions of Louis Armstrong led to a "neoconservative" movement in contemporary jazz; how poets such as Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, Langston Hughes, and Frank O'Hara were variously inspired by the music; and how memoirs by Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, and Miles Davis both reinforced and redeemed the red light origins of jazz. The book confronts the current jazz discourse and shows how poets and novelists can be placed in it--often with problematic results. Fascinating Rhythm stops to listen for the music, demonstrating how jazz continues to speak for the American writer. more...

Price: $37.50

1. Introduction. 2. Jim Crow, Economics, and the Politics of Musicianship. 3. Modernism, Race, and Aesthetics. 4. Africa, The Cold War and the Diaspora at Home. 5. Activism and Fundraising from Freedom Now to the Freedom Rides. 6. Activism and Fundraising from Birmingham to Black Power. 7. The Debate Within: White Backlash, The New Thing, and Economics. 8. Aesthetic Agency and Self-Determination. 9. Coda more...

Price: $35.00

Dizzy Gillespie was one of the most important and best-loved musicians in jazz history. With his horn-rimmed glasses, goatee, jive talk, and upraised trumpet bell, he was the hipster who most personified bebop. The musical heir to Louis Armstrong, he created the modern jazz trumpet-playing style and dazzled aficionados and popular audiences alike for over 50 years. In this first full biography, Alyn Shipton covers all aspects of Dizzy's remarkable life and career, taking us through his days as a flashy trumpet player in the swing bands of the 1930s, his innovative bebop work in the 1940s, the worldwide fame and adoration he earned through his big band tours in the 1950s, and the many recordings and performances which defined a career that extended into the early 1990s. Along the way, Shipton convincingly argues that Gillespie--rather than Charlie Parker as is widely believed--had the greatest role in creating bebop, playing in key jazz groups, teaching the music to others, and helping to develop the first original bebop repertory. Shipton also explores the dark side of Dizzy's mostly sunny personal life, his womanizing, the illegitimate daughter he fathered and supported--now a respected jazz singer in her own right--and his sometimes needless cruelty to others. For anyone interested in jazz and one of its most innovative and appealing figures, Groovin' High is essential reading. more...

Price: $26.00