Download or read book The Jazz Scene written by Eric Hobsbawm and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1955-65 the historian Eric Hobsbawm took the pseudonym 'Francis Newton' and wrote a monthly column for the New Statesman on jazz - music he had loved ever since discovering it as a boy in 1933 ('the year Adolf Hitler took power in Germany'). Hobsbawm's column led to his writing a critical history, The Jazz Scene (1959). This enhanced edition from 1993 adds later writings by Hobsbawm in which he meditates further 'on why jazz is not only a marvellous noise but a central concern for anyone concerned with twentieth-century society and the twentieth-century arts.' 'All the greats are covered in passing (Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday), while further space is given to Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk, Mahalia Jackson, and Sidney Bechet ... Perhaps Hobsbawm's tastiest comments are about the business side and work ethics, where his historian's eye strips the jazz scene down to its commercial spine.' Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book Sittin In written by Jeff Gold and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 835 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A visual history of America’s jazz nightclubs of the 1940s and 1950s, featuring exclusive interviews and over 200 souvenir photos. In the two decades before the Civil Rights movement, jazz nightclubs were among the first places that opened their doors to both Black and white performers and club goers in Jim Crow America. In this extraordinary collection, Grammy Award-winning record executive and music historian Jeff Gold looks back at this explosive moment in the history of Jazz and American culture, and the spaces at the center of artistic and social change. Sittin’ In is a visual history of jazz clubs during these crucial decades when some of the greatest names in in the genre—Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, and many others—were headlining acts across the country. In many of the clubs, Black and white musicians played together and more significantly, people of all races gathered together to enjoy an evening’s entertainment. House photographers roamed the floor and for a dollar, took picture of patrons that were developed on site and could be taken home in a keepsake folder with the club’s name and logo. Sittin’ In tells the story of the most popular club in these cities through striking images, first-hand anecdotes, true tales about the musicians who performed their unforgettable shows, notes on important music recorded live there, and more. All of this is supplemented by colorful club memorabilia, including posters, handbills, menus, branded matchbooks, and more. Inside you’ll also find exclusive, in-depth interviews conducted specifically for this book with the legendary Quincy Jones; jazz great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins; Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion critic Robin Givhan; jazz musician and creative director of the Kennedy Center, Jason Moran; and jazz critic Dan Morgenstern. Gold surveys America’s jazz scene and its intersection with racism during segregation, focusing on three crucial regions: the East Coast (New York, Atlantic City, Boston, Washington, D.C.); the Midwest (Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Kansas City); and the West Coast (Los Angeles, San Francisco). This collection of ephemeral snapshots tells the story of an era that helped transform American life, beginning the move from traditional Dixieland jazz to bebop, from conservatism to the push for personal freedom.

Download or read book Blowin the Blues Away written by Travis A. Jackson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York City has always been a mecca in the history of jazz, and in many ways the city’s jazz scene is more important now than ever before. Blowin’ the Blues Away examines how jazz has thrived in New York following its popular resurgence in the 1980s. Using interviews, in-person observation, and analysis of live and recorded events, ethnomusicologist Travis A. Jackson explores both the ways in which various participants in the New York City jazz scene interpret and evaluate performance, and the criteria on which those interpretations and evaluations are based. Through the notes and words of its most accomplished performers and most ardent fans, jazz appears not simply as a musical style, but as a cultural form intimately influenced by and influential upon American concepts of race, place, and spirituality.

Download or read book Jazz West Coast written by Robert Gordon (M.A.) and published by Quartet Books (UK). This book was released on 1986 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Harlem of the West written by Elizabeth Pepin and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harlem of the West reveals a forgotten slice of San Francisco history and the African-American experience on the West Coast: the thriving jazz scene of the Fillmore in the 1940s and 1950s. With archival photographs and oral accounts from the residents and musicians who experienced it, this vividly illustrated tour will delight jazz fans and history aficionados.

Download or read book Central Avenue Sounds written by Clora Bryant and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here too are recollections of Hollywood's effects on local culture, the precedent-setting merger of the black and white musicians' unions, and the repercussions from the racism in the Los Angeles Police Department in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Download or read book Jazz written by Samuel B. Charters and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 1984-08-21 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This unique history of jazz in New York examines its many scenes, stages, styles, and sponsors. With one of the most sophisticated black populations anywhere, a vibrant bohemian subculture, a class of entertainment entrepreneurs, and a 24-hour nightlife, New York has long been home for jazz and jazz musicians. Samuel Charters and Leonard Kunstadt have delved through archives of newspapers and stagebills to provide a wider view of New York's jazz scene than ordinarily reported. Record sales, attendance figures, media trends are included along with assessments of musical importance. Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Chick Webb, the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Theatre, the Cotton Club all get extended treatment, as do less heralded figures and nightspots. Every jazz musician of note eventually plays in New York and will be found in this book, which chronicles not only their lives but the growth of New York as the world's jazz capital." --

Download or read book Jazz from Detroit written by Mark Stryker and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2019-07-08 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jazz from Detroit explores the city’s pivotal role in shaping the course of modern and contemporary jazz. With more than two dozen in-depth profiles of remarkable Detroit-bred musicians, complemented by a generous selection of photographs, Mark Stryker makes Detroit jazz come alive as he draws out significant connections between the players, eras, styles, and Detroit’s distinctive history. Stryker’s story starts in the 1940s and ’50s, when the auto industry created a thriving black working and middle class in Detroit that supported a vibrant nightlife, and exceptional public school music programs and mentors in the community like pianist Barry Harris transformed the city into a jazz juggernaut. This golden age nurtured many legendary musicians—Hank, Thad, and Elvin Jones, Gerald Wilson, Milt Jackson, Yusef Lateef, Donald Byrd, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter, Joe Henderson, and others. As the city’s fortunes change, Stryker turns his spotlight toward often overlooked but prescient musician-run cooperatives and self-determination groups of the 1960s and ’70s, such as the Strata Corporation and Tribe. In more recent decades, the city’s culture of mentorship, embodied by trumpeter and teacher Marcus Belgrave, ensured that Detroit continued to incubate world-class talent; Belgrave protégés like Geri Allen, Kenny Garrett, Robert Hurst, Regina Carter, Gerald Cleaver, and Karriem Riggins helped define contemporary jazz. The resilience of Detroit’s jazz tradition provides a powerful symbol of the city’s lasting cultural influence. Stryker’s 21 years as an arts reporter and critic at the Detroit Free Press are evident in his vivid storytelling and insightful criticism. Jazz from Detroit will appeal to jazz aficionados, casual fans, and anyone interested in the vibrant and complex history of cultural life in Detroit.

Download or read book Loft Jazz written by Michael C. Heller and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York loft jazz scene of the 1970s was a pivotal period for uncompromising, artist-produced work. Faced with a flagging jazz economy, a group of young avant-garde improvisers chose to eschew the commercial sphere and develop alternative venues in the abandoned factories and warehouses of Lower Manhattan. Loft Jazz provides the first book-length study of this period, tracing its history amid a series of overlapping discourses surrounding collectivism, urban renewal, experimentalist aesthetics, underground archives, and the radical politics of self-determination.

Download or read book Freedom Sounds written by Ingrid Monson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-10-18 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insightful examination of the impact of the Civil Rights Movement and African Independence on jazz in the 1950s and 60s, Freedom Sounds traces the complex relationships among music, politics, aesthetics, and activism through the lens of the hot button racial and economic issues of the time. Ingrid Monson illustrates how the contentious and soul-searching debates in the Civil Rights, African Independence, and Black Power movements shaped aesthetic debates and exerted a moral pressure on musicians to take action. Throughout, her arguments show how jazz musicians' quest for self-determination as artists and human beings also led to fascinating and far reaching musical explorations and a lasting ethos of social critique and transcendence. Across a broad body of issues of cultural and political relevance, Freedom Sounds considers the discursive, structural, and practical aspects of life in the jazz world in the 1950s and 1960s. In domestic politics, Monson explores the desegregation of the American Federation of Musicians, the politics of playing to segregated performance venues in the 1950s, the participation of jazz musicians in benefit concerts, and strategies of economic empowerment. Issues of transatlantic importance such as the effects of anti-colonialism and African nationalism on the politics and aesthetics of the music are also examined, from Paul Robeson's interest in Africa, to the State Department jazz tours, to the interaction of jazz musicians such Art Blakey and Randy Weston with African and African diasporic aesthetics. Monson deftly explores musicians' aesthetic agency in synthesizing influential forms of musical expression from a multiplicity of stylistic and cultural influences--African American music, popular song, classical music, African diasporic aesthetics, and other world musics--through examples from cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and the avant-garde. By considering the differences between aesthetic and socio-economic mobility, she presents a fresh interpretation of debates over cultural ownership, racism, reverse racism, and authenticity. Freedom Sounds will be avidly read by students and academics in musicology, ethnomusicology, anthropology, popular music, African American Studies, and African diasporic studies, as well as fans of jazz, hip hop, and African American music.

Download or read book Before Motown written by Lars Bjorn and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of Detroit jazz comes alive with remarkable photographs, advertisements, and interviews

Download or read book DC Jazz written by Maurice Jackson and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Poems -- Introduction -- 1 Jazz, "Great Black Music," and the Struggle for Racial and Social Equality in Washington, DC -- 2 Seventh Street: Black DC's Musical Mecca -- 3 Washington's Duke Ellington -- 4 Bill Brower: Notes from a Keen Observer and Scene Maker -- 5 Jazz Radio in Washington, DC -- 6 Legislating Jazz -- 7 The Beautiful Struggle: A Look at Women Who Have Helped Shape the DC Jazz Scene -- 8 No Church without a Choir: Howard University and Jazz in Washington, DC -- 9 From Federal City College to UDC: A Retrospective on Washington's Jazz University -- 10 Researching Jazz History in Washington, DC -- List of Contributors -- Photo Credits and Permissions -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z

Download or read book The Jazz of Physics written by Stephon Alexander and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spectacular musical and scientific journey from the Bronx to the cosmic horizon that reveals the astonishing links between jazz, science, Einstein, and Coltrane More than fifty years ago, John Coltrane drew the twelve musical notes in a circle and connected them by straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane put physics and geometry at the core of his music. Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander follows suit, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe. Following the great minds that first drew the links between music and physics-a list including Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, and Rakim — The Jazz of Physics reveals that the ancient poetic idea of the "Music of the Spheres," taken seriously, clarifies confounding issues in physics. The Jazz of Physics will fascinate and inspire anyone interested in the mysteries of our universe, music, and life itself.

Download or read book Gladsongs and Gatherings written by Stephen Wade and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collection of essays, interviews and poetry compares and contrasts the work of people such as Adrian Henri and Roger McGough with the new crop of Liverpool poets such as Matt Simpson and Deryn Rees-Jones.

Download or read book Jazz written by Hans-Jürgen Schaal and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jazz arrived in New York in the 1920s & caused a riot. Artist Robert Nippoldt has put together a collection of drawings of the leading figures of the time, includes luminaries such as Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong etc. Jazz expert H-J Schaal provides a short history of the period, and a text on each of the musicians featured.

Download or read book Swing Street written by Leo T. Sullivan and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Swing Street was the name given to 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan in New York City, where there were more jazz clubs and bars per square block than anywhere else in the world, all showcasing the finest jazz musicians of the era. This illustrated book offers a history of Swing Street and presents the greats who played the clubs there in capsule biographies, vintage photos, and rare memorabilia. On Swing Street you were guaranteed to experience an evening of unforgettable jazz on a nightly basis, seven nights a week, until the wee hours of the morning; stopping into Club Downbeat to catch a set of Billie Holiday, or dropping by the Three Deuces to hear Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie playing bebop. On any given night you could hear other iconic jazz artists such as Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Art Tatum, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, and many others.

Download or read book At the Jazz Band Ball written by Nat Hentoff and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.