Download or read book The Woodchopper s Ball written by Woody Herman and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 1994 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recounts his life from his early years with a hopeful "stage father," his years on the road, his wife's battle with alcoholism, and his financial difficulties, and discusses other musical greats

Download or read book The Big Bands written by George T. Simon and published by Schirmer Trade Books. This book was released on 2012-03-08 with total page 966 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book you will find an astounding 400 biographies that highlight the history and personnel of the great bands. It is organized into four sections: “The Big Bands--Then” (the scene, the leaders, the public, the musicians, vocalists, arrangers and businessmen, recordings, radio, movies and the press); “Inside the Big Bands” (profiles of 72 top bands); “Inside More of the Big Bands” (hundreds of additional profiles arranged by categories (“The Arranging Leaders,” “The Horn-playing Leaders,” etc.); and “The Big Bands Now.” The Big Bands is one of the best books on the subject. It is both readable and an invaluable reference source for the study of jazz standards since many were written by big band leaders or musicians or were popularized through their performances and recordings. The index is comprehensive with names but lists no songs. George T. Simon was one of the original organizers and members of the Glenn Miller Orchestra for which he played the drums. He was also one of the first writers for Metronome Magazine where he remained from 1935 until 1955.

Download or read book Jazz Matters Reflections on Music and Some of Its Makers p written by Douglas K. Ramsey and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Meet Me at Jim Andy s written by Gene Lees and published by New York : Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gene Lees, author of the highly acclaimed Singers and the Song, offers, in Meet Me at Jim and Andy's, another tightly integrated collection of essays about post-War American music. This time he focuses on major jazz instrumentalists and bandleaders. Jim and Andy's, on 48th Street just west of Sixth Avenue, was one of four New York musicians' haunts in the 1960s--the others being Joe Harbor's Spotlight, Charlie's, and Junior's. "For almost every musician I knew," Lees writes, "[it was] a home-away-from-home, restaurant, watering hole, telephone answering service, informal savings (and loan) bank, and storage place for musical instruments." In a vivid series of portraits, we meet its clientele, an unforgettable gallery of individualists who happen to have been major artists--among them Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Art Farmer, Billy Taylor, Gerry Mulligan, and Paul Desmond. We share their laughter and meet their friends, such as the late actress Judy Holliday, their wives, even their children (as in the tragic story of Frank Rosolino). We learn about their loves, loyalties, infidelities, and struggles with fame and, sometimes alcohol and drug addiction. The magnificent pianist Bill Evans, describing to Lees his heroin addiction, says, "It's like death and transfiguration. Every day you wake in pain like death, and then you go out and score, and that is transfiguration. Each day becomes all of life in microcosm." Himself a noted songwriter, Lees writes about these musicians with vividness and intimacy. Far from being the inarticulate jazz musicians of legend, they turn out to be eloquent indeed, and the inventors of a colorful slang that has passed into the American language. And of course there was the music. A perceptive critic with enormous respect for the music he writes about, Lees notes the importance and special appeal of each artist's work, as in this comment about Artie Shaw's clarinet: "A fish, it has been said, is unaware of water, and Shaw's music so permeated the very air that it was only too easy to overlook just how good a player and how inventive and significant an improviser he was."

Download or read book A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers written by Will Friedwald and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2010 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extensive biographical and critical survey of more than 300 jazz and popular singers is comprised of provocative, opinionated essays that incorporate the views of peers, fans and critics while assessing key movements and genres.

Download or read book Times Remembered written by Joe La Barbera and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1970s legendary pianist Bill Evans was at the peak of his career. He revolutionized the jazz trio (bass, piano, drums) by giving each part equal emphasis in what jazz historian Ted Gioia called a “telepathic level” of interplay. It was an ideal opportunity for a sideman, and after auditioning in 1978, Joe La Barbera was ecstatic when he was offered the drum chair, completing the trio with Evans and bassist Marc Johnson. In Times Remembered, La Barbera and co-author Charles Levin provide an intimate fly-on-the-wall peek into Evans’s life, critical recording sessions, and behind-the-scenes anecdotes of life on the road. Joe regales the trio’s magical connection, a group that quickly gelled to play music on the deepest and purest level imaginable. He also watches his dream gig disappear, a casualty of Evans’s historical drug abuse when the pianist dies in a New York hospital emergency room in 1980. But La Barbera tells this story with love and respect, free of judgment, showing Evans’s humanity and uncanny ability to transcend physical weakness and deliver first-rate performances at nearly every show.

Download or read book The Birth of Bebop written by Scott DeVeaux and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-09-01 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Marshal Royal written by Marshal Royal and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2001-09-01 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marsgal Royal was a core member of the Count Basei Orchestra for twenty years during its resurgence in the 1950s and 1960s. Before that, he was a pioneer of jazz on the West Coast, playing with many bands in and around Los Angeles. A child prodigy of both the violin and saxophone, Royal was literally born on the road as his musician parents made their way West. Royal shares his experiences with Les Hite's band at Sebastian's New Cotton Club, where 's Orchestra after a wartime career in U.S. Navy bands. After leaving Hampton, Royal made countless recordings as a freelancer before joining Basie, where he was responsible for rehearsing the Orchestra. Later, he became internationally known as a soloist while continuing his prolific recording career. His brother, Ernie, who was a star trumpeter in the bands of Woody Herman and Stan Kenton, is also profiled. Claire P. Gordon is the editor of Rex Stewart's memoir, Boy Meets Horn, and of Stewart's other collections of writings. She lives on the West Coast and has a long-term interest in the oral history of jazz.

Download or read book The Golden Age of Jazz written by and published by New York : Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1979 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling collection of photographs that reveal the people, places, and events of Jazz's Golden Age the period from the late 1930s through the 1940s during which the music underwent enormous growth and transformation. Two hundred b&w photographs are included, accompanied by Gottlieb's recollection

Download or read book Woody Herman written by and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Story of Edgar Sawtelle written by David Wroblewski and published by Bond Street Books. This book was released on 2009-03-19 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Oprah's Book Club Pick A #1 New York Times Bestseller A National Bestseller Beautifully written and elegantly paced, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a coming-of-age novel about the power of the land and the past to shape our lives. It is a riveting tale of retribution, inhabited by empathic animals, prophetic dreams, second sight, and vengeful ghosts. Born mute, Edgar Sawtelle feels separate from the people around him but is able to establish profound bonds with the animals who share his home and his name: his family raises a fictional breed of exceptionally perceptive and affable dogs. Soon after his father's sudden death, Edgar is stunned to learn that his mother has already moved on as his uncle Claude quickly becomes part of their lives. Reeling from the sudden changes to his quiet existence, Edgar flees into the forests surrounding his Wisconsin home accompanied by three dogs. Soon he is caught in a struggle for survival—the only thing that will prepare him for his return home.

Download or read book Vince Guaraldi at the Piano 2d ed written by Derrick Bang and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2024-05-15 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Vince Guaraldi's playful jazz piano themes for the early Peanuts animated television specials are well known, the composer himself remains largely unheralded. More than merely "the Peanuts guy," Guaraldi cut his jazz teeth as a member of combos fronted by Cal Tjader and Woody Herman, and garnered Top 40 fame with his Grammy Award-winning hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind." This career study, extensively updated, gives Guaraldi long-overdue recognition, chronicling his years as a sideman; his attraction to the emerging bossa nova sound of the late 1950s; his collaboration with Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete; his development of the Grace Cathedral Jazz Mass; his selection as the fellow to put the jazz swing in Charlie Brown's step; and his emergence as a respected veteran in the declining Northern California jazz club scene of the 1970s. Ironically, his place in the jazz universe has grown exponentially since this book's initial 2012 publication, and this second edition acknowledges such honors and features a wealth of new material.

Download or read book Handbuilding Ceramic Forms written by Elsbeth S. Woody and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 1978-11-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Delineates basic methodology and suggests variations in the craft of handbuilding with clay, with a study of and illustrations of the work of ten professional ceramicists

Download or read book Fish and Wildlife News written by and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Jazz and Death written by Frederick J. Spencer, M.D. and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2009-10-20 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a jazz hero dies, rumors, speculation, gossip, and legend can muddle the real cause of death. In this book, Frederick J. Spencer, M.D., conducts an inquest on how jazz greats lived and died pursuing their art. Forensics, medical histories, death certificates, and biographies divulge the way many musical virtuosos really died. An essential reference source, Jazz and Death strives to correct misinformation and set the story straight. Reviewing the medical records of such jazz icons as Scott Joplin, James Reese Europe, Bennie Moten, Tommy Dorsey, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Wardell Gray, and Ronnie Scott, the book spans decades, styles, and causes of death. Divided into disease categories, it covers such illnesses as ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), which killed Charlie Mingus, and tuberculosis, which caused the deaths of Chick Webb, Charlie Christian, Bubber Miley, Jimmy Blanton, and Fats Navarro. It notes the significance of dental disease in affecting a musician's embouchure and livelihood, as happened with Joe “King” Oliver. A discussion of Art Tatum's visual impairment leads to discoveries in the pathology of what blinded Lennie Tristano. Heavy drinking, even during Prohibition, was the norm in the clubs of New Orleans and Kansas City and in the ballrooms of Chicago and New York. Too often, the musical scene demanded that those who play jazz be “jazzed.” After World War II, as heroin addiction became the hallmark of revolution, talented bebop artists suffered long absences from the bandstand. Many did jail time, and others succumbed to the ravages of “horse.” With Jazz and Death, the causes behind the great jazz funerals may no longer be misconstrued. Its clinical and morbidly entertaining approach creates an invaluable compendium for jazz fans and scholars alike.

Download or read book The Swing Era written by Gunther Schuller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1991-12-19 with total page 1749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the book jazz lovers have eagerly awaited, the second volume of Gunther Schuller's monumental The History of Jazz. When the first volume, Early Jazz, appeared two decades ago, it immediately established itself as one of the seminal works on American music. Nat Hentoff called it "a remarkable breakthrough in musical analysis of jazz," and Frank Conroy, in The New York Times Book Review, praised it as "definitive.... A remarkable book by any standard...unparalleled in the literature of jazz." It has been universally recognized as the basic musical analysis of jazz from its beginnings until 1933. The Swing Era focuses on that extraordinary period in American musical history--1933 to 1945--when jazz was synonymous with America's popular music, its social dances and musical entertainment. The book's thorough scholarship, critical perceptions, and great love and respect for jazz puts this well-remembered era of American music into new and revealing perspective. It examines how the arrangements of Fletcher Henderson and Eddie Sauter--whom Schuller equates with Richard Strauss as "a master of harmonic modulation"--contributed to Benny Goodman's finest work...how Duke Ellington used the highly individualistic trombone trio of Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Juan Tizol, and Lawrence Brown to enrich his elegant compositions...how Billie Holiday developed her horn-like instrumental approach to singing...and how the seminal compositions and arrangements of the long-forgotten John Nesbitt helped shape Swing Era styles through their influence on Gene Gifford and the famous Casa Loma Orchestra. Schuller also provides serious reappraisals of such often neglected jazz figures as Cab Calloway, Henry "Red" Allen, Horace Henderson, Pee Wee Russell, and Joe Mooney. Much of the book's focus is on the famous swing bands of the time, which were the essence of the Swing Era. There are the great black bands--Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Earl Hines, Andy Kirk, and the often superb but little known "territory bands"--and popular white bands like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsie, Artie Shaw, and Woody Herman, plus the first serious critical assessment of that most famous of Swing Era bandleaders, Glenn Miller. There are incisive portraits of the great musical soloists--such as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Bunny Berigan, and Jack Teagarden--and such singers as Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Helen Forest.

Download or read book Stan Getz written by Donald L. Maggin and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 1997-08-20 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stan Getz's prodigiously prolific musical career encompassed the tumultuous eras of big band, swing, be-bop, and free jazz. Though he is most famous for "The Girl from Ipanema," Getz's extraordinary talent established him in the pantheon of jazz greats. His legendary career is all the more impressive given the excesses of his personal life: He was a heroin addict until age twenty-seven; later, a violent alcoholic. Furiously self-destructive, Getz wasn't expected to outlive the 1950s, yet he continued to create beautiful music for forty more years, achieving sobriety five years before succumbing to cancer in 1991. With rich portraits of both the master and those he influenced--such giants as Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis--Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz masterfully captures a dynamic era in music, with the artistic genius, triumphs, and tragedies of Stan Getz at its center.