Download or read book Benny Goodman The Life and Legacy of the King of Swing written by Charles River Editors and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "After you've done all the work and prepared as much as you can, what the hell, you might as well go out and have a good time." - Benny Goodman Sprightly swing music spills across the dimly lit club. The grayish curtains of cigarette smoke part every once in a while to reveal a sparkling stage and tables upon tables of patrons, some incurably inebriated and others high on the fast-paced nightlife. Fabulous flappers in shimmery cocktail dresses and stylish feather headbands throw their hands up and stomp their feet to the addictive beat on the dance floor. Smartly dressed men, their hair neatly parted and slicked back, toss fistfuls of dice onto the plush green baize of the craps tables. Some hover over roulette wheels, staring intently at the spinning flashes of silver, while others finger their playing cards as they sip on tumblers of whiskey, eyeing both the river and the tower of tokens next to them. Frisky tunes, chic fashion, and American gambling are nostalgic, rose-tinted images most choose to project when visualizing the Roaring Twenties, but the other side of the coin brought an uninviting, much harsher reality that most would prefer to sweep under the rug. The first real estate bubble was on the brink of bursting, and progress was evident, but painfully slow, which gave way to yet another era of violent riots, lynchings, and other forms of oppression imposed on minorities. When the phrase "the King" is used in the context of American music, most people think of Elvis Presley, but Presley was just a baby when the title was first conferred upon Benny Goodman as the King of Swing in 1935. The Swing Era was a magical period in American history between the hedonism of the Roaring Twenties and the rebelliousness sparked by rock music beginning in the 1950s. Swing music was rooted in ragtime, blues, and jazz music that had long been popular in African American enclaves in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and New Orleans. Swing took the entire nation by storm thanks in large part to Benny Goodman and his bands, earning Goodman the nearly undisputed title of the King of Swing. Goodman's life was a genuine rags-to-riches story. The son of nearly destitute Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Goodman was a musical prodigy who began playing professionally at the tender age of 13, and he was also among the first mainstream bandleaders to hire black musicians. Referring to music as "a great escape for me from the poverty," Goodman's lifelong focus was on good music, no matter who it came from. As he put it, "If a guy's got it, let him give it. I'm selling music, not prejudice." Goodman's popularity was so instrumental that Lionel Hampton went so far as to claim, "As far as I'm concerned, what he did in those days-and they were hard days, in 1937-made it possible for Negroes to have their chance in baseball and other fields." Apart from a few hiatuses to tend his health and his growing family, Goodman remained a consistently active musician literally right up until his death in 1986 at the age of 77. Somewhat fittingly, he died in his study with his clarinet next to him and a Brahms sonata on a music stand nearby. Benny Goodman: The Life and Legacy of the King of Swing profiles how Goodman rose from obscure beginnings to become one of 20th century music's most influential figures. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the King of Swing like never before.
Download or read book The Uncrowned King of Swing written by Jeffrey Magee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-13 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Benny Goodman was the "King of Swing," then Fletcher Henderson was the power behind the throne. Now Jeffrey Magee offers a fascinating account of Henderson's musical career, throwing new light on the emergence of modern jazz and the world that created it. Drawing on an unprecedented combination of sources, including sound recordings and hundreds of scores that have been available only since Goodman's death, Magee illuminates Henderson's musical output, from his early work as a New York bandleader, to his pivotal role in building the Kingdom of Swing. He shows how Henderson, standing at the forefront of the New York jazz scene during the 1920s and '30s, assembled the era's best musicians, simultaneously preserving jazz's distinctiveness and performing popular dance music that reached a wide audience. Magee reveals how, in Henderson's largely segregated musical world, black and white musicians worked together to establish jazz, how Henderson's style rose out of collaborations with many key players, how these players deftly combined improvised and written music, and how their work negotiated artistic and commercial impulses. Whether placing Henderson's life in the context of the Harlem Renaissance or describing how the savvy use of network radio made the Henderson-Goodman style a national standard, Jeffrey Magee brings to life a monumental musician who helped to shape an era. "An invaluable survey of Henderson's life and music." --Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times "Magee has written an important book, illuminating an era too often reduced to its most familiar names. Goodman might have been the King of Swing, but Henderson here emerges as that kingdom's chief architect." --Boston Globe "Excellent.... Jazz fans have waited 30 years for a trained musicologist...to evaluate Henderson's strengths and weaknesses and attempt to place him in the history of American music." --Will Friedwald, New York Sun
Download or read book Benny Goodman s Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert written by Catherine Tackley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-19 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 16, 1938 Benny Goodman brought his swing orchestra to America's venerated home of European classical music, Carnegie Hall. The resulting concert - widely considered one of the most significant events in American music history - helped to usher jazz and swing music into the American cultural mainstream. This reputation has been perpetuated by Columbia Records' 1950 release of the concert on LP. Now, in Benny Goodman's Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert, jazz scholar and musician Catherine Tackley provides the first in depth, scholarly study of this seminal concert and recording. Combining rigorous documentary and archival research with close analysis of the recording, Tackley strips back the accumulated layers of interpretation and meaning to assess the performance in its original context, and explore what the material has come to represent in its recorded form. Taking a complete view of the concert, she examines the rich cultural setting in which it took place, and analyzes the compositions, arrangements and performances themselves, before discussing the immediate reception, and lasting legacy and impact of this storied event and album. As the definitive study of one of the most important recordings of the twentieth-century, Benny Goodman's Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert is a must-read for all serious jazz fans, musicians and scholars.
Download or read book Living with Jazz written by Dan Morgenstern and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2009-08-19 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays, biographical profiles, and critical analyses by one of the twentieth century's leading jazz writers includes commentary on the work of jazz entertainers, including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Armstrong, as well as assessment of the role of jazz in contemporary culture and its influence on modern music.
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 The Encyclopedia of Popular Music written by Colin Larkin and published by Omnibus Press. This book was released on 2011-05-27 with total page 4183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text presents a comprehensive and up-to-date reference work on popular music, from the early 20th century to the present day.
Download or read book The 20th Century Go N written by Frank N. Magill and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 1407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each volume of the Dictionary of World Biography contains 250 entries on the lives of the individuals who shaped their times and left their mark on world history. This is not a who's who. Instead, each entry provides an in-depth essay on the life and career of the individual concerned. Essays commence with a quick reference section that provides basic facts on the individual's life and achievements. The extended biography places the life and works of the individual within an historical context, and the summary at the end of each essay provides a synopsis of the individual's place in history. All entries conclude with a fully annotated bibliography.
Download or read book The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz written by Brian Case and published by Harmony. This book was released on 1987 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains entries of the giants of jazz with photographs, facts about the performers, and a listing of albums.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings written by Steve Sullivan and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2013-10-04 with total page 1027 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From John Philip Sousa to Green Day, from Scott Joplin to Kanye West, from Stephen Foster to Coldplay, The Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volumes 1 and 2 covers the vast scope of its subject with virtually unprecedented breadth and depth. Approximately 1,000 key song recordings from 1889 to the present are explored in full, unveiling the stories behind the songs, the recordings, the performers, and the songwriters. Beginning the journey in the era of Victorian parlor balladry, brass bands, and ragtime with the advent of the record industry, readers witness the birth of the blues and the dawn of jazz in the 1910s and the emergence of country music on record and the shift from acoustic to electrical recording in the 1920s. The odyssey continues through the Swing Era of the 1930s; rhythm & blues, bluegrass, and bebop in the 1940s; the rock & roll revolution of the 1950s; modern soul, the British invasion, and the folk-rock movement of the 1960s; and finally into the modern era through the musical streams of disco, punk, grunge, hip-hop, and contemporary dance-pop. Sullivan, however, also takes critical detours by extending the coverage to genres neglected in pop music histories, from ethnic and world music, the gospel recording of both black and white artists, and lesser-known traditional folk tunes that reach back hundreds of years. This book is ideal for anyone who truly loves popular music in all of its glorious variety, and anyone wishing to learn more about the roots of virtually all the music we hear today. Popular music fans, as well as scholars of recording history and technology and students of the intersections between music and cultural history will all find this book to be informative and interesting.
Download or read book The Reader s Companion to American History written by Eric Foner and published by HMH. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 1253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An A-to-Z historical encyclopedia of US people, places, and events, with nearly 1,000 entries “all equally well written, crisp, and entertaining” (Library Journal). From the origins of its native peoples to its complex identity in modern times, this unique alphabetical reference covers the political, economic, cultural, and social history of America. A fact-filled treasure trove for history buffs, The Reader’s Companion is sponsored by the Society of American Historians, an organization dedicated to promoting literary excellence in the writing of biography and history. Under the editorship of the eminent historians John A. Garraty and Eric Foner, a large and distinguished group of scholars, biographers, and journalists—nearly four hundred contemporary authorities—illuminate the critical events, issues, and individuals that have shaped our past. Readers will find everything from a chronological account of immigration; individual entries on the Bull Moose Party and the Know-Nothings as well as an article on third parties in American politics; pieces on specific religious groups, leaders, and movements and a larger-scale overview of religion in America. Interweaving traditional political and economic topics with the spectrum of America’s social and cultural legacies—everything from marriage to medicine, crime to baseball, fashion to literature—the Companion is certain to engage the curiosity, interests, and passions of every reader, and also provides an excellent research tool for students and teachers.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of American Jewish History 2 volumes written by Stephen H. Norwood and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-08-28 with total page 881 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by the most prominent scholars in American Jewish history, this encyclopedia illuminates the varied experiences of America's Jews and their impact on American society and culture over three and a half centuries. American Jews have profoundly shaped, and been shaped by, American culture. Yet American history texts have largely ignored the Jewish experience. The Encyclopedia of American Jewish History corrects that omission. In essays and short entries written by 125 of the world's leading scholars of American Jewish history and culture, this encyclopedia explores both religious and secular aspects of American Jewish life. It examines the European background and immigration of American Jews and their impact on the professions and academic disciplines, mass culture and the arts, literature and theater, and labor and radical movements. It explores Zionism, antisemitism, responses to the Holocaust, the branches of Judaism, and Jews' relations with other groups, including Christians, Muslims, and African Americans. The encyclopedia covers the Jewish press and education, Jewish organizations, and Jews' participation in America's wars. In two comprehensive volumes, Encyclopedia of American Jewish History makes 350 years of American Jewish experience accessible to scholars, all levels of students, and the reading public.
Download or read book Benny Goodman written by Donald Russell Connor and published by Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press and the Institute of Jazz Studies. This book was released on 1988 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meticulously researched with Goodman's active participation, this book documents his recording dates, radio and television broadcasts, motion pictures, and public and private performances, citing their availability on record and audio-and videotape.
Download or read book Jazz Makers written by Alyn Shipton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002-02-21 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jazz Makers gathers together short biographies of more than 50 of jazz's greatest stars, from its early beginnings to the present. The stories of these innovative instrumentalists, bandleaders, and composers reveal the fascinating history of jazz in six parts:* The Pioneers, including Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong, and Bessie Smith* Swing Bands and Soloists, with Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday* The Piano Giants, featuring Fats Waller, Art Tatum, and Mary Lou Williams* Birth of Bebop, including Dizzy Gillepsie, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis* Cool Jazz, Hard Bop, and Fusion, with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Stan Getz* A Century of Jazz, featuring Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman, and other contemporary greats.
Download or read book Jimi Hendrix and the Cultural Politics of Popular Music written by Aaron Lefkovitz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-03-28 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, on Jimi Hendrix’s life, times, visual-cultural prominence, and popular music, with a particular emphasis on Hendrix’s relationships to the cultural politics of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, and nation. Hendrix, an itinerant “Gypsy” and “Voodoo child” whose racialized “freak” visual image continues to internationally circulate, exploited the exoticism of his race, gender, and sexuality and Gypsy and Voodoo transnational political cultures and religion. Aaron E. Lefkovitz argues that Hendrix can be located in a legacy of black-transnational popular musicians, from Chuck Berry to the hip hop duo Outkast, confirming while subverting established white supremacist and hetero-normative codes and conventions. Focusing on Hendrix’s transnational biography and centrality to US and international visual cultural and popular music histories, this book links Hendrix to traditions of blackface minstrelsy, international freak show spectacles, black popular music’s global circulation, and visual-cultural racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes, while noting Hendrix’s place in 1960s countercultural, US-exceptionalist, cultural Cold War, and rock histories.
Download or read book The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz written by Leonard Feather and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-04 with total page 739 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers more than 3,300 entries covering musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Thelonious Monk, and Wynton Marsalis.
Download or read book Soul on Soul written by Tammy Lynn Kernodle and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2004 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chronicle of the stormy personal and professional life of the legendary but underappreciated jazz pianist, composer, and arranger
Download or read book The Kiwanis Legacy written by Chuck Jonak and published by Kiwanis International. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 686 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kiwanis Legacy focuses on the history of Kiwanis International, starting in the year 1914, and ending in 2010.
