Jazz Blues category: 910 books

Troubled urban neighborhoods and jazz-club havens were the backdrop of Gerald Majer's life growing up in sixties and seventies Chicago. The Velvet Lounge, an original hybrid of memoir, biography, and musical description, reflects this history and pursues a sustained meditation on jazz along with a...

Jazz is essentially an aural tradition and is dependent on this method of learning for success in developing a true understanding of the style. It is impossible to become a jazz musician without familiarity of the players that have brought about its development. The only true and tested method of...

Keep It Real: The Life Story of James Jimmy Palao, The King of Jazz by Joan Singleton This book will become a major resource for anyone interested in the beginning history of Jazz. It was written to develop an understanding of some of the events that caused Jazz to prosper and to give credit...

"A signal event in the history of the music." — Ted Gioia, author of The Delta Blues Musicologist and writer Samuel Charters (1929–2015) considered blues lyrics a profound cultural expression that could connect all people who love poetry. A pioneer in the exploration of world music,...

Never has the idiom of the blues music been as important to the world’s psyche as it is right now. Engulfed by uncertain and constantly-changing social, political and economic times, the blues can do more than just serve as unobtrusive background music for the soundtrack of our lives. It can become...

Throughout his life, Louis Armstrong tried to explain how singing with a barbershop quartet on the streets of New Orleans was foundational to his musicianship. Until now, there has been no in-depth inquiry into what he meant when he said, “I figure singing and playing is the same,” or, “Singing...

Starting in 1945 and continuing for the next twenty years, dozens of African American rhythm and blues artists made records that incorporated West Indian calypso. Some of these recordings were remakes or adaptations of existing calypsos, but many were original compositions. Several, such as “Stone...

Il Jazz: un gioco da ragazzi nasce da una rilettura critica del Jazz, della sua evoluzione e delle sue caratteristiche fondanti, volta ad individuare dei presupposti pedagogici trasferibili in una didattica che privilegi l'ascolto, il gioco e la creatività, senza togliere spazio alle tradizionali...

The definitive biography of musical legend Bessie Smith: “A landmark in the writing of jazz history . . . First-rate” (The Washington Post). Known as the “Empress of the Blues,” Bessie Smith was a successful vaudeville entertainer who became the highest paid African American performer...

“The American Negro,” Arthur Schomburg wrote in 1925, “must remake his past in order to make his future.” Many Harlem Renaissance figures agreed that reframing the black folk inheritance could play a major role in imagining a new future of racial equality and artistic freedom. In Deep River...

Deep Ellum, on the eastern edge of downtown Dallas, retains its character as an alternative to the city’s staid image with loft apartments, art galleries, nightclubs, and tattoo shops. It first sprang up as a ramshackle business district with saloons and variety theatres and evolved, during the...

For a generation of musicians and fans, the late Ray Charles provided the catalyst that fused the previously largely exclusive genres of jazz, blues and gospel music. In an era when jazz and pop music were seemingly poles apart, the impact of Charles’ music was truly revolutionary in that it brought...

The companion book to the groundbreaking PBS and BBC documentary series celebrating the pioneers and artists of American roots music—blues, gospel, folk, Cajun, Appalachian, Hawaiian, Native American—without which there would be no jazz, rock, country R&B, or hip hop today. Jack White,...

With these easy-to-play renditions, beginning pianists of all ages can enjoy one of America's most celebrated art forms. Sixteen popular blues melodies include traditional songs such as "St. James Infirmary" and "Careless Love" as well as several numbers by blues giants Jelly Roll Morton and W. C. Handy,...