Jazz A History of America's Music

Name: Jazz A History of America's Music
Price: 5.02 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780679765394

ISBN-10: 0679765395

ISBN-13: 9780679765394

Edition: 2000

Authors: Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns

List price: $50.00

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Description:

The companion volume to the ten-part PBS TV series by the team responsible for The Civil War and Baseball. Continuing in the tradition of their critically acclaimed works, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns vividly bring to life the story of the quintessential American music—jazz. Born in the black community of turn-of-the-century New Orleans but played from the beginning by musicians of every color, jazz celebrates all Americans at their best. Here are the stories of the extraordinary men and women who made the music: Louis Armstrong, the fatherless waif whose unrivaled genius helped turn jazz into a soloist's art and influenced every singer, every instrumentalist who came after him; Duke… Ellington, the pampered son of middle-class parents who turned a whole orchestra into his personal instrument, wrote nearly two thousand pieces for it, and captured more of American life than any other composer. Bix Beiderbecke, the doomed cornet prodigy who showed white musicians that they too could make an important contribution to the music; Benny Goodman, the immigrants' son who learned the clarinet to help feed his family, but who grew up to teach a whole country how to dance; Billie Holiday, whose distinctive style routinely transformed mediocre music into great art; Charlie Parker, who helped lead a musical revolution, only to destroy himself at thirty-four; and Miles Davis, whose search for fresh ways to sound made him the most influential jazz musician of his generation, and then led him to abandon jazz altogether. Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum, Count Basie, Dave Brubeck, Artie Shaw, and Ella Fitzgerald are all here; so are Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and a host of others. But Jazz is more than mere biography. The history of the music echoes the history of twentieth-century America. Jazz provided the background for the giddy era that F. Scott Fitzgerald called the Jazz Age. The irresistible pulse of big-band swing lifted the spirits and boosted American morale during the Great Depression and World War II. The virtuosic, demanding style called bebop mirrored the stepped-up pace and dislocation that came with peace. During the Cold War era, jazz served as a propaganda weapon—and forged links with the burgeoning counterculture. The story of jazz encompasses the story of American courtship and show business; the epic growth of great cities—New Orleans and Chicago, Kansas City and New York—and the struggle for civil rights and simple justice that continues into the new millennium. Visually stunning, with more than five hundred photographs, some never before published, this book, like the music it chronicles, is an exploration—and a celebration—of the American experiment. From the Hardcover edition.

Book details

List price: $50.00
Copyright year: 2000
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 10/8/2002
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 512
Size: 9.20" wide x 11.00" long x 1.10" tall
Weight: 3.784

Geoffrey C. Ward won the national Book Critics Circle Award in 1989. He is the author of Unforgiveable Blackness and, with Ken Burns, he is co-author of The Civil War and Jazz.

Ken Burns, July 29, 1953 - Ken Burns was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 29, 1953. Burns attended the alternative campus of Hampshire College in Amherst Massachusetts, graduating with a degree in film making. After graduating from college, Burns began Florentine Films with a few of his friends, and began creating his first documentary, entitled "The Brooklyn Bridge." This film won an Academy Award in 1982. His most famous work is his "Civil War" series, which has won many various awards. Burns was the first film maker to be inducted into the Society of American Historians, an unprecedented honor.



Preface




Gumbo: Beginnings to 1907



The Gift: 1907-1917



The Jazz Age: 1917-1924


Freedom of expression with a groove an interview with Wynton Marsalis



Our Language: 1925-1929



Hard, Hard Times: 1929-1935


Reminiscing in tempo by Dan Morgenstern



The Velocity of Celebration: 1936-1939



Dedicated to Chaos: 1940-1945


White noise and white knights: some thoughts on race, jazz, and the white jazz musician by Gerald Early



Risk: 1945-1950


Extreme jazz: the avant-garde by Gary Giddins



The Adventure: 1950-1960


The presence is always the point by Stanley Crouch



A Masterpiece by Midnight: 1960 to the Present


Acknowledgments


Selected Bibliography


Index


Text Permissions


Illustration Credits


Film Credits