Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles is one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. The subject of several biographies, now Miles speaks out himself about his extraordinary life.Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. For the first time Miles talks about his five-year silence. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it. He condemns the racism he has encountered in the music business and in American society generally. And he discusses the women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played with over the years: Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Trane, Mingus, and many others.The man who has given us some of the most exciting music of the past few decades has now given us a compelling and fascinating autobiography, featuring a concise discography and thirty-two pages of photographs.

    Graham Lock writes from the perceptual plane of insight and dedication-coupled with a keen wit and a dynamic intellect.

    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 aremarkable 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 itsbeginnings 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 thiswell-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 Ellingtonp usedthe 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 Nesbitthelped 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 likeBenny 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.

    Includes: Ain't Misbehavin' * All the Things You Are * Birdland * Body and Soul * A Foggy Day * Girl From Ipanema * Here's That Rainy Day * The Lady Is a Tramp * Love for Sale * Mercy, Mercy, Mercy * Midnight Sun * Moonlight in Vermont * Night and Day * Skylark * Stormy Weather * Sweet Georgia Brown.