With unsparing honesty and a superb eye for detail, Clark Terry, born in 1920, takes us from his impoverished childhood in St. Louis, Missouri, where jazz could be heard everywhere, to the smoke-filled small clubs and carnivals across the Jim Crow South where he got his start, and on to worldwide acclaim. Terry takes us behind the scenes of jazz history as he introduces scores of legendary greats—Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah Washington, Doc Severinsen, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Coleman Hawkins, Zoot Sims, and Dianne Reeves, among many others. Terry also reveals much about his own personal life, his experiences with racism, how he helped break the color barrier in 1960 when he joined the Tonight Show band on NBC, and why—at ninety years old—his students from around the world still call and visit him for lessons.

    Now, Ricky Riccardi—jazz scholar and musician—takes an in-depth look at the years in which Armstrong was often dismissed as a buffoonish, if popular, entertainer, and shows us instead the inventiveness and depth of expression that his music evinced during this time. These are the years (from after World War II until his death in 1971) when Armstrong entertained crowds around the world and recorded his highest-charting hits, including “Mack the Knife” and “Hello, Dolly!”; years when he collaborated with, among others, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Dave Brubeck; when he recorded with strings and big bands, and, of course, with the All Stars, his primary recording ensemble for more than two decades. Riccardi makes clear that these were years in which Armstrong both burnished and enhanced his legacy as one of jazz’s most influential figures. Eminently readable, informative, and insightful, here, finally, is a book that enlarges and completes our understanding of a peerless musical genius of commanding influence as both an instrumentalist and a vocalist.From the Hardcover edition.

    Co-written by Jason Rogers.

    Each of the musicians who performed with Davis--saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer TonyWilliams--went on to a successful career as a top player. The studio recordings released by this group made profound contributions to improvisational strategies, jazz composition, and mediation between mainstream and avant-garde jazz, yet most critical attention has focused instead on liveperformances or the socio-cultural context of the work. Keith Waters' The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68 concentrates instead on the music itself, as written, performed, and recorded.Treating six different studio recordings in depth--ESP, Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, and Filles de Kilimanjaro--Waters has tracked down a host of references to and explications of Davis' work. His analysis takes into account contemporary reviews of the recordings, interviewswith the five musicians, and relevant larger-scale cultural studies of the era, as well as two previously unexplored sources: the studio outtakes and Wayne Shorter's Library of Congress composition deposits. Only recently made available, the outtakes throw the master takes into relief, revealinghow the musicians and producer organized and edited the material to craft a unified artistic statement for each of these albums. The author's research into the Shorter archives proves to be of even broader significance and interest, as Waters is able now to demonstrate the composer's originalconception of a given piece. Waters also points out errors in the notated versions of the canonical songs as they often appear in the main sources available to musicians and scholars. An indispensible resource, The Miles Davis Quintet Studio Recordings: 1965-1968 is suited for the jazz scholar aswell as for jazz musicians and aficionados of all levels.

    For any level of player, on any instrument. Endorsed by Jessica Wiliams, Jerry Bergonzi, Bill mays, etc.

    With the help of the Flying Jazz Kitten and a swingin' beat, Freddie becomes a jazz sensation. Freddie the Frog and the Flying Jazz Kitten introduces children to jazz through interactive scat. The enclosed audio CD includes the dramatized story, sing-along songs and an instrumental blues track to create your own special scat. Ages 4-9. Available separately or in the Teacher Jazz set, along with the Scat Words Flashcard Set 5 and Scat Singing for Kids teacher guide.

    Hal Leonard is proud to publish completely legal and legitimate editions of the original volumes as well as exciting new volumes to carry on the tradition to new generations of players in all styles of music All the Real Books feature hundreds of time-tested songs in accurate arrangements in the famous easy-to-read, hand-written notation with comb-binding.This all-new 4th volume presents 400 more songs, not previously available in any other volume Includes: Ashes to Ashes * Button up Your Overcoat * Cocktails for Two * Days of Wine and Roses * Down with Love * A Foggy Day (In London Town) * The Good Life * Home * I Got Rhythm * I Hadn't Anyone Till You * If You Could See Me Now * Just Friends * Kansas City * Linus and Lucy * Lonely Girl * Maybe This Time * My Bells * Night and Day * On Broadway * On Green Dolphin Street * Only the Lonely * The Pink Panther * Puttin' on the Ritz * Relaxin' at the Camarillo * Reunion Blues * The Sermon * The Shadow of Your Smile * Side by Side * Smile * Summertime * Sunny * Them There Eyes * and many more.

    At the time, fusion was disparaged by jazz writers and ignored by rock critics. In the years since, it has come to be seen as a commercially driven jazz substyle. Fusion never did coalesce into a genre. In Birds of Fire, Kevin Fellezs contends that hybridity was its reason for being. By mixing different musical and cultural traditions, fusion artists sought to disrupt generic boundaries, cultural hierarchies, and critical assumptions. Interpreting the work of four distinctive fusion artists—Tony Williams, John McLaughlin, Joni Mitchell, and Herbie Hancock—Fellezs highlights the ways that they challenged convention in the 1960s and 1970s. He also considers the extent to which a musician can be taken seriously as an artist across divergent musical traditions. Birds of Fire concludes with a look at the current activities of McLaughlin, Mitchell, and Hancock; Williams’s final recordings; and the legacy of the fusion music made by these four pioneering artists.

    Illustrated text.

    Music. Book + CD. Interviews. Photographs by Jacques Bisceglia. During the last 12 years, William Parker interviewed 32 of his friends and colleagues, artists and musicians. "There is a special level of trust and understanding that artists reach when speaking with other artists. William Parker goes deep in these one-on-one conversations to reveal brilliance, truth, wit, humanity and a relaxed eloquence that is both illuminating and a fascinating read. Conversations sheds long overdue light on some of the most important musicians of our time and in so doing presents us with an essential piece of the creative music puzzle. This is oral history at its best" John Zorn. CD includes CD excerpts from the interviews and William Parker bass solos, total time: 68:40. Edited by Ed Hazell."

    Yet few traces of this revolution can be found in the historical record of the late 1920s, when the discs were made. Even black newspapers coveredArmstrong as just one name among many, and descriptions of his playing, while laudatory, bear little resemblance to those of today. Through a careful analysis of seven seminal recordings in this compact and engaging book, author Brian Harker recaptures the perspective of Armstrong's originalaudience without abandoning that of today's listeners. The world of vaudeville and show business provide crucial context to his readings, revealing how the demands of making a living in a competitive environment catalyzed Armstrong's unique artistic gifts. Invoking a breadth of influences rangingfrom New Orleans clarinet style to Guy Lombardo, and from tap dancing to classical music, Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings offers bold insights, fresh anecdotes, and, ultimately, a new interpretation of Louis Armstrong and his most influential body of work.

    Degas and the Nude is the first book in a generation to explore the artist's treatment of the nude from his early years in the 1850s and 1860s, through his triumphs in the 1880s and 1890s, all the way to his last decades when the theme dominated his artistic production in all media. With essays by leading American and French critics, it provides a new interpretation of Degas' evolving conception of the nude, situating it in the subject's broader context among his peers in nineteenth-century France. It explores how Degas exploited all of the body's expressive possibilities, how his vision of the nude informed his notion of modernity, and how he abandoned the classical or historical form in favor of a figure seen in her own time and setting--whether engaged in overtly carnal acts or just stepping out of an ordinary bath. More than 200 lushly rendered full-color images present a re-seeing of Degas' subject in paintings, pastels, drawings, prints and sculpture. Among them are the most important of Degas' early paintings of nudes, Scene of War in the Middle Ages, which exerted a lifelong influence on the artist's treatment of the female nude and includes poses repeated throughout his career; monotypes of the late 1870s, almost caricature-like in their imagery, illustrating Degas' most explicitly sexual depictions of women in Parisian brothels; and a number of pictures portraying the daily life of women wherever they may reside. Together these iterations range over more than a half-century of genius achievement and present a groundbreaking look at the evolution of this master artist.

    I loved jazz, and jazz was my way of doing that,” Norman Granz told Tad Hershorn during the final interviews given for this book. Granz, who died in 2001, was iconoclastic, independent, immensely influential, often thoroughly unpleasant—and one of jazz’s true giants. Granz played an essential part in bringing jazz to audiences around the world, defying racial and social prejudice as he did so, and demanding that African-American performers be treated equally everywhere they toured. In this definitive biography, Hershorn recounts Granz’s story: creator of the legendary jam session concerts known as Jazz at the Philharmonic; founder of the Verve record label; pioneer of live recordings and worldwide jazz concert tours; manager and recording producer for numerous stars, including Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson.