Everyone's wearing black. And on-stage a tenor is blowing his heart out, a searching, jagged saxophone journey played out against a moody, walking bass and the swish of a drummer's brushes. To a great many listeners--from African American aficionados of the period to a whole new group of fans today--this is the very embodiment of jazz. It is also quintessential hard bop. In this, the first thorough study of the subject, jazz expert and enthusiast David H. Rosenthal vividly examines the roots, traditions, explorations and permutations, personalities and recordings of a climactic period in jazz history. Beginning with hard bop's origins as an amalgam of bebop and R&B, Rosenthal narrates the growth of a movement that embraced the heavy beat and bluesy phrasing of such popular artists as Horace Silver and Cannonball Adderley; the stark, astringent, tormented music of saxophonists Jackie McLean and Tina Brooks; the gentler, more lyrical contributions of trumpeter Art Farmer, pianists Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan, composers Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce; and such consciously experimental and truly one-of-a-kind players and composers as Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus. Hard bop welcomed all influences--whether Gospel, the blues, Latin rhythms, or Debussy and Ravel--into its astonishingly creative, hard-swinging orbit. Although its emphasis on expression and downright badness over technical virtuosity was unappreciated by critics, hard bop was the music of black neighborhoods and the last jazz movement to attract the most talented young black musicians. Fortunately, records were there to catch it all. The years between 1955 and 1965 are unrivaled in jazz history for the number of milestones on vinyl. Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um, Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners, Horace Silver's Further Explorations--Rosenthal gives a perceptive cut-by-cut analysis of these and other jazz masterpieces, supplying an essential discography as well. For knowledgeable jazz-lovers and novices alike, Hard Bop is a lively, multi-dimensional, much-needed examination of the artists, the milieus, and above all the sounds of one of America's great musical epochs.

    By experimenting with new concepts of time, integrating Eastern philosophies into Western music, and exploring multiphonics and other new sounds on his saxophone, he opened avenues of expression that influenced musicians and composers from jazz to rock to avant-garde.Bill Cole focuses on two aspects of John Coltrane in this provocative study: Coltrane the musician and Coltrane the religious person. Deeply interrelated, both aspects are bound up with Coltrane's identification as an African- American. Coltrane accepted the traditional African belief in the magical powers of sound and connected his music to its African roots via a devout religiosity. Cole shows how Coltrane's influences extended from tribal tone languages to speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. -- he even adapted King's rhythmic inflections into a saxophone solo.Bill Cole offers a lengthy musical analysis of Coltrane's career; it also includes a detailed discography with recording data and personnel and over two dozen photographs. Cole draws on quotes from Coltrane himself, transcriptions of his improvisations, analyses of his music, research into West African religion, and his own personal reminiscences of the man, to offer a stimulating perspective on Coltrane's music, life, and thought.

    Readers will discover a new perspective on Miles's working methods, as well as in in-depth, chronological understanding and analysis of the music produced from 1967 to 1991 - a period that's been both neglected and misunderstood.

    He examines the myths and misconceptions that have grown up around progressive rock and paints a vivid, colourful picture of the Seventies based on hundreds of hours of his own interviews with musicians, music business insiders, journalists and DJs, and from the personal testimonies of those who were fans of the music in that extraordinary decade.

    With ten months to live, he decided to accept his imminent death and went on the road. His calm, philosophical response made him even more beloved and admired. And then the strangest thing happened: he didn't die. Don't You Leave Me Here is the story of his life in music, his life with cancer, and his life now - in the future he never thought he would see.

    Later, this Bermondsey boy would become known as Tommy Steele . In this engaging memoir Tommy recalls his childhood years growing up in Bermondsey. He relives with great fondness Saturdays as a young boy, spent gazing at the colourful posters for the Palladium and days spent wandering up Tower Bridge Road to Joyce's Pie Shop for pie and mash. But he also brings to life with extraordinary vividness what it was like to live through the devastation of the Blitz. Yet it was once he joined the merchant navy and began singing and performing for his fellow seamen that his natural ability as an entertainer marked him out as a favourite. And it was while ashore in America that he became hooked on rock'n'roll and a legend was born . From Tommy's humble beginning to life at sea and finally as a performer, Bermondsey Boy is a colourful, charming and deeply engaging memoir from a much-loved entertainer.

    But his life was filled with tragedy, including years of electroshock therapy in psychiatric institutions, illnesses, physical and mental abuse from people who fed him dangerous drugs to control him, and the indifference of his contemporaries to his genius. Francis Paudras, a young jazz fan who met Powell in the late 1950s, released him from his unfavorable surroundings, encouraged him to create some of his finest music, and took care of him as if he were his child. Powell’s story, Dance of the Infidels, is one of the most moving of jazz memoirs—and served as the basis for Bertrand Tavernier’s film ’Round Midnight, starring Dexter Gordon. Here, for the first time in English, is a portrait of a friendship as surprising and heartbreaking as Bud Powell’s timeless music.

    Among his peers from California the self-taught Hawes was second only to Oscar Peterson. At the time of his celebration as New Star of the Year by downbeat magazine (1956), Hawes was already struggling with a heroin addiction that would lead to his arrest and imprisonment, and the interruption of a brilliant career. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy granted Hawes an Executive Pardon. In eloquent and humorous language Hampton Hawes tells of a life of suffering and redemption that reads like an improbable novel. Gary Giddins has called it "a major contribution to the literature of jazz." This book includes a complete discography and eight pages of photographs.

    The complete account of the Sex Pistols saga.

    Throughout Shorter's extraordinary fifty-year career, his compositions have helped define the sounds of each distinct era in the history of jazz.Filled with musical analysis by Mercer, enlivened by Shorter's vivid recollections, and enriched by more than seventy-five original interviews with his friends and associates, this book is at once an invaluable history of music from bebop to pop, an intimate and moving biography, and a story of a man's struggle toward the full realization of his gifts and of himself.

    If you don't know what you want, I'll do it for you."Few record producers possess the musical facility to back up such a bold promise, but in over forty-plus years behind the glass, Todd Rundgren has willed himself into becoming a not only a rock guitar virtuoso, an accomplished lead vocalist and vocal arranger and visionary keyboard player, not to mention a serviceable drummer. But arguably, Rundgren's greatest instrument of all is the recording studio itself. After learning his craft with Nazz, Rundgren engineered The Band's Stage Fright album and soon became the producer of a string of noteworthy albums for Sparks, Grand Funk, The New York Dolls, Badfinger, Hall & Oates, Meat Loaf, Patti Smith Group, Cheap Trick, The Psychedelic Furs and XTC. Meanwhile, Rundgren played almost every instrument on his solo albums such as Something/Anything?, A Wizard A True Star and Hermit Of Mink Hollow while collaborating on a series of albums by his band, Utopia. A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren In The Studio by Paul Myers is a fascinating and authoritative trip through the land of flickering red lights inhabited by a studio wizard - and true star - who has rarely enjoyed a proper victory lap along the many trails that he has blazed. Researched and written with the participation and cooperation of Rundgren himself.

    A role model for generations of writers and performers, Doc was renowned for his mastery of virtually every popular style, from the gutbucket rhythm and blues of “Lonely Avenue” to the symphonic soul of “Save the Last Dance for Me” to the pure pop of “Viva Las Vegas.” His songs-“This Magic Moment,” “A Teenager in Love,” “Hushabye,” “Little Sister,” “Turn Me Loose,” and many others-have been recorded by everyone from Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, and B. B. King to Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and Bruce Springsteen, with sales exceeding $100 million. Doc was ready-made for literature. His collaborator Mort Shuman once described him as an “entire rollicking soul neighborhood rolled into one man.” Garrulous, profane, hilarious, and Rabelaisian, Doc was never inhibited about offering his opinions and his friendship. His confidants, collaborators, and discoveries included Duke Ellington, John Lennon, Dr. John, Jimmy Scott, Bette Midler, and Lou Reed. In the words of renowned producer Jerry Wexler, “If the music industry had a heart, it would be Doc Pomus.” Despite, or more likely because of, his successes, few acquaintances knew that this writer of jukebox hits led one of the most dramatic and unlikely lives of his time. Spanning extravagant wealth and desperate poverty, suburban domesticity and the depths of New York’s underworld, worldwide fame and near-total obscurity, enduring love and persistent loneliness, Doc’s story remains one of the great untold American lives. Its chapters comprise a back-room history of rock ’n’ roll, touching on more than a half-century of American popular music-from the blues Doc performed with Lester Young to his collaborations with the luminaries of New York’s punk scene, shot through with vivid portraits of virtually every major player. Lonely Avenue is the first biography of this American original, so elegantly rendered that it reads like a novel, and fortified by full, exclusive access to Doc Pomus’s family, friends, voluminous journals, and archives.

    With record-collector zeal, Cook analyzes everything from Sidney Bechet's 78s to Norah Jones' recent chart-topper.

    Based on scores of interviews with his family, friends and compatriots, along with voluminous research, this book gives the reader insight into the elusive and often eccentric personality of the composer. It paints a vivid picture of the difficulties faced by a serious jazz performer in the 50's and 60's who had to battle to overcome racism to make his mark as a musician. Beautifully illustrated with rare photos.

    It covered jazz, of course, but it also included Davis’s ruminations on race, politics and culture. Fascinated, Hef sent the writer—future Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Alex Haley, an unknown at the time—back to glean even more opinion and insight from Davis. The resulting exchange, published in the September 1962 issue, became the first official Playboy Interview and kicked off a remarkable run of public inquisition that continues today—and that has featured just about every cultural titan of the last half century.To celebrate the Interview’s 50th anniversary, the editors of Playboy have culled 50 of its most (in)famous Interviews and will publish them over the course of 50 weekdays (from September 4, 2012 to November 12, 2012) via Amazon’s Kindle Direct platform. Here is that first Interview with Miles Davis.