Hardcover. Solana Beach, CA, Santa Monica Press LLC, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 336 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. A very clean, unmarked copy. Color and black & white photographs throughout.
Hardcover. Germany, PPVMedien, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket, 220 pages profusely illustrated in color. The story of Taylor Guitars from small San Diego company to a company producing over 70000 quality guitars a year. Showcases many rare guitars, including instruments made by Bob Taylor before the company's founding, standard production models and custom built instruments. Clean copy.
Softcover. San Diego, Harcourt Brace,, reprint, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 839 pages, contains two glossy black and white plates sections. This major work, the result of years of careful study and analysis, places Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life and music in the context of the intellectual, political and artistic currents of eighteenth-century Europe. The result is a fresh interpretation of Mozart's genius, as Robert Gutman shows the great composer in a new light. With an informed and sensitive handling, Mozart emerges as an affectionate and generous man with family and friends, self-deprecating, witty, and winsome but also an austere moralist, incisive and purposeful. The major genres in which Mozart worked-chamber music, liturgical, theater and keyboard compositions, concertos, operas, symphonies, and oratorios-are unfolded to reveal a man of luminous intellect. Mozart is an extraordinary portrait of a man and his times and a brilliant distillation of musical thought.
Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, price-clipped dust jacket. 192 pages including index. Traces the life and career of the influential jazz musician from the 1920s to his death in 1991. Profusely illustrated with b&w, some color photos.
Hardcover. NY, Warner/Amistad, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright. unclipped dust jacket. Wonderful, inspiring stories of dozens of black women in opera and classical music. Features in-depth portrais of such notables as Sissieretta Jones, Elizabeth Taylor-Greenfield, Marie Selika, Marian Anderson, Flora Batson, Dorothy Maynor and many more. 236 pages including index. B&W photos. Inscription on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Softcover. NY, Vintage Books, reprint, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pictorial wrappers, 264 pages, b&w illustrations. In this classic work of American music writing, renowned critic Albert Murray argues beautifully and authoritatively that the blues as such are synonymous with low spirits. Not only is its express purpose to make people feel good, which is to say in high spirits, but in the process of doing so it is actually expected to generate a disposition that is both elegantly playful and heroic in its nonchalance. In Stomping the Blues Murray explores its history, influences, development, and meaning as only he can. More than two hundred vintage photographs capture the ambiance Murray evokes in lyrical prose. Only the sounds are missing from this lyrical, sensual tribute to the blues. Originally published in 1976. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean with mild shelf wear.
Softcover. NY, Oxford University Press, reprint, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 414 pages. Contains a wealth of jazz profiles he has written for The New Yorker during the past twenty-seven years. He gives us, in this spectacular volume, his famous early portraits of Pee Wee Russell, Red Allen, Earl Hines, and Mary Lou Williams, written in their brilliant twilight. Clean, like new.
Softcover. Lanham MD, Scarecrow Press, reprint, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 203 pages. Using over 90 original interviews, as well as his extensive research in a variety of New Orleans' archives, Dr. Kennedy deftly explores the role public school teachers had in the formative years of jazz, as well as the influence they continue to have on the musical life of one of America's foremost musical cities. As jazz and music mentors, these teachers employed creativity, innovation, and dedication in propelling some of the world's finest musicians forward into brilliant careers. Chord Changes on the Chalkboard includes a foreword by jazz legend Ellis Marsalis, Jr. and is a must for jazz fans and historians, music libraries, and for collections supporting the study of popular culture and African-American history. Bright, clean copy.
Softcover. Los Angeles, Augustan Reprint Society, reprint, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Facsimile reprint of two 18th century editions; stapled wraps; 37 clean, 65 unmarked pages. The librettos and music by Motteux and Eccles. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly rubbed dust jacket, 560 pages, b&w illustrations. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, music historian Judith Tick draws on deep archival research, family interviews and newly available recordings and concert footage to show how Fitzgerald fused a Black vocal aesthetic with mainstream popular repertoire to revolutionise American music. From Fitzgerald's first audition at the Apollo Theatre to swing-era success at the Savoy, Tick shows how this 'girl singer' broke new ground: as a female bandleader, as a ground-breaking bebop improviser and as the arbiter of the American canon with her Song Book recordings. Yet even as she electrified concert halls and sold millions of records, jazz critics belittled her as 'naive'. Tick reveals instead an ambitious risk-taker with a stunningly diverse repertoire, whose exceptional musical spontaneity (often radically different on stage than in the studio) made her a transformational artist. Remainder dot to top edge otherwise a clean copy.
Softcover. US, Academy Books, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 89 pages. Signed by Johnnie Francis and Judith Porter Sargent on front end paper. Clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. New York, Hyperion Books, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 304 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. A complete visual history of the rock group. The Doors are rock royalty. Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore reinvented rock 'n' roll in the 60s, and their influence can be felt even today. Now, for the first time, the living members of the band are opening up their personal archives to their fans, telling their story in their own words. This book is filled with untold anecdotes and never-before-seen photos from their private collections. Fans can learn first-hand what really went on in America's most enigmatic and mythical band.
Softcover. US, H.S. Wake, 1st, 1975, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Non-paginated. Report cover style binding. Fold-out plans, diagrams, etc. throughout. A set of full-scale working drawings for a violin cello and the mold on which it is built, together with plans for a collapsible travel 'cello Light wear and soil to plastic cover. Pages lightly soiled.
Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 232 pages. "Professor DeNora's achievement in placing Beethoven, and the reception of Beethoven's music, in social context is all the more impressive because it goes so much against the grain of conventional habits of thought. In illuminating how changing social institutions created opportunities for Beethoven to gain contemporary and posthumous recognition, and, in so doing, created new forms for thinking and talking about musical achievement-the author at once provides fresh insights into the institutional origins of 'classical' music and offers an exemplary contribution to the sociological study of the arts." Clean copy.
Hardcover. University Of Iowa Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 168 pages. Using jazz as the key metaphor, Porter refocuses old interpretations of Ellison by placing jazz in the foreground and by emphasizing, especially as revealed in his essays, the power of Ellison's thought and cultural perception. Clean copy.
Softcover. NY, Da Capo Press, reprint, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 301 pages, b&w photos. Sarah Vaughan possessed the most spectacular voice in jazz history. In Sassy, Leslie Gourse, the acclaimed biographer of Nat King Cole and Joe Williams, defines and celebrates Vaughan's vital musical legacy and offers a detailed portrait of the woman as well as the singer. Revealed here is "The Divine One" as only her closest friends and musical associates knew her. By her early twenties Sarah Vaughan was singining with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Billy Eckstine, helping them invent bebop. For forty-five years thereafter, she reigned supreme in both pop and jazz, with several million-selling hits (among them "Broken Hearted Melody," "Make Yourself Comfortable," and "Misty"). But life offstage was never smooth for Sarah Vaughan. Her voluptuous voice was matched by her exuberant appetite for excess: three failed marriages, financial difficulties through many changes in management, late-night jam sessions, liquor, and cocaine. Remainder line on bottom edge, otherwise clean.
Softcover. NY, Quadrangle /New York Times Book Co., 2nd pr., 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 251 pages; Music and lyrics for TV advertising songs pre-1070's. Remember Brush Your Teeth with Pepsodent; Ajax, the Foaming Cleanser; It's the Real Thing, I'm Chiquita Banana, and so many more? They're all here, over 120 jingles with musical arrangements. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Da Capo Press, reprint, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth with silver gilt lettering. First published in 1962 Jazz Panorama presents roughly forty short articles from the pages of The Jazz Review from the late 1950s and early 1960s, selected by respected jazz historian Martin Williams, the magazine's co-founder (with Nat Hentoff).This is the type of book that one can dip into from time to time and always find something both enjoyable and educational. Written in clear, understandable prose, the book collects short essays, record reviews (usually of multiple LPs), and two interviews. A wide range of jazz styles and movements is covered here, everything from Dixieland to "third stream" and the avant-garde of Ornette Coleman.The jazz musicians included for discussion range from King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton to Bix Biederbecke. Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, and Miles Davis. 318 pages, clean copy. No dust jacket.
Softcover. NY, Berkeley Boulevard Books, 1st thus, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 325 pages, b&w illustrations. Brimming with concert information, the histories of their songs, profiles of band members, tour highlights, Phish-filled anecdotes, articles by fans and editors, and more, this book is the ultimate guide to this popular band. Clean, bright copy. Like new.
Hardcover. Bloomsbury Sigma, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial cloth, 320 pages. The story of recorded sound - the technological developments, the people that made them happen and the impact they had on society - from the earliest inventions via the phonograph to LPs, EPs and the recent resurgence of vinyl.While Thomas Edison's phonograph, the first device that could both record and reproduce sound, represented an important turning point in the story of recorded sound, it was really only the tip of the iceberg, and came after decades of invention, tinkering and experiment.Into the Groove tells the story of the birth of recorded sound, from the earliest serious attempts in the 1850s all the way up to the vinyl resurgence we're currently enjoying. This book celebrates the ingenuity, rivalries and science of the modulated groove.
Softcover. Chicago's Books Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 200 pages, b&w illustrations. CD included. An interesting behind-the-scenes look at the golden age of Midwest radio. This book is a must read if you grew up in the late 1950's and 1960's listening to WLS radio in Chicago. Clark Weber takes us along with him as he starts his radio career in a little daytime station and then progresses to the "Big 89". He chronicles the rise of WLS into a 38 state "Blowtorch" during the 25+ years that the station ruled the midwest airways as THE 'Top 40' radio station. You will hear stories of the 'jocks' that worked with him, how fun it was working the big 'hops' around Chicago and the midwest, his understanding wife, and his lone solo airplane flight that almost ended the fun for him. Clean copy.
Hardcover. London, Macmillan and Co, 1st, 1894, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 163 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w by Hugh Thomson. Unfortunate foxing throughout text. Minor wear to illustrated boards with light soil to rear cover.
Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 240 pages, illustrated throughout in color and b&w. Light edgewear to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 492 pages, b&w photos. In a lightly worn dust jacket, clean copy. Otto Klemperer was one of the great conductors of the century, best known in the last years of his life for his performances and recordings of the classical symphonic repertory from Mozart to Mahler. Volume 1 only.
Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 398 pages. From colonial times to the present, American composers have lived on the fringes of society and defined themselves in large part as outsiders. In this stimulating book Michael Broyles considers the tradition of maverick composers and explores what these mavericks reveal about American attitudes toward the arts and about American society itself.Broyles starts by examining the careers of three notably unconventional composers: William Billings in the eighteenth century, Anthony Philip Heinrich in the nineteenth, and Charles Ives in the twentieth. All three had unusual lives, wrote music that many considered incomprehensible, and are now recognized as key figures in the development of American music. Broyles goes on to investigate the proliferation of eccentric individualism in all types of American music-classical, popular, and jazz-and how it has come to dominate the image of diverse creative artists from John Cage to Frank Zappa. The history of the maverick tradition, Broyles shows, has much to tell us about the role of music in American culture and the tension between individualism and community in the American consciousness.Leer menos
Hardcover. London, Faber and Faber, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Music's confrontation with modernity has been difficult, and has often involved the artist leaving his country for political and social reasons. In the company of a range of performers,this work reflects the difficulties encountered and the audiences' often reluctant attitude towards them.
Hardcover. San Diego, Thunder Bay, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, color throughout. Nevermind, Achtung Baby, Use Your Illusion 1&2 - the 90s saw some classic albums produced by artists such as Nirvana, U2, Gun n Roses and Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as a resurgence in country music popularized by Shania Twain and Garth Brooks. Combining information from both the US and UK charts provided by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and British Phonographic Industry (BPI), 100 Best Selling Albums of the 90s features chart-topping work from Michael Jackson, Puff Daddy and Green Day. Each album entry is accompanied by the original sleeve artwork front and back - and is packed full of facts and recording information, including a complete track listing, musician and production credits, and an authoritative commentary on the record and its place in cultural history. Soundtracks featured include the 60s and 70s hits on Forrest Gump, the Elton John/Tim Rice songs in The Lion King, and the orchestral score for Titanic (and Celine Dion's Oscar-winning My Heart Will Go On). Other stand-out albums include the Eagles' reforming to make Hell Freezes Over and Eric Clapton's Unplugged, a career revival for him in the popular 90s back-to-basics semi-acoustic series.
Softcover. NY, Cooper Square Press, 1st pbk, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 285 pages, b&w illustrations. As told by the musicians who made it happen, Desperados: The Roots of Country Rock revisits country rock's rise to the top of the charts. Music scholar John Einarson delves into the years from 1963, when Buck Owens and his Buckaroos brought an electric edge to their Texas honky-tonk tunes, to 1973, when The Eagles released their album "Desperado" on David Geffen's label. Einarson examines how folk, rockabilly, blues, Nashville country, Tejano, bluegrass, and other musical idioms influenced a generation of journeyman musicians. He traces the paths taken by the songsmiths, the bands in which they served their apprenticeships, and the songs they wrote together, as they steadily shaped the country rock sound. The protagonists of this story include talented but troubled Gram Parsons, a virtuoso determined to burn out before he faded away; the versatile and appealing Linda Ronstadt; Mike Nesmith, the Monkee from Texas who returned to his musical roots with a trilogy of country-rock albums; TV heartthrob turned country rocker Rick Nelson; folkie songbird Emmylou Harris before she made it in Nashville; and many others. Clean.
Softcover. NY, Da Capo Press, reprint, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 245 pages, b&w photos. Sidney Bechet (1897-1959) was one of the most brilliant exponents of New Orleans jazz. A prodigy on the clarinet, he soloed with Bunk Johnson's orchestra at age eleven, was improvising cornet-clarinet duos with Buddy Petit at age fifteen. Leaving New Orleans in the 1920s, Bechet took his Creole sound and spirit to New York, where he adopted the soprano saxophone and soon developed the unique style that marked his special artistry.
Softcover. NY, Oxford University Press, reprint, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 402 pages, b&w illustrations. An insightful examination of the impact of the Civil Rights Movement and African Independence on jazz in the 1950s and 60s, Freedom Sounds traces the complex relationships among music, politics, aesthetics, and activism through the lens of the hot button racial and economic issues of the time. Ingrid Monson illustrates how the contentious and soul-searching debates in the Civil Rights, African Independence, and Black Power movements shaped aesthetic debates and exerted a moral pressure on musicians to take action. Throughout, her arguments show how jazz musicians' quest for self-determination as artists and human beings also led to fascinating and far reaching musical explorations and a lasting ethos of social critique and transcendence. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 308 pages, b&w illustrations. Burt Korall is widely recognized as the most authoritative writer on jazz drumming. His first book Drummin' Men--The Heartbeat of Jazz: The Swing Era is considered a classic. It was praised by Nat Hentoff as "a book that illuminates not only the pantheon of jazz drummers in classic jazz, but makes clear the very essence of the jazz spirit." Now, in this exciting sequel, Korall offers a richly informative history of drumming in the Bebop era.Bebop--hard driving, discordant, melodically unconventional--introduced new sounds and innovative rhythms that changed the face of jazz. Korall looks at this music through the eyes of the musicians themselves, covering a whole range of important jazz drummers, but focusing upon the most original and significant--principally Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, and Art Blakey. Korall provides a knowledgeable background about the history of bebop--and the unfortunate and almost universal heroin addiction that swept through the jazz world in the wake of Charlie Parker's habit. The book contains Korall's own memoir of nearly 50 years in the jazz world, linked by his narrative of the careers of these drummers and their place in the bebop jazz scene. But the most remarkable aspect of the book is the oral history that weaves together the stories of the drummers themselves as well as their friends and contemporaries. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Pantheon, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 495 pages. Boogaloo--the synonym of choice among the cognoscenti for rhythm and blues--is a stylish and profound meditation on the art, influence, and commerce of black American popular music. At once deeply knowing and keenly observant, Arthur Kempton reveals the tensions between the sacred and the profane at the heart of "soul music," and the complex centrality of "Aframericans" in the evolution of our mass musical culture. What that culture is all about, who owns it, and who gets paid--these are issues of moment in his epic narrative. Kempton brilliantly traces the interconnections among a century's worth of signal personalities, events, and achievements: from Thomas A. Dorsey, the so-called Father of Gospel Music, whose career ("Got to Know How to Work Your Show") sheds light on Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown, among others, to the rise of that "handsome Negro lad," Sam Cooke (perhaps the greatest of soul singers) and his definitive crossover dreams; from Berry Gordy Jr.'s infatuation with Doris Day and his sharp business plan to capture and exploit the sounds of young America through Motown ("It's What's in the Grooves That Counts") to the founding of Stax Records and Memphis Soul by a white farm kid who grew up dreaming of being a country fiddler; from the visionary funk of George Clinton to the ascendancy of hip hop ("Sharecropping in Wonderland"), the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, and the story of Death Row Records. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Cleveland OH, Dayton C. Miller, reprint, 1922, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 197 pages, dark blue cloth with gilt lettering and design. Many b&w drawings and photos, some fold-out. Light edgewear to cloth edges, mild foxing to end papers, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1st, 1929, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 634 pages. Hardcover. Illustrated with a few black & white photographs. Bookplate on inside front cover. Features music and lyrics. 1 Fold-out map of Virginia. Clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. New Rochelle, Arlington House, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 554 pages. Illustrated with black & white photographs. Moderate foxing to edges. An important reference book on this legend of the big band era. Clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. NY, Ballantine Books , 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 368 pages illustrated in color. For thirty-five years, bestselling author and accomplished musician Jonathan Kellerman has been, as he puts it in his Introduction to this lavishly illustrated, endlessly fascinating volume, "chasing fabulous sound." The result of that quest is a world-class collection of guitars, mandolins, and other stringed instruments that number more than 120 . . . and counting. Whether writing about household names such as Fender, Gibson, Martin, and Dobro or about marques revered by aficionados-D'Angelico, Hauser, Stromberg, and Torres-Kellerman brings to bear the same sure storytelling instincts and keen attention to detail that characterize his bestselling fiction, making each entry a sparkling mini-essay as much to be savored as the sensual photographs that follow.
Softcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, reprint, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 883 pages.The author reveals how musicians, both individually and collectively, learn to improvise. Chronicling leading musicians from their first encounters with jazz to the development of a unique improvisatory voice, Paul Berliner documents the lifetime of preparation that lies behind the skilled improviser's every idea. The product of more than fifteen years of immersion in the jazz world. Interviews with more than fifty professional musicians: bassists George Duvivier and Rufus Reid; drummers Max Roach, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Akira Tana; guitarist Emily Remler; pianists Tommy Flanagan and Barry Harris; saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Lee Konitz, and James Moody; trombonist Curtis Fuller; trumpeters Doc Cheatham, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, and Red Rodney; vocalists Carmen Lundy and Vea Williams; and others. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, WW Norton, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A collection of articles, poems, essays, speeches, literary criticisms, and interviews about the 1960s musician and lyricist examines his legacy and role in the traditions of folk, rock, and blues, in a volume that includes contributions by such figures as Sam Shepard, Bruce Springsteen, and Johnny Cash.
Softcover. NY, Routledge, 1st pbk, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 366 pages. The African Diaspora presents musical case studies from various regions of the African diaspora, including Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe, that engage with broader interdisciplinary discussions about race, gender, politics, nationalism, and music. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth covers, gilt lettering on spine. 263 pages, no dust jacket. Most of these essays appeared in The New Yorker over the course of 15 years. A tight, bright copy, clean.
Softcover. Jackson MS, University Press of Mississippi, reprint, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 520 pages. Whitney Balliett's long-awaited 'big book.' In it are all the jazz profiles he has written for The New Yorker during the past 24 years. These include his famous early portraits of Pee Wee Russell, Red Allen, Earl Hines, and Mary Lou Williams, done when these giants were in full flower; his recent reconstructions of the lives of such legends as Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, Jack Teagarden, Zoot Sims, and Dave Tough; His quick but indelible glimpses into the daily (or nocturnal) lives of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus; and his vivid pictures of such on-the-scene masters as Red Norvo, Ornette Coleman, Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones, Art Farmer, Michael Moore, and Tommy Flanagan. Also included are such lesser known but invaluable players as Art Hodes, Jabbo Smith, Joe Wilder, Warne Marsh, Gene Bertoncini, Joe Bushkin, and Marie Marcus. Clean, like new.
Hardcover. NY, Broadway Books, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 564 pages, b&w illustrations. A definitive biography of this giant among jazz musicians - based on previously unexplored archives of Armstrong's writings. Photographs, discography, bibliography, endnotes, index. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Hachette, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 415 pages, b&w illustrations. In Chuck Berry, biographer RJ Smith crafts a comprehensive portrait of one of the great American entertainers, guitarists, and lyricists of the 20th century, bringing Chuck Berry to life in vivid detail. Based on interviews, archival research, legal documents, and a deep understanding of Berry's St. Louis (his birthplace, and the place where he died in March 2017), Smith sheds new light on a man few have ever really understood. By placing his life within the context of the American culture he made and eventually withdrew from, we understand how Berry became such a groundbreaking figure in music, erasing racial boundaries, crafting subtle political commentary, and paying a great price for his success. While celebrating his accomplishments, the book also does not shy away from troubling aspects of his public and private life, asking profound questions about how and why we separate the art from the artist. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Harper, 2nd pr., 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 265 pages, b&w illustrations. The first installment in the long-awaited portrait of one of the most talented and influential musicians of the twentieth century, from Stanley Crouch, one of the foremost authorities on jazz and culture in America. Throughout his life, Charlie Parker personified the tortured American artist: a revolutionary performer who used his alto saxophone to create a new music known as bebop even as he wrestled with a drug addiction that would lead to his death at the age of thirty-four. Drawing on interviews with peers, collaborators, and family members, Kansas City Lightning recreates Parker's Depression-era childhood; his early days navigating the Kansas City nightlife, inspired by lions like Lester Young and Count Basie; and on to New York, where he began to transcend the music he had mastered. Clean copy.
Hardcover. London , Jazz Book Club/ Andre Deutsch, reprint, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 242 pages, in a very good dust jacket.
Hardcover. Hal Leonard Corporation, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 226 pages. Haunting the recording studios, jam sessions, concert halls, and nightclubs of New York City, William "PoPsie" Randolph chronicled the postwar transformation of American music from swing and jazz, to rhythm & blues and rock n' roll. The 100,000 negatives left behind after his death in 1978 span the giddy, glitzy heyday of swing in the 1940s, the hot and cool jazz spawned in the clubs of 52nd Street, the rumbling emergence of black R&B and doo-wop, the sudden explosion of rock n' roll in the late '50s, the rise of Brill Building pop and the British Invasion of the '60s, and the growth of rock into a multibillion-dollar industry by the '70s. PoPsie's son Michael has chosen the very best of his father's collection for inclusion in this remarkable book. Here readers will find luscious black-and-white photos of everyone from Benny Goodman and Billie Holiday to Elvis, The Beatles, Hendrix, and the Rolling Stones. Insightful text explains the time, people, and place of each captured moment.
Softcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 306 pages, b&w illustrations. In Creating Country Music, Richard Peterson traces the development of country music and its institutionalization from Fiddlin' John Carson's pioneering recordings in Atlanta in 1923 to the posthumous success of Hank Williams. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY/London, Macmillan / A&C Black, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with yellow lettering, color illustrated paste-down, 14 color plates by J.H. Hartley. 26 songs with music, 58 pages. Endpapers with mild foxing, otherwise clean