Music

Softcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 366 pages illustrated in color. The widespread presence of jazz and blues in African American visual art has long been overlooked. The Hearing Eye makes the case for recognizing the music's importance, both as formal template and as explicit subject matter. Moving on from the use of iconic musical figures and motifs in Harlem Renaissance art, this groundbreaking collection explores the more allusive - and elusive - references to jazz and blues in a wide range of mostly contemporary visual artists. There are scholarly essays on the painters Rose Piper (Graham Lock), Norman Lewis (Sara Wood), Bob Thompson (Richard H. King), Romare Bearden (Robert G. O'Meally, Johannes Volz) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (Robert Farris Thompson), as well an account of early blues advertising art (Paul Oliver) and a discussion of the photographs of Roy DeCarava (Richard Ings). These essays are interspersed with a series of in-depth interviews by Graham Lock, who talks to quilter Michael Cummings and painters Sam Middleton, Wadsworth Jarrell, Joe Overstreet and Ellen Banks about their musical inspirations, and also looks at art's reciprocal effect on music in conversation with saxophonists Marty Ehrlich and Jane Ira Bloom. Clean, bright copy

Softcover. Gweru, Zimbabwe, Mambo Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 153 pages, copiously illustrated throughout. Minor corner and edge wear, previous owner's signature on front endpaper, otherwise, very clean and tight copy.

Softcover. Durham NC, Duke University Press, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. pages. From scouring flea markets and eBay to maxing out their credit cards, record collectors will do just about anything to score a long-sought-after album. In Vinyl Freak, music writer, curator, and collector John Corbett burrows deep inside the record fiend's mind, documenting and reflecting on his decades-long love affair with vinyl. Discussing more than 200 rare and out-of-print LPs, Vinyl Freak is composed in part of Corbett's long-running DownBeat magazine column of the same name, which was devoted to records that had not appeared on CD. In other essays where he combines memoir and criticism, Corbett considers the current vinyl boom, explains why vinyl is his preferred medium, profiles collector subcultures, and recounts his adventures assembling the Alton Abraham Sun Ra Archive, an event so all-consuming that he claims it cured his record-collecting addiction. Like new in publisher's shrinkwrap.

Softcover. London, Castle Communications/Penguin, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pictorial wraps, Fantastic collection of color & black & white photos with lots of info about the band. Contains color reproductions of psychedelic posters for The Doors concerts. Discography. Light chipping to paper spine, otherwise clean, very good.

Hardcover. Boston, Oliver Ditson Co., 1st, 1905, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. Black & white frontis. portrait of author. Preface by Booker T. Washington. Ex-lib with small bookplate, residue to rear end paper, light marking. Top edge gilt. 127 pages.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on the front fly leaf. "During its first two centuries, opera was dominated by sopranos. There were male sopranos, or castrati, whose supercharged voices (female vocal cords powered by male lungs) were capable of feats of vocalism that are hard to imagine today. And there were female sopranos, or prime donne, whose long battle for social acceptance and top billing was crowned in the early nineteenth century when the castrati disappeared from the opera stage and left them supreme.", "Whether they were male or female, these singers wre amazing vertuosi, perhaps the greatest singers there have ever been - "angels." Unfortunately, some of them (and often the most famous) were also capable of behaving extremely badly, both on and off stage - "monsters." This book tells their colorful stories." Clean copy.

Softcover. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 224 pages illustrated in color. Looks at guitars from the point of view of design, visual impressions and artistic statement. Lots of guitars starting with acoustics with different sound holes and body styles to some of the more wild styles from the 50's to today (think V, Wandre, Veleno, Kawai Moonsault, etc) as well as some classics that made a statement in it's time and have become timeless (Tele. Strat, Les Paul, 335 etc.) A lot of different and weird guitars in gorgeous photographs.

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.

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.

Softcover. Urbana, University of Illinois Press , 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 361 pages, b&w illustrations. The Stonemans is an eye-opening slice of Americana---a trip through nearly twenty years of country music history following a single family from their native Blue Ridge Mountains to the slums of Washington, D.C., and the glitter of Nashville. As early as 1924 Ernest V. "Pop" Stoneman realized the potential of what is now known as country music, and he tried to carve a career from it. Successful as a recording artist from 1925 through 1929, Stoneman foundered during the Great Depression. He, his wife, and their nine children went to Washington in 1932, struggling through a decade of hardship and working to revive the musical career Pop still believed in. The Stoneman Family won the Country Music Association's Vocal Group of the Year Award in 1967. After Pop's death a year later, some of the children scattered to pursue their own careers. Ivan Tribe relies on extensive interviews with the Stonemans and their friends in this chronicle of a family whose members have clung to their musical heritage through good times and bad.

Softcover. Lanham MD, Scarecrow Press, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 331 pages, b&w illustrations. Like most ground-breaking art forms, contemporary creative music is rarely understood or accepted in its own time, and for those reasons, can largely go unheard. Music and the Creative Spirit: Innovators in Jazz, Improvisation, and the Avant Garde aims to give today's brightest music innovators due recognition and respect, celebrating their work and creativity. Through personal interviews, artists such as Pat Metheny, Regina Carter, Joshua Redman, Fred Anderson, Dave Holland, Bill Frisell, David Murray, and John Zorn-to name just a few-offer clear, frank discussions about music, creativity, work, society, culture, current events, and more. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. NY, Basic Books, reprint, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 359 pages. Stanley Crouch-MacArthur "genius" award recipient, co-founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center, National Book Award nominee, and perennial bull in the china shop of black intelligentsia- has been writing about jazz and jazz artists for over thirty years. His reputation for controversy is exceeded only by a universal respect for his intellect and passion. As Gary Giddons notes: "Stanley may be the only jazz writer out there with the kind of rhinoceros hide necessary to provoke and outrage and then withstand the fulminations that come back." Now, in a long-awaited collection, Crouch collects fifteen of his most influential, and most controversial pieces (published in Jazz Times, The New Yorker, the Village Voice, and elsewhere), and includes two new essays as well. The pieces range from the introspective "Jazz Criticism and its Effect on the Art Form" to a rollicking debate with Amiri Baraka, to vivid, intimate portraits of the legendary performers Crouch has known. The first, autobiographical essay reflects on his life in jazz as a drummer, a promoter, a critic, and most of all a lover of this quintessentially American art form. And the closing essay, about a young Italian saxophonist, expresses undaunted optimism for the worldwide vibrancy of jazz.Throughout, Crouch's work reminds us not only of why he is one of the world's most important living jazz critics, but also of why jazz itself remains, against all odds, an elemental component of our cultural identity. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st pbk, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 398 pages. Alex Stewart's excellent book tackles a subject which has been hidden in plain sight: the central importance of the big band, not as dead artifact of the Swing Era, but as a seminal and nurturing force through the entire history of jazz down to our own time. Through an attractive blend of ethnographic participant-observation, historiography, and formal analysis, Stewart puts the big band at the center of jazz, arguing for its indispensability as a locus of instrumental training and rehearsal, composition, legitimation, and professional networking. Informed and enriched by his own experience as a performer in those worlds. Light crease to front cover, clean copy.

Hardcover. Woodstock NY, The Overlook Press, 1st US, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 136 pages. A comprehensive and well researched account of the evolution of instruments and the role of the musician through the ages by first describing and illustrating those instruments bequeathed to us by the civilizations of Greece and Rome. Then, through the dark ages and on to the successive stages which shows the gradual changes to the instruments, how they were played and the music of he era. Clean copy.

Softcover. Kansas City, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1st pbk, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 120 pages, profusely illustrated. The Kansas City Jazz Museum traces the evolution of jazz music in America, from the early 1920s to the present day, focusing on the contributions of such Kansas City-based musicians as Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and other jazz greats. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 606 pages, b&w illustrations. In a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Clean copy. An extraordinary selection of revealing letters to and from one of the titans of 20th-century music. Leonard Bernstein was a charismatic and versatile musician--a brilliant conductor who attained international super-star status, and a gifted composer of Broadway musicals (West Side Story), symphonies (Age of Anxiety), choral works (Chichester Psalms), film scores (On the Waterfront), and much more. Bernstein was also an enthusiastic letter writer, and this book is the first to present a wide-ranging selection of his correspondence. The letters have been selected for the insights they offer into the passions of his life--musical and personal--and the extravagant scope of his musical and extra-musical activities.

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.

Hardcover. San Diego, Thunder Bay Press , 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 224 pages. From singer-songwriters like Billy Joel and the Bee Gees to folk artists like John Denver and James Taylor to the rock legends Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, you won't find a more complete list of albums that defines the '70s music scene. Each listing features the full-color, original sleeve artwork, and is packed with information about the musician lineup, track listings, and number-one singles that resulted. A celebration of this funky era. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1st, 1960, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 177 pages. Hardcover. Illustrated with black & white photographs. Price clipped dust jacket with wear along edges - now protected with clear plastic cover. Clean, tight copy. Report on the men and women who lived in the South and created work songs, spirituals, blues, and jazz.

Softcover. Camden NJ, RCA Records, 1st, circa 1939, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 44 pages staple bound wraps. 9 1/4 tall x 6 3/4 ". Edited by John Reid. Illustrated with B&W photos. Lists by musicians and bands with descriptions and reviews of specific records. Lists of personel and recording dates. A bit of wear and soiling to cover. Panassie was an important writer about Jazz of the 1930's and he gives interesting reviews of the music of the great of the period who mostly recorded with RCA.

Great Neck, NY, Musical Vistas, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, A collection of cartoons all about violins by an Hungarian artist who became one of the world's best violin makers. Dust jacket with light edgewear to corners.

Hardcover. Middletown CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 204 pages. Composer John Luther Adams makes his home in the boreal forest near Fairbanks, Alaska, where he has created a unique musical world grounded in the elemental landscapes and indigenous cultures of the North. Winter Music, a collection of Adams's essays, journal entries, and other writings is poetic and inspirational and delves into the environmental and cultural awareness that creates his reflective, almost spiritual, approach to music. The accompanying audio CD includes two previously unrecorded works by Adams. Adams's music explores natural phenomena from the songs of birds, to the complex nature of chaos, fractal geometry, and elemental noise. Similarly, his writings explore "that region between place and culture, between environment and imagination," reflecting a philosophy of deep awareness that makes him one of the most original composers working today. Clean copy.

Softcover. Southern Domestic, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 328 pages, b&w illustrations. SIGNED BY RIGBY on the title page. follows one young woman's progression from Elton John fan in the Pittsburgh suburbs to Manhattan art student; from punk show habitue to fledgling musician to cult singer-songwriter who caused a sensation with 1996 debut solo album Diary Of A Mod Housewife. Set in a ramshackle twentieth century New York world of homemade clubs and bands, through love affairs, temp jobs and motherhood, GIRL TO CITY describes the screw-ups and charmed moments it took for a girl in the crowd at CBGB to pick up a guitar and sing her truth on stage, creating an identity as an artist back when female musician role models were still rare. Clean copy.

Softcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 253 pages. In this work, Ingrid Monson juxtaposes musicians' talk and musical examples to ask how musicians go about "saying something" through music in a way that articulates identity, politics, and race. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Schirmer Books, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 309 pages, b&w photos. Shortly after Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917, they began moving into an uptown Manhattan neighborhood that would become known as Spanish Harlem. By 1930, Afro-Cuban music had gained a firm foothold in the city, setting the stage for the mambo, boogaloo, salsa and Latin-jazz scenes that followed. In this collection of profiles and essays, Max Salazar, perhaps the most eminent Latin-music historian in the United States, tells the story of the music and the musicians who made it happen, including Tito Puente, Machito, Tito Rodriguez, Charlie and Eddie Palmieri, Hector Lavoe and many others. Clean copy.

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.

Hardcover. Milwaukee WI, Backbeat Books, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards with spiral binding, 304 pages. The Fiddle Handbook is a treasure trove of information spanning the whole range of fiddle playing. It looks in detail at the most commonly played styles among today's fiddlers. From America, there's old time, bluegrass, Cajun, Western swing, country, blues, rock, klezmer, and jazz, while from the British Isles there's Irish, Scottish, and English. There is also a quick romp through Eastern Europe and beyond, from the spike fiddles of Africa and Asia to the Chinese Erhu, the fabulous Indian Sarangi, and the mysterious Norwegian Hardingfele. A wealth of musical examples - ornaments, bowing patterns, scales, modes, exercises and complete tunes - are faithfully reproduced on the accompanying CDs, to give you a taste of each style. Clean copy.

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. Minneapolis, University Of Minnesota Press, 1st, 2016, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. The year 2016 will mark the centennial of the birth of Albert Murray (1916-2013), who in thirteen books was by turns a lyrical novelist, a keen and iconoclastic social critic, and a formidable interpreter of jazz and blues. Not only did his prizewinning study Stomping the Blues (1976) influence musicians far and wide, it was also a foundational text for Jazz at Lincoln Center, which he cofounded with Wynton Marsalis and others in 1987. Murray Talks Music brings together, for the first time, many of Murray's finest interviews and essays on music--most never before published--as well as rare liner notes and prefaces.For those new to Murray, this book will be a perfect introduction, and those familiar with his work--even scholars--will be surprised, dazzled, and delighted. Highlights include Dizzy Gillespie's richly substantive 1985 conversation; an in-depth 1994 dialogue on jazz and culture between Murray and Wynton Marsalis; and a long 1989 discussion on Duke Ellington between Murray, Stanley Crouch, and Loren Schoenberg. Also interviewed by Murray are producer and impresario John Hammond and singer and bandleader Billy Eckstine. All of thse conversations were previously lost to history. A celebrated educator and raconteur, Murray engages with a variety of scholars and journalists while making insightful connections among music, literature, and other art forms--all with ample humor and from unforeseen angles.

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.

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. London, Cassell and Company, 2nd pr., 1950, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and chipped dust jacket. 182 pages B/w photographs, drawings and diagrams illustrate the text: "3 half-tone and 82 other illustrations." First part of the book originally published in 1923 as a Work Handbook; this edition adds a second part giving detailed instruction for making a 'cello. Original publisher's cloth binding in sand color with black lettering at spine.

Hardcover. NY, Grand Central Publishing, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 388 pages. Drawing on contributions from remaining members, contemporaneous musicians, critics, filmmakers, and the generation of artists who emerged in their wake, this "monumental origin story" celebrates the legacy of the Velvet Underground, which burns brighter than ever in the 21st century. Rebellion always starts somewhere, and in the music world of the transgressive teen--whether it be the 1960s or the 2020s--the Velvet Underground represents ground zero. Crystallizing the idea of the bohemian, urban, narcissistic art school gang around a psychedelic rock and roll band--a stylistic idea that evolved in the rarefied environs of Andy Warhol's Factory--the Velvets were the first major American rock group with a mixed gender line-up. They never smiled in photographs, wore sunglasses indoors, and invented the archetype that would be copied by everyone from Sid Vicious to Bobby Gillespie. They were avant-garde nihilists, writing about drug abuse, prostitution, paranoia, and sado-masochistic sex at a time when the rest of the world was singing about peace and love.

Softcover. Chicago, Chicago Review Press, reprint, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 430 pages, b&w photos. This first major biography of the most romanticized icon in jazz thrillingly recounts his wild ride. From his emergence in the 1950s--when an uncannily beautiful young man from Oklahoma appeared on the West Coast to become, seemingly overnight, the prince of "cool" jazz--until his violent, drug-related death in Amsterdam in 1988, Chet Baker lived a life that has become an American myth. Here, drawing on hundreds of interviews and previously untapped sources, James Gavin gives a hair-raising account of the trumpeter's dark journey. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. From the dj: "Is jazz dead? In these pages Tom Piazza takes aim at those who argue that it is... Blues Up and Down chronicles two decades of upheaval in the jazz world - and presents a persuasive argument for the music's continuing role in our culture." Among the chapters are: McCoy Tyner's Present Tense; Mary Lou Williams Keeps the Faith; Black and Tan Fantasy; Portrait of Wynton Marsalis; Keepers of the Flame; The Little Record Labels That Could; How Two Pianists Remade a Tradition; Jazz Piano's Heavyweight Champ; etc. SIGNED BY PIAZZA on the title page.

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, W.W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 430 pages. During America's Swing Era, no musician was more successful or controversial than Artie Shaw: the charismatic and opinionated clarinetist-bandleader whose dozens of hits became anthems for "the greatest generation." But some of his most beautiful recordings were not issued until decades after he'd left the scene. He broke racial barriers by hiring African-American musicians. His frequent "retirements" earned him a reputation as the Hamlet of jazz. And he quit playing for good at the height of his powers. The handsome Shaw had seven wives (including Lana Turner and Ava Gardner). Inveterate reader and author of three books, he befriended the best-known writers of his time. Tom Nolan, who interviewed Shaw between 1990 and his death in 2004 and spoke with one hundred of his colleagues and contemporaries, captures Shaw and his era with candour and sympathy, bringing the master to vivid life and restoring him to his rightful place in jazz history. Clean, bright copy.

Philadelphia, Philco Co., 1932,

Hardcover. Rochester, Goodenough, 1st, 1931, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 506 pages. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR ON TITLE PAGE. Clean, tight copy.

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.

Softcover. Lark Books, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 416 pages, illustrated in color. Feast your eyes on more than 300 of today's most creative, imaginative, and gorgeous hand-made guitars--all illustrated in full color and featuring information about the innovative artisans who created them. Meet guitar-making legends, such as C.F. Martin, Les Paul, and Leo Fender, who revolutionized the instrument's design. Discover why the past 25 years have seen an explosion of craftspeople who build guitars by hand, employing an attention to detail factories can't afford and using higher quality materials and more technical skill than in any previous era. Explore the various guitar styles used in a range of musical traditions, from blues to classical. Detailed information about each guitar's specifications, plus personal statements and anecdotes from the artisans about their work and techniques complete each entry.

Softcover. The Citadel Press, reprint, 1990, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 223 pages, light marking, bookplate.

Hardcover. New York, W.W Norton Co, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 270 Pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy with only marginal wear to edges.

Softcover. NY, Da Capo, 1st pbk, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 470 pages, b&w illustrations. Light edge wear to wrappers. Small stains on fore-edge. Else a clean, tight copy.

Softcover. NY, Billboard Books, reprint, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 352 pages, b&w illustrations. Presents an in-depth exploration of the musician's controversial electric period and the impact it had on the jazz community, as drawn from firsthand recollections about his artistic and personal life. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Gotham Books, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 455 pages, b&w photos. The definitive biography of James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, with fascinating findings on his life as a Civil Rights activist, an entrepreneur, and the most innovative musician of our time. Playing 350 shows a year at his peak, with more than forty Billboard hits, James Brown was a dazzling showman who transformed American music. His life offstage was just as vibrant, and until now no biographer has delivered a complete profile. The One draws on interviews with more than 100 people who knew Brown personally or played with him professionally. Using these sources, award-winning writer RJ Smith draws a portrait of a man whose twisted and amazing life helps us to understand the music he made. The One delves deeply into the story of a man who was raised in abject-almost medieval-poverty in the segregated South but grew up to earn (and lose) several fortunes. Covering everything from Brown's unconventional childhood (his aunt ran a bordello), to his role in the Black Power movement, which used "Say It Loud (I'm Black and Proud)" as its anthem, to his high-profile friendships, to his complicated family life, Smith's meticulous research and sparkling prose blend biography with a cultural history of a pivotal era. Clean, bright copy.

NY, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 1st pbk, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 361 pages, b&w illustrations. INSCRIBED BY JANIS IAN on the title page. The legendary singer and songwriter of the 70s gives us her memoir in the music business. 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, 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.