Hardcover. NY, Viking Press, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. INSCRIBED BY RUFF on the front fly leaf. Ruff traces his odyssey from the hills of north Alabama to the halls of Yale University with stops along the way with some the jazz greats. B&w illustrations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Hachette, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 513 pages. Veteran music journalist Robert Hilburn presents the definitive portrait of an American legend. Hilburn has known Newman since his club debut at the Troubadour in 1970, and the two have maintained a connection in the decades since, conversing over the course of times good and bad. Though Newman has long refused to talk with potential biographers, he now gives Hilburn unprecedented access not only to himself but also to his archives, as well as his family, friends, and collaborators. Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, John Williams, Linda Ronstadt, Don Henley, Bonnie Raitt, Chuck D, James Taylor, and New York Times' Pulitzer-winning columnists, Thomas Friedman and Wesley Morris, among others, contributed to the book. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Thomas Dunne Books, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 270 pages, b&w illustrations. Augustus Owsley Stanley III, better known by his nickname, Bear, was one of the most iconic figures in the cultural revolution that changed both America and the world during the 1960s.Owsley's high-octane rocket fuel enabled Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters to put on the Acid Tests. It also powered much of what happened on stage at Monterey Pop. Owsley turned on Pete Townshend of The Who and Jimi Hendrix. The shipment of LSD that Owsley sent John Lennon resulted in The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album and film.Convinced that the Grateful Dead were destined to become the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band, Owsley provided the money that kept them going during their early days. As their longtime soundman, he then faithfully recorded many of the Dead's greatest live performances and designed the massive space-age system that came to be known as the Wall of Sound.Award-winning author and biographer Robert Greenfield's definitive biography of this Grateful Dead legend masterfully takes us through Owsley's incredible life and times to bring us a full picture of this fascinating man for the first time. The definitive biography of the reclusive and mysterious Grateful Dead benefactor and renowned LSD chemist without whom the counterculture would never have been born. 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. 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. Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1st, May 30, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 271 pages, several b&w photographs and illustrations. Small stain on bottom edge. Else a very clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York , Belwin Mills Publishing , 1st U.S., 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 260 pages. Black cloth cover, very little wear. Dust jacket is worn on edges and corners. Many b&w photographs, and reproductions of documents, throughout.

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 479 pages, b&w illustrations. A comprehensive biography of one of the century's premier musicians focuses on his accomplishments as a composer rather than his popularity as a bandleader.

Hardcover. New York , E. P. Dutton, 2nd Printing, 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 428 pages, illustrated by the author. Scarce in this edition. Dark gray cloth with gilt titles, no dust jacket. Light fade to spine, else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 487 pages. First full-length biography of Walter in English. Black boards, gray cloth spine with silver titles, illustrated dust jacket, 32 pages of b&w photographic plates on glossy paper. Slight rubbing to dust jacket, clean boards, pages crisp and unmarked; a very clean, tight copy.

Softcover. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1st pbk, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 376 pages, b&w illustrations. The personal history of Barney Josephson, proprietor of the legendary interracial New York City night clubs Cafe Society Downtown and Cafe Society Uptown and their successor, The Cookery. Famously known as 'the wrong place for the Right people', Cafe Society featured the cream of jazz and blues performers--among whom were Billie Holiday, Big Joe Turner, Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Big Sid Catlett, and Mary Lou Williams--as well as comedy stars Imogene Coca, Zero Mostel, and Jack Gilford, the boogie-woogie pianists, and legendary gospel and folk artists. Spanning half a century from the 1930s to the 1980s, Josephson's narrative depicts both the business and the artistic sides of Cafe Society while exposing the tensions between the club's own progressive interracial openness and the more restrictive social and political climate in which it evolved. Publisher's stamp on bottom edge otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Billboard Books, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 154 pages, b&w illustrations. Carmen McRae is well known as one of jazz music's most masterful improvisers, and is ranked among the greatest jazz singers of all time. She grew up during the swing era in Harlem, and participated in the transition from swing to bebop--the New Thing--playing with all the important musicians and in all the major clubs. Her struggle to fame was long and hard, finally paying off when she was thirty-four years old and began to perform with Tony Scott's band. It was Scott who convinced her to stand up at the microphone and leave the piano bench behind. By 1955 she had signed with Decca records and achieved national recognition. The rise to fame had begun. By the end of her life Carmen had performed all over the world, recorded over sixty albums, and been recognized with numerous awards and honors. Carmen McRae died on November 10, 1994.

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. New York, Harmony Books, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 346 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Black and white pictures throughout.

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. 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.

Hardcover. NY, Wynwood Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages, b&w photos. In a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Rozsa was both a classical composer and extremely successful Hollywood film composer. Hence the title. He scored such films as Ben Hur, El Cid and Lust for Life and many others.

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. New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 224 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with no visible wear. Price sticker to back cover. Otherwise a tight copy. Many critics have interpreted Bob Dylan's lyrics, especially those composed during the middle to late 1960s, in the contexts of their relation to American folk, blues, and rock 'n' roll precedents; their discographical details and concert performances; their social, political and cultural relevance; and/or their status for discussion as "poems." Dylan's Autobiography of a Vocation instead focuses on how all of Dylan's 1965-1967 songs manifest traces of his ongoing, internal "autobiography" in which he continually declares and questions his relation to a self-determined existential summons.

Hardcover. US, VH1 Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 160 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to covers. Color and Black and white pictures throughout.

Hardcover. New York, Da Capo Press, 2nd pr., 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 258 pages, illustrated in b&w. Recorded during the blazing summer of 1971 at Villa Nellcote, Keith Richards' seaside mansion in the south of France, Exile on Main St. has been hailed as one of the Rolling Stones' best albums-and one of the greatest rock records of all time. Yet its improbable creation was difficult, torturous...and at times nothing short of dangerous.In self-imposed exile, the Stones-along with wives, girlfriends, and a crew of hangers-on unrivaled in the history of rock-spent their days smoking, snorting, and drinking whatever they could get their hands on. At night, the band descended like miners into the villa's dank basement to lay down tracks. Out of those grueling sessions came the familiar riffs and rhythms of "Rocks Off," "Tumbling Dice," "Happy," and "Sweet Virginia."All the while, a variety of celebrities-John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Gram Parsons among them-stumbled through the villa's neverending party, as did the local drug dealers, known to one and all as "les cowboys." Villa Nellcote became the crucible in which creative strife, outsize egos, and all the usual byproducts of the Stones' legendary hedonistic excess fused into something potent, volatile, and enduring.Here, for the first time, is the season in hell that produced Exile on Main St.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press;, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 288 pages. As an essayist and Village Voice columnist, Gary Giddins is widely known as a preeminent jazz writer. Walter Clemons, writing in Newsweek, hailed him as "the best jazz critic now at work," praising his "elegant prose" and "encyclopedic knowledge." Yet he has won a devoted audience for his reflections on popular culture, books, and movies as well--including a marvelous essay on Jack Benny that Gay Talese selected for Best American Essays of 1987. In Faces in the Crowd, Giddins once again demonstrates his graceful style and sharp wit in a brilliant collection of critiques,assessments, and profiles of major figures in the culture of our century.

Hardcover. NY, Dutton, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 516 pages. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on front fly leaf. The enduring appeal of the music of George and Ira Gershwin has spawned several biographies of the talented brothers who created more than 700 popular songs before George's untimely death at age 39 in 1937--Ira died in 1983 at age 87. But never before has the collaboration itself been the subject of such intelligent and fruitful scrutiny as in this intriguing study. Rosenberg, chair of the musical theater program of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, has a gift for making scholarly points in accessible, albeit mundane language. Readers require no particular musical background in order to enjoy and respond to her original theories about the connections between George's music and Ira's lyrics. Points of comparison are frequently illustrated with side-by-side measures of music, and the striking thematic relationships between such songs as Embraceable You and The Man I Love are also compared dramatically to George's orchestral composition, including the well-known Rhapsody in Blue. This is a rich feast for music historians, musicians and connoisseurs of musical theater as well as inveterate hummers who like a Gershwin tune. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York , Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 176 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Dust jacket price clipped with slight rubbing, wear, sunning to edges and spine. Internally very good.