Hardcover. Portland OR, Amedeus Press, 1st, March 1, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 453 pages, b&w photographs and frontispiece, sheet music end paper. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Else a very clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 426 pages, b&w photographs. Bright, clean copy. This engaging biography of Harold Arlen charts the course of his brilliant career, from band leader in his native Buffalo, New York, to songwriter and vocalist in vaudeville, to composer of Broadway musicals and revues at Harlem's Cotton Club, to writer of the everlasting music in The Wizard of Oz and other films. Drawing on a treasure trove of family documents and memorabilia, Edward Jablonski vividly describes Arlen's life, including his loving but troubled marriage to Anya, the strained relationship with his father and brother, his alcoholism and illnesses, and his friendship with Marlene Dietrich. Populated with such greats as Johnny Mercer, George and Ira Gershwin, E. Y. Harburg, Bert Lahr, and Judy Garland, the book also captures the spirit of Arlen's times and conveys a sense of the inner workings of the music business.
Hardcover. NY, STEWART TABORI CHANG, 1ST, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 378 pages. Here is a musical history told in legends, facts, and rumors every bit as colorful as the images that illustrate the book. The story is filled with characters such as O.V. Wright, a singer deemed "too ugly to tour"; Frnakie Lymon, who received a hot dog as full payment for some of the greatest R&B songs of all time; LaVern Baker, a.k.a. "Little Miss Sharecropper"; Bille Holiday shooting dice with the boys on the bus; Solomon Burke, R&B immortal and Doctor of Mortuary Sciences; soul ghoul Screamin' Jay Hawkins locked in his coffin by the Drifters; and many otehr talented and unique entertainers. Illustrated with more than 400 original photographs, publicity shots, posters, programs, advertisements, program covers, magazine covers, album covers and sleeves, sheet music, and record labels in full color, this is a story of hot music and high style, of people who made history by being themselves and made the world a richer, wilder and definitely cooler place for the rest of us.
Hardcover. NY, Harper & Brothers, 2nd Ed., 1945, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth covers with red and gilt stamping, 231 pages. Adolf Hitler was a great fan of Wagner's music and became very close to Winifred Wagner, Richard Wagner's granddaughter (there were even rumors that they would marry). Hitler also befriended her children and treated them as his own. In 1940, Verena Wagner (Winifred's youngest daughter) and Hitler were also rumored to be romantically linked. Rumors the author debunks in her book. Clean copy.
Softcover. New York, Pocket Books, First Edition, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 413 pages. Softcover with black, white & red graphic illustrations throughout. Full color illustrations to covers. Clean, bright copy, unmarked.
Hardcover. Germany, Steidl, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 262 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in publishers shrink-wrap. Photographs throughout. Tight copy. The High and Lonesome Sound combines Cohen's vintage photos, film and musical recordings as well as an anecdotal text into a multimedia tribute to this underappreciated legend of American music whose every performance was, in Cohen's words, "not just a rendition of music, but a test of something to be overcome."
Hardcover. Germany, Steidl, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 262 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in publishers shrink-wrap. Photographs throughout. Tight copy. The High and Lonesome Sound combines Cohen's vintage photos, film and musical recordings as well as an anecdotal text into a multimedia tribute to this underappreciated legend of American music whose every performance was, in Cohen's words, "not just a rendition of music, but a test of something to be overcome."
Hardcover. Guilford CT, Applause, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 200 pages, b&w illustrations. Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and . . . Dorothy Fields. These are the giants of the golden age of musical theater. Although she may not be as well known as her male counterparts, Dorothy Fields was America's most brilliant and successful female lyricist, who for five decades kept up with the greats. As the only woman among the boys' club of popular song, Fields was welcomed by her fellow male artists, who considered her as both an equal and a beloved colleague. Working with thirteen different composers, Fields wrote the lyrics and/or librettos for unforgettable masterpieces, such as Annie Get Your Gun, Redhead, and Sweet Charity. Her more than four hundred songs include the standards "On the Sunny Side of the Street," "Pick Yourself Up," and "The Way You Look Tonight," among other classic tunes.
Hardcover. New York, Gallery Books, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 400 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. Iconic music and film legend Grace Jones gives an in-depth account of her stellar career, professional and personal life, and the signature look that catapulted her into the stardom stratosphere.
Hardcover. Guilford CT, Backbeat, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 304 pages, b&w illustrations. Phil Ochs is known primarily as a songwriter; however, his oeuvre extends far beyond that--to short stories, poetry, criticism, journalism, and satire, all of which are included in I'm Gonna Say It Now: The Writings of Phil Ochs, which represents the majority of what Ochs wrote outside of his large circle of songs. This comprehensive tome presents another side of the famous topical songwriter, showcasing his prose and poetry from across the full span of his life.From prizewinning stories and clear-eyed reporting while a journalism major in college to music criticism, satires, and political pieces written while part of the burgeoning folk scene of New York City in the early 1960s and during the tumultuous Vietnam War era; from sharp and lyrical poems (many previously unpublished) to reviews, features, and satires written while living in Los Angeles and the final, elegiac coda writings from near the end of his life--I'm Gonna Say It Now presents the complete picture. The book includes many rare or nearly impossible to find Ochs pieces, as well as previously unpublished works sourced from the unique holdings in the Ochs Archives at the Woody Guthrie Center. Additionally, never-before-seen reproductions from Ochs's journals, notebooks, and manuscripts provide a closer look at the hand of the artist, giving a deeper context and understanding to his writings. Never before published photographs of Ochs bestow the visual cherry on top.
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.
Softcover. San Francisco, Miller Freeman Books, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 263 pages, b&w illustrations. This story of a musician hailed as a genius and dismissed as a madman will appeal to anyone intrigued by the fine line between creative inspiration and insanity. the author looks deep inside the life and music of this talented but tormented bass player who revolutionized his instrument and became one of the most potent forces in modern music. "Like his heroes Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, Jaco didn't make it to age 40. But by the time he died at 35, the music world was indebted to him. Jaco had reinvented the role of the electric bass. Includes is the CD, "Jaco Pastorius: The Birthday Concert" in a pocket in the back of the book and is in excellent condition.
Hardcover. New York, Stringer & Townsend, 1st, 1851, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth with gilt lettering, 226 pages. Previous owners bookplate on inside front cover. Some pages show minor foxing. Light rubbing to corners and at top and base of spine. Clean, unmarked text.
Softcover. NY, Pathfinder Press , Revised Ed., 1998, Softcover in pictorial wrappers, 500 pages, b&w photos. Coltrane's role in spearheading the last major innovative development in jazz, and how the 1960s jazz revolution reflected an intense cultural, political, and ideological ferment -- marked especially by the rise of resistance to racial discrimination. Also contains the best-known interview with John Coltrane -- recorded in 1966, a year before his death. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 532 pages, b&w photos. Minor wear to dust jacket, small closed tear. The life story of Josephine Baker, the outrageous entertainer who dared to become the first black sex symbol of the 20th century. Collected voices of men and women, over the decades, who shared the stage with Josephine. Clean copy
Hardcover. New York, Riverhead Hardcover, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 280 pages. Hardcover. Extensive b&w illustrations by Kurt Cobain throughout. Illustrated frontispiece. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Presents lyrics, drawings, letters, and other writings from Kurt Cobain's journals, revealing his thoughts on Nirvana, fame, fans, and the state of rock music.
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. NY, Grove Press, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 364 pages. Last Chance Texaco is the first ever no-holds-barred account of the life of one of rock's hardest working women in her own words. With candor and lyricism Rickie Lee Jones takes us on the journey of her exceptional life: from her nomadic childhood as the granddaughter of vaudevillian performers, to her father's abandonment of the family and her years as a teenage runaway, her beginnings at LA's Troubadour club, to her tumultuous relationship with Tom Waits, her battle with drugs, and longevity as a woman in rock and roll.These are never-before-told stories of the girl in "the raspberry beret," a songwriter who inspired American culture for decades.
Hardcover. Gottingen GR, Steidl, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Biography mostly comprised of color and B&W photos of the famed blues musician, and ephemera related to him. Introduction by Tom Waits, foreword by Glenn O'Brien, and poems by Tyehimba Gess. 256 pages.
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, Viking, 1st, 1975, Book: Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Illustrated and designed by Don Bolognese and Elaine Raphael. Ex-library with light marking, residue to endpapers. An epistolary narrative of the musical prodigy's first year in Italy, composed from his detail-laden letters to his younger sister Nannerl. Although the letters themselves are fictional they are based on detailed research and on the hundreds of letters which Mozart and his father both wrote home during their trip. A map of the trip is also included as well as a little biography on some of the main characters.
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.