music

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.

Softcover. Lincoln NE, University Of Nebraska Press , 1st pbk, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 432 pages. Collects letters and essays that are published during the 1850s and 1860s. This title highlights the notorious 1850 article "Judaism in Music". It includes prose pieces such as "On the Performing of Tannhauser"; "On Musical Criticism"; and, "Music of the Future". It offers suggestions for the reform of opera houses in Vienna, Paris, and Zurich. 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.

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. NY, Dutton, 1st, 1925, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover. Introduction by Milne. Music by H Fraser-Simson, decorations by E.H. Shepard. A bright copy in the scarce dust jacket that's edgeworn, chipped.

Hardcover. NY, Grand Central, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 360 pages. 500 photos. Text in English. In this book of original, behind-the-scenes photographs, acclaimed photographer Terry Richardson follows superstar Lady Gaga during one year of her life, from Lollapalooza through the final show of her Monster Ball tour. During the time period he followed Gaga, Richardson took over 100,000 images and attended more than 30 Monster Ball dates around the world.

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. 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. Manic D Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 128 pages. A visual feast of black-and-white portraits capturing some of the most notorious rock and roll icons from the late 1970s and early 1980s: Sid Vicious, John Lydon, PIL, Patti Smith, Blondie, The Ramones, The Clash, Circle Jerks, The Dead Boys, Dead Kennedys, The Exploited, GBH, Killing Joke, Misfits, X, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more.

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.

Softcover. Evanston IL, Northwestern University Press, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 390 pages. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on title page. A swing note is, to the listener of the rhythm, an unexpected note, and it is the spark of life in jazz and its relatives. Whether playing the standards or the most experimental piece, it is how a musician handles these notes--fearlessly or safely--that determines the fate of the performance. Howard Reich's critical writing is similarly unexpected and fearless, and Let Freedom Swing is a collection of the articles from the past three decades that best capture this spirit. Each section of Let Freedom Swing composes a suite, focusing on either a person, place, or scene. Reich gives new life to the standards with his profiles and elegies for such giants as Gershwin, Ellington, and Sinatra. A profile of Louis Armstrong brings out the often angry side of Satchmo but also reveals a more remarkable musician and human being. His open-mindedness makes Reich a particularly astute observer of the experimental and new, from Ornette Coleman to Chicago experimentalist Ken Vandermark. And his observations about street music open our ears to the songs of everyday life. Reich's fearlessness is evident in his writing about daunting subjects, such as the New Orleans music scene after Katrina, the lost legacy of jazz in Panama, and the complicated legacy of "race music" in America. Clean copy.

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, 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.

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. Boston, Little Brown , 1st US, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 1st published in the UK 1971.

Hardcover. London, Faber & Faber, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 72 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to edges. Black and white illustrations throughout by Mezzo. From 'Crossroads Blues' to 'Sweet Home Chicago', 'Hellhound on My Trail' to 'Come On In My Kitchen', Robert Johnson wrote some of the most enduring and formative songs of the original blues era, songs that would go on to help shape the birth of rock 'n' roll in the 1960s. Beloved of Clapton, Dylan and the Stones, Robert Johnson remains one of the most iconic and mythologized figures in popular music (and the first of many to die at the age of 27). Born in the in the South in Mississippi, Johnson made his way to the urban North as a traveling musician, but it was only when he returned to the South that he recorded the twenty-nine songs, in two sessions, which would create his legacy. Exploring the stories and legends that surround his life and death -- his childhood, his womanizing, his pact with the devil at the crossroads -- Mezzo and DuPont have produced a fittingly creative and beautiful depiction of this most extraordinary life.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pale blue boards with dark blue spine, 266 pages. A very large selection of 142 lullabies and songs from around the world. Bright and clean, lacks dust jacket.

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. New York, Gotham, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 453 pages. SIGNED BY AUTHOR. Illustrated endpages and flyleaves. Gilt titles on spine. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, E.P. Dutton, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 204 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Dj with light edgewear, price clipped. Soil on fore edge.

Hardcover. New York, McCall Publishing, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Non-paginated. Hardcover. Full color illustrations by Ronni Solbert. INSCRIBED/SIGNED BY AUTHOR JEAN MERRILL, ILLUSTRATOR RONNI SOLBERT, AND COMPOSER GWYNETH WALKER on front endpaper. Program from original performance laid-in. Price clipped dust jacket with a few tape repaired tears along edges. Clean, unmarked pages.