music

Hardcover. NY/London, Faber & Faber, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. 304 pages. This is the first of two titles by the Manic Street Preachers' bassist and lyricist, Nicky Wire. For more than twenty years and from Blackwood, Wales to Tokyo, Japan, Nicky Wire has kept a personal visual history of the band in their various stages from "Generation Terrorists" through "Holy Bible" and right up to last year's remarkable album, "Postcards from a Young Man". Edited down from over 1,000 of Wire's personal polaroid's and with accompanying text by the man himself, "Death of The Polaroid" promises to be a rich, visual biography of one of the most loved and iconoclastic British bands of the past two decades.

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.

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.

Hardcover. Columbia MO, University of Missouri, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 216 pages. This unique reference book is a compendium of makers and manufacturers of every variety of musical instrument made in the United States circa 1981. It provides names and addresses of instrument makers indexed alphabetically. Each entry gives all known information on the total and annual number of instruments the maker has produced, the number of workers in the shop, the year the individual or firm began manufacturing instruments, whether the instruments are available on demand or made to order, and whether a brochure is available from the maker. Complete cross-references are provided for companies known by more than one name, for partnerships, and for parent and subsidiary firms. Instruments are also indexed, and makers are listed by state for the convenience of the reader. Lists of schools of instrument making and relevant organizations and publications are included as appendixes. An invaluable source of information for historians and for the rapidly growing number of collectors of musical instruments, who will be able to use the data gathered here in appraising instruments and tracing their history.

Hardcover. Los Angeles, Reed Books, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 275 pages, color and b&w photos. An early biography of the Country & Western singer Dolly Parton. 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 , The Viking Press , 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 83 pages, black & white drawings by David Hockney. Dust jacket cover with faint soiling, otherwise a very good 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. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 276 pages, in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Condon has brought a half century of jazz into focus with his published scrapbook of photographs and recollections. This particular volume contains 16 original autographs obtained by a patron of his jazz clubs. Includes the signatures of all four house band leaders: drummer Buzzy Drootin (1947-1951), pianist Ralph Sutton (1948-1956), pianist Johnny Varro and cornetist Ed Polcer (1957). Also Johnny Blowers, Dick Cary, Peanuts Hucko, Cliff Leeman, Jack Lesberg, Rosy McHargue, Joe Muranyi, Red Norvo, Jess Stacy, Dick Wellstood, Spiegel Wilcox, and Teddy Wilson.

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.

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. Princeton, NJ, Markus Weiner Publishers, 1st English Translation, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 327 pages. Softcover. B/w illustrations throughout. Decorated wrapper, excellent. Pages clean and bright. Binding good. Like new copy. This fascinating study of eunuchs guides readers as they travel through various lands and periods, familiarizing themselves with the duties and responsibilities, the unspeakable torments, and the passions and joys of these individuals.

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.

Softcover. Durham NC, Duke University Press, 2nd pr., 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 342 pages. In Extended Play, one of the country's most innovative music writers conducts a wide-ranging tour through the outer limits of contemporary music. Over the course of more than twenty-five portraits, interviews, and essays, John Corbett engages artists from lands as distant as Sweden, Siberia, and Saturn. With a special emphasis on African American and European improvisers, the book explores the famous and the little known, from John Cage and George Clinton to Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra. Employing approaches as diverse as the music he celebrates, Corbett illuminates the sound and theory of funk and rap, blues and jazz, contemporary classical, free improvisation, rock, and reggae. Using cultural critique and textual theory, Corbett addresses a broad spectrum of issues, such as the status of recorded music in postmodern culture, the politics of self-censorship, experimentation, and alternativism in the music industry, and the use of metaphors of space and madness in the work of African American musicians. He follows these more theoretically oriented essays with a series of extensive profiles and in-depth interviews that offer contrasting and complementary perspectives on some of the world's most creative musicians and their work. Clean copy.

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. Burlington VT, Ashgate, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 245 pages, in a bright. unclipped dust jacket. Fado, often described as 'urban folk music', emerged from the streets of Lisbon in the mid-nineteenth century and went on to become Portugal's 'national' music during the twentieth. It is known for its strong emphasis on loss, memory and nostalgia within its song texts, which often refer to absent people and places. One of the main lyrical themes of fado is the city itself. Fado music has played a significant role in the interlacing of mythology, history, memory and regionalism in Portugal in the second half of the twentieth century. Richard Elliott considers the ways in which fado songs bear witness to the city of Lisbon, in relation to the construction and maintenance of the local. Elliott explores the ways in which fado acts as a cultural product reaffirming local identity via recourse to social memory and an imagined community, while also providing a distinctive cultural export for the dissemination of a 'remembered Portugal' on the global stage.

Softcover. NY, Limelight Editions, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 255 pages. A "fakebook" is a collection of melodies with the chord changes that allows jazz musicians to read the tunes instead of playing solely by ear and memory. It is, then, a place to start, a structure upon which jazz improvisation, "faking," builds. As a young man, the author, a jazz saxophone player, tried to make a living at what he loved most. He failed, gave up jazz and became a college English professor. Today he is playing his saxophone again, at weekend gigs, rediscovering the unending challenge and the fulfillment that jazz brings him. This journey of self-discovery demonstrates the power of both jazz and superbly crafted writing. Clean, bright copy.

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. Honesdale, PA, Wordsong Boyds Mills Press, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 32 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy. Minor wear to dust jacket. Light rubbing to covers. Illustrations by Wendy Watson.

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.

Hardcover. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1st, 1954, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 324 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Music scores throughout. Clean, tight copy. Illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen. Dust jacket chipped and chunk missing from spine.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 387 pages, b&w illustrations throughout. Remainder marks to top and bottom edge. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Else a very clean, tight copy.