The History of Jazz
Ted Gioia

Beginning with details provided from firsthand accounts of slave dances in the early 19th-century New Orleans, Gioia relates the story of African American music from its roots in Africa to the international respect it enjoys today. Styles that developed in such hotbeds as New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York are considered along with the artists that personify these styles. With the arrival of more white musicians, such as Benny Goodman in the Swing Era, jazz achieved the height of mass popularity. This was quickly followed by the more experimental modern jazz movement, with artists like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie redefining the music and moving beyond entertainment into the realm of "serious" music. This well-researched, extensively annotated volume covers the major trends and personalities that have shaped jazz. The excellent bibliography and list of recommended listening make this a valuable purchase for libraries building a jazz collection.

Jazz: A History of America’s Music
Ward, Burns, Murray, Morgenstern

This lavishly illustrated history describes the evolution of jazz during the 20th century, focusing on the careers of a key players like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Benny Goodman. In his introduction to the massive volume, Burns writes that his decision to make Jazz was inspired by a comment made by Gerald Early, a writer he interviewed for the authors’ last documentary, Baseball.  Burns admits he knew next to nothing about jazz before deciding to create "the most comprehensive treatment of jazz ever committed to film," and there lies the work’s Achilles’ heel. Burns has his conclusionDthat jazz is a metaphor for the United StatesDfirmly in hand before he begins to know his subject. This smugness translates into a rather tepid, conservative view of jazz. The entire 40-year period from 1960 forward is relegated to a single chapter, a rather pronounced statement about how the authors feel about more recent achievements. More than 500 illustrations and photos.

Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz
John F. Szwed

Anyone interested in learning about a distinct musicjazzwill welcome this newest addition to the popular 101 reference series. Noted anthropologist, critic, and musical scholar John F. Szwed takes readers on a tour of the musics tangled history and explores how it developed from an ethnic music to become North Americas most popular music and then part of the avant garde in less than fifty years. Jazz 101 presents the key figures, history, theory, and controversies that shaped its development, along with a discussion of some of its most important recordings.

This new book from the editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz offers a unique way of approaching and understanding jazz. Drawing on twenty-one historic jazz recordings, reproduced on a compact disc that accompanies the book, Barry Kernfeld illustrates jazz rhythm, forms, arrangement, composition, improvisation, style, and sound. Students and fans alike have much to gain from thoroughly reading this incisive guide; indeed, so do professional critics humble enough to admit that they probably don’t know all this stuff already.

The fun and easy way to explore the world of jazz. Jazz is America’s greatest music, but with over a century’s worth of styles and artists, where do you begin? Relax! This hep cat’s guide delivers the scoop on the masters and their music — from Duke Ellington to Charlie Parker to Wynton Marsalis. It’s just what you need to tune in to the history and musical structure of jazz and become a more savvy listener. Discover how to understand the traits and roots of jazz, tune in to jazz styles, listen to great jazz artists, catch a live performance, and even succeed in a jazz ensemble. Includes a list of more than 100 recordings for your jazz collection.

The Story of Jazz
-Marshall W. Stearns (1970)

The effect of jazz upon American culture and the American character has been all-pervasive. This superlative history is the first and the most renowned systematic outline of the evolution of this unique American musical phenomenon. Stearns begins with the joining of the African Negro’s musical heritage with European forms and the birth of jazz in New Orleans then follows its course through the era of swing and bop to the beginnings of rock in the 50s, vividly depicting the great innovators, and covering such technical elements as the music’s form and structure.

Jazz In Search of Itself (hardcover)
-Larry Kart (2004)

Kart is a genuine critic. He analyzes how a particular player sounds more closely than, it certainly seems, any other jazz writer who, like him, doesn’t use musical notation to illustrate the discussion. In a piece on avant-garde saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, a listener-demanding musician, Kart describes the first 3 minutes of a 23-minute performance so concretely that one could easily check out his accuracy by listening to the same recording. By no means always so thoroughgoing, he still reliably gives readers enough solid information to aurally check up on him, and then to argue with as well as learn from his evaluations. Kart is also historically and sociologically well informed about jazz, enabling him to make cogent assessments of received opinion on historic performers such as Louis Armstrong; to ask informants the right questions or give them room to say arresting things (see the Frank Zappa interview); and to cogently critique whole movements (e.g., jazz revivalism in "The Neo-Con Game"). Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.

Tales of the Jazz Age (paperback)
-F. Scott Fitzgerald (2007)

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth, these essays present a middle-aged Fitzgerald looking back on the era he came to epitomize. This book of five confessional essays from the 1930s follows Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda from the height of their celebrity as the darlings of the 1920s to years of rapid decline leading to the self-proclaimed "Crack Up" in 1936. The poetics of Fitzgerald’s style are not lost in nonfiction, and these pieces display some of his finest writing. This publication from Boomer Books is specially designed and typeset for comfortable reading.

Growing Up with Jazz: Twenty-Four Musicians Talk about Their Lives and Careers (hardcover)
-W. Royal Stokes (2005)

A jazz writer for three decades, W. Royal Stokes has a special talent for capturing the initial spark that launches a musician’s career. In Growing Up With Jazz, he has interviewed twenty-four instrumentalists and singers who talk candidly about the early influences that started them on the road to jazz and where that road has taken them. From Art Blakey to Claire Daly to Don Byron, here are the compelling stories of two dozen top musicians finding their way in the world of jazz.

Duke Ellington – American Jazz Man (Biography)
(paperback)
-Biographiq (2008)

Duke Ellington – American Jazz Man is the biography of Duke Ellington, an American composer, pianist and band leader who was one of the most influential figures in jazz, if not in all American music. As a composer and a band leader, Ellington’s reputation has increased since his death, with thematic repackagings of his signature music often becoming best-sellers. Ellington called his style and sound "American Music" rather than jazz. One of the twentieth century’s best-known African-American celebrities, Ellington recorded for many American record companies, and appeared in numerous films. Duke Ellington – American Jazz Man is highly recommended for those interested in reading more about this admired music legend.