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Celebrating Bird : the triumph of Charlie Parker
\" Within days of Charlie \"Bird\" Parker's death at the age of thirty-four, a scrawled legend began appearing on walls around New York City: Bird Lives. Gone was one of the most outstanding jazz musicians of any era, the troubled genius who brought modernism to jazz and became a defining cultural force for musicians, writers, and artists of every stripe. Arguably the most significant musician in the country at the time of his death, Parker set the standard many musicians strove to reach--though he never enjoyed the same popular success that greeted many of his imitators. Today, the power of Parker's inventions resonates undiminished; and his influence continues to expand. Celebrating Bird is the groundbreaking and award-winning account of the life and legend of Charlie Parker from renowned biographer and critic Gary Giddins, whom Esquire called \"the best jazz writer in America today.\" Richly illustrated and drawing primarily from original sources, Giddins overturns many of the myths that have grown up around Parker. He cuts a fascinating portrait of the period, from Parker's apprentice days in the 1930s in his hometown of Kansas City to the often difficult years playing clubs in New York and Los Angeles, and reveals how Parker came to embody not only musical innovation and brilliance but the rage and exhilaration of an entire generation. Fully revised and with a new introduction by the author, Celebrating Bird is a classic of jazz writing that the Village Voice heralded as \"a celebration of the highest order\"--a portrayal of a jazz virtuoso whose gargantuan talent was haunted by his excesses and a view into the ravishing art of one of jazz's most commanding and remarkable figures. \"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Celebrating Bird
Within days of Charlie \"Bird\" Parker's death at the age of thirty-four, a scrawled legend began appearing on walls around New York City: Bird Lives. Gone was one of the most outstanding jazz musicians of any era, the troubled genius who brought modernism to jazz and became a defining cultural force for musicians, writers, and artists of every stripe. Arguably the most significant musician in the country at the time of his death, Parker set the standard many musicians strove to reach-though he never enjoyed the same popular success that greeted many of his imitators. Today, the power of Parker's inventions resonates undiminished; and his influence continues to expand. Celebrating Bird is the groundbreaking and award-winning account of the life and legend of Charlie Parker from renowned biographer and critic Gary Giddins, whom Esquire called \"the best jazz writer in America today.\" Richly illustrated and drawing primarily from original sources, Giddins overturns many of the myths that have grown up around Parker. He cuts a fascinating portrait of the period, from Parker's apprentice days in the 1930s in his hometown of Kansas City to the often difficult years playing clubs in New York and Los Angeles, and reveals how Parker came to embody not only musical innovation and brilliance but the rage and exhilaration of an entire generation. Fully revised and with a new introduction by the author, Celebrating Bird is a classic of jazz writing that the Village Voice heralded as \"a celebration of the highest order\"-a portrayal of a jazz virtuoso whose gargantuan talent was haunted by his excesses and a view into the ravishing art of one of jazz's most commanding and remarkable figures.
eBook
Bing Crosby : swinging on a star : the war years, 1940-1946
\"Giddins ... focuses on Crosby's most memorable period, the war years and the origin story of White Christmas. Set against the backdrop of a Europe on the brink of collapse, this ... work traces Crosby's skyrocketing career as he fully inhabits a new era of American entertainment and culture. While he would go on to reshape both popular music and cinema more comprehensively than any other artist, Crosby's legacy would be forever intertwined with his impact on the home front, a unifying voice for a nation at war\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Murray Talks Music
The year 2016 will mark the centennial of the birth of Albert Murray (1916-2013), who in thirteen books was by turns a lyrical novelist, a keen and iconoclastic social critic, and a formidable interpreter of jazz and blues. Not only did his prizewinning studyStomping the Blues(1976) influence musicians far and wide, it was also a foundational text for Jazz at Lincoln Center, which he cofounded with Wynton Marsalis and others in 1987.Murray Talks Musicbrings together, for the first time, many of Murray's finest interviews and essays on music-most never before published-as well as rare liner notes and prefaces.
For those new to Murray, this book will be a perfect introduction, and those familiar with his work-even scholars-will be surprised, dazzled, and delighted. Highlights include Dizzy Gillespie's richly substantive 1985 conversation; an in-depth 1994 dialogue on jazz and culture between Murray and Wynton Marsalis; and a long 1989 discussion on Duke Ellington between Murray, Stanley Crouch, and Loren Schoenberg. Also interviewed by Murray are producer and impresario John Hammond and singer and bandleader Billy Eckstine. All of thse conversations were previously lost to history. A celebrated educator and raconteur, Murray engages with a variety of scholars and journalists while making insightful connections among music, literature, and other art forms-all with ample humor and from unforeseen angles.
Leading Murray scholar Paul Devlin contextualizes the essays and interviews in an extensive introduction, which doubles as a major commentary on Murray's life and work. The volume also presents sixteen never-before-seen photographs of jazz greats taken by Murray.
No jazz collection will be complete withoutMurray Talks Music, which includes a foreword by Gary Giddins and an afterword by Greg Thomas.
eBook
Weather Bird
Gary Giddins’s magnificent book Visions of Jazz has been hailed as a landmark in music criticism. Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post called it “the definitive compendium by the most interesting jazz critic now at work.” And Alfred Appel, Jr., in The New York Times Book Review, said it was “the finest unconventional history of jazz ever written.” It was the first work on jazz ever to win the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Now comes Weather Bird, a brilliant companion volume to Visions of Jazz. In this superb collection of essays, reviews and articles, Giddins brings together, for the first time, more than 140 pieces written over a 14-year period, most of them for his column in the Village Voice (also called “Weather Bird”). The book is first and foremost a celebration of jazz, with illuminating commentary on contemporary jazz events, on today’s top musicians, on the best records of the year, and on leading figures from jazz’s past. Readers will find extended pieces on Louis Armstrong, Erroll Garner, Benny Carter, Sonny Rollins, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Billie Holiday, Cassandra Wilson, Tony Bennett, and many others. Giddins includes a series of articles on the annual JVC Jazz Festival, which taken together offer a splendid overview of jazz in the 1990s. Other highlights include an astute look at avant-garde music (“Parajazz”) and his challenging essay, “How Come Jazz Isn’t Dead?” which advances a theory about the way art is born, exploited, celebrated, and sidelined to the museum. A radiant compendium by America’s leading music critic, Weather Bird offers an unforgettable look at the modern jazz scene.
eBook
MASTERY
THE SECOND WORLD WAR severely altered the texture and tempo of American life, and jazz reflected those changes more acutely and thoroughly than the other arts, with the arguable exception of painting. Popular music gave way to canned patriotism, sentimental bromides, and silly novelties. Hollywood divided its soul between the benedictions of Bing Crosby as a priest and crime stories (later called noir) of festering corruption. Broadway looked backward even when it was serious (The Glass Menagerie, The Skin of Our Teeth), though it preferred outright nostalgia (I Remember Mama, Life with Father). A popular appetite for poetry was requited
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