The History of Jazz - Ted Gioia

Jazz is the most colorful and varied art form in the world, and it was born in one of the most colorful and varied cities, New Orleans. From the seed first planted by slave dances held in Congo Square and nurtured by early ensembles led by Buddy Bolden and Joe "King" Oliver, jazz began its long, winding odyssey across America and around the world, giving flower to a thousand different forms - swing, bebob, cook jazz, jazz-rock fusion - and a thousand great musicians.

Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic — acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now, in this second edition, Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of jazz music, past and present.

History of Jazz is a well-written, widely-researched enjoyable read for both fans and scholars of jazz. Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved.

Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history —Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club.  Cool jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie's advocacy of modern jazz in the 1940s. Miles Davis's 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival. Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality. Pat Metheny's visionary extension of jazz-rock fusion. The contemporary sounds of Wynton Marsalis, and the post-modernists of the current day.

Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of these and many other great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. He also evokes the many worlds of jazz, taking the reader to the swamp lands of the Mississippi Delta, the bawdy houses of New Orleans, the rent parties of Harlem, the speakeasies of Chicago during the Jazz Age, the after-hours spots of corrupt Kansas City, the Cotton Club, the Savoy, and the other locales where the history of jazz was made. And as he traces the spread of this protean form, Gioia provides much insight into the social context in which the music was born.

In this new edition of History of Jazz, Gioia addresses in greater detail "Smooth Jazz", jazz-oriented hip-hop and other controversial sub genres. He also expands the focus on jazz outside the United States. There also is an exploration of how changes in technology and distribution have affected jazz, as well as more insight into the economic underpinning of jazz.

And yes, there is a Recommended Listening listing! Check out the Table of Contents in Tidbits.

Man, what a cool trip this is!

And, History of Jazz makes a great pairing with any of the cooking' CDs or just-gotta-read books in our JAZZ COLLECTION

• Condition: New. Paperback
• Edition: Second Edition - Published May 9, 2011
• Publisher: Oxford University Press USA
• ISBN-13: 9780195399707
• Pages: 452
• Rating:★★★★ 1/2 (See FAQs)

• About the Author
• Table of Contents

• Ted Gioia is a musician, author, and leading jazz critic and expert on American music. The first edition of his The History of Jazz was selected as one of the twenty best books of the year in The Washington Post, and was chosen as a notable book of the year in The New York Times.
• He is also the author of Delta Blues, West Coast Jazz, Work Songs and The Birth (and Death) of the Cool
• Chapter One: The Prehistory of Jazz
  Chapter Two: New Orleans Jazz
  Chapter Three: The Jazz Age
  Chapter Four: Harlem
  Chapter Five: The Swing Era
  Chapter Six: Modern Jazz
  Chapter Seven: The Fragmentation of Jazz Styles
  Chapter Eight: Freedom and Fusion
  Chapter Nine: Traditionalists and Post-Modernists
  Chapter Ten: Jazz in the New Millennium
  Notes
  Further Reading
  Recommended Listening
  Acknowledgements
  Index