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The History of Jazz | 
 enlarge | Author: Ted Gioia
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy Used: $7.89
You Save: $12.06 (60%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 27342
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 019512653X
Dewey Decimal Number: 781.6509
EAN: 9780195126532
ASIN: 019512653X
Publication Date: December 17, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: The book is clean but may have highlights.
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Product Description
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 Belden and Joe "King" Oliver, jazz began its long winding odyssey across America and around the world, giving flower to a thousand different forms--swing, bebop, cool jazz, jazz-rock fusion--and a thousand great musicians. Now, in The History of Jazz, Ted Gioia tells the story of this music as it has 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 ("the world's greatest hot tune writer"), Louis Armstrong (whose O-keh recordings of the mid-1920s still stand as the most significant body of work that jazz has produced), Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, cool jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young, Charlie Parker's surgical precision of attack, 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 Knitting Factory. Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of these and many other great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. Gioia 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. He shows for instance how the development of technology helped promote the growth of jazz--how ragtime blossomed hand-in-hand with the spread of parlor and player pianos, and how jazz rode the growing popularity of the record industry in the 1920s. We also discover how bebop grew out of the racial unrest of the 1940s and '50s, when black players, no longer content with being "entertainers," wanted to be recognized as practitioners of a serious musical form. Jazz is a chameleon art, delighting us with the ease and rapidity with which it changes colors. Now, in Ted Gioia's The History of Jazz, we have at last a book that captures all these colors on one glorious palate. Knowledgeable, vibrant, and comprehensive, it is among the small group of books that can truly be called classics of jazz literature.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Great survey of the history of jazz! July 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Gioia's "The History of Jazz" is the best one volume history of jazz I've read. It gives plenty of detail while moving along from era to era. I'd greatly recommend it to anyone wishing to survey the major developments, composers and performers or America's original musical art form.
Superb December 19, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Absolutely first rate. The depth and breadth of research is awesome--not just on the musicians but the conditions and times. Gioia writes beautifully and perceptively. If I were going to write a book on jazz (no need, now!) this would be the book I would have wanted to write. Six stars.
jazz history October 20, 2007
This book relates the history of jazz, and gives you a background that will help you listen more carefully and with heightened appreciation of this unique American music. Good stories, well detailed, and well worth the time to read it. The only thing better of course is watching jazz musicians play!
Can't put it down May 18, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a fascinating book. Gioia has done what appears to me to be a thorough, detailed, highly readable documentation of a form of music that has dominated American culture for the last near-100 years. I come at it as a newbie, even though I've lived through more than half of it. I just wasn't aware. This has been a valuable learning experience for me.
A History for the intermediate listener. October 9, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The back cover of this Oxford paperback claims that the book is suitable as an introduction to jazz or as an authoritative reference. I must admit that I am neither a jazz officianado nor a complete novice to the world of swing, bebop and fusion, making me incapable of confirming the cover's claims. However, for me, this book filled in the gaps quite nicely.
Most of my knowledge of jazz has come from the radio. The big names keep popping up but lesser known lights get little air time and I am at the whim of the dj's tastes. "The History of Jazz" covers them all, starting at the very beginning - drum circle dances in pre-abolition New Orleans. It then discusses the roots of early dixie land jazz (ragtime, Joplin, and the blues) and then describes the movement of jazz from New Orleans to Chicago and New York. It intersperses lively anecdotes about the fathers of jazz -Jelly Roll Morton was a procurer (pimp?) early on- with music theory and analysis. Buddy Bolden, Louis Armstrong and Morton all have a section devoted to them. A chapter on the jazz age pays special attention to Armstrong's Hot Five and subsequent career. Bix Beiderbecke's biography is given in detail along with notes on many other famous players of his day. A chapter is devoted to Harlem, stride piano, Waller, Ellington and the advent of the big bands, ending with a description of society and music at the Cotton Club. The Swing era gets a chapter to itself with even more in-depth treatment of big bands and those who led them (Goodman, the Dorsey's etc.). Kansas City style jazz, and european jazz traditions (Django Reinhardt) are also covered. The details of Billie Holiday's life, although well known, make for a sad story.
The second half of the book, which covers modern jazz, the fragmentation of jazz styles and recent jazz developments, is much less coherent than the first. The section on bebop with its lengthy discussion of the life and influence of Bird and Gillespie continues to be readable and thorough. However, as the author approaches the present day, the writing, like the jazz, seems to fragment. This is not to say that it isn't enjoyable reading, just that the sheer number of names and styles begins to pull the book in too many directions. California jazz, trad jazz, cool jazz, hard bop, post-bop and soul, free jazz, post-modern jazz and the various fusion forms leave the reader gasping for air. It seems clear to me that I will need to go out and listen to a lot of things to round out my education. Fortunately the book is well supplied with notes, further readings and, best of all a recommended listening list.
While I might not have understood everything the author had to say about the subtleties of the music, this book has made me a much keener fan of jazz. It has created in me the desire to seek out new and different forms of the music and to listen more carefully to the old stuff. For this, I gladly give it five stars.
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