[PDF] Everything Is Going to Be OK by Chronicle Books at Arts-Photography

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 worlds 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 Parkers surgical precision of attack; Miles Daviss 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival; Ornette Colemans experiments with atonality; Pat Methenys 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 Gioias 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.