Books
This book is probably the greatest ever written on the early history of black music in America. With rare clarity and glowing intensity.
From the days when Buddy Bolden would blow his cornet to attract an audience from one New Orleans park to another, to the brass bands in clubs and on the streets today, jazz in New Orleans has been about simple things: getting people to snap their fingers, tap their toes, get up and clap their hands, and most importantly dance!
This book explains what jazz is, where it came from, how it works, and who created it, all within the broader context of American life and culture.
“Comprehensive and intelligently organized. . . . Jazz aficionados . . . should be grateful to have so much good writing on the subject in one place.”–The New York Times Book Review
A year-by-year history of people and events, The Chronicle of Jazz tells the whole story of jazz music and its personalities.
The entire story of jazz—from its earliest days in New Orleans to the 1970s and beyond—told through archival material from Verve, the genre’s most important label
Cal Tjader was undoubtedly the most famous non-Latino leader of Latin jazz bands, an extraordinary distinction.
Nina’s daughter Simone explores the life and career of her mother.
“As penetrating a character study of Bird as any yet written.” –New York Times