The quintessential depiction of 1980s New York and the downtown scene from the artist, actor, musician, and composer John Lurie “A picaresque roller coaster of a story, with staggering amounts of sex and drugs and the perpetual quest to retain some kind of artistic integrity.”— The New York Times In the tornado that was downtown New York in the 1980s, John Lurie stood at the vortex. After founding the band The Lounge Lizards with his brother, Evan, in 1979, Lurie quickly became a centrifugal figure in the world of outsider artists, cutting-edge filmmakers, and cultural rebels. Now Lurie vibrantly brings to life the whole wash of 1980s New York as he developed his artistic soul over the course of the decade and came into orbit with all the prominent artists of that time and place, including Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Boris Policeband, and, especially, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the enigmatic prodigy who spent a year sleeping on the floor of Lurie’s East Third Street apartment. It may feel like Disney World now, but in The History of Bones , the East Village, through Lurie’s clear-eyed reminiscence, comes to teeming, gritty life. The book is full of grime and frank humor—Lurie holds nothing back in this journey to one of the most significant moments in our cultural history, one whose reverberations are still strongly felt today. History may repeat itself, but the way downtown New York happened in the 1980s will never happen again. Luckily, through this beautiful memoir, we all have a front-row seat.

"A bestselling music historian follows Jelly Roll Morton on a journey through the hidden worlds and forbidden songs of early blues and jazz. In Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs and Hidden Histories, Elijah Wald takes readers on a journey into the hidden and censored world of early blues and jazz, guided by the legendary New Orleans pianist Jelly Roll Morton. Morton became nationally famous as a composer and bandleader in the 1920s, but got his start twenty years earlier, entertaining customers in the city's famous bordellos and singing rough blues in Gulf Coast honky-tonks. He recorded an oral history of that time in 1938, but the most distinctive songs were hidden away for over fifty years, because the language and themes were as wild and raunchy as anything in gangsta rap. Those songs inspired Wald to explore how much other history had been locked away and censored, and this book is the result of that quest. Full of previously unpublished lyrics and stories, it paints a new and surprising picture of the dawn of American popular music, when jazz and blues were still the private, after-hours music of the Black 'sporting world.' It gives new insight into familiar figures like Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong, and introduces forgotten characters like Ready Money, the New Orleans sex worker and pickpocket who ended up owning one of the largest Black hotels on the West Coast. Revelatory and fascinating, these songs and stories provide an alternate view of Black culture at the turn of the twentieth century, when a new generation was shaping lives their parents could not have imagined and art that transformed popular culture around the world--the birth of a joyous, angry, desperate, loving, and ferociously funny tradition that resurfaced in hip-hop and continues to inspire young artists in a new millennium"--

"From the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of how jazz arrived at the pinnacle of American culture in 1959, told through the journey of three towering artists-Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans-who came together to create the most famous and bestselling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue The myth of the 60s depends on the 1950s being the before times of conformity, segregation, straightness-The Lonely Crowd and The Organization Man. This all carries some truth, but it does nothing to explain how, in 1959, the great indigenous art form, jazz, reached the height of its power and popularity, led there by a number of Black geniuses so iconic they go by one name-Monk, Mingus, Rollins, Coltrane, and above all, Miles. 1959 saw Miles, Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the other members of Miles's sextet come together to record what is widely considered the greatest jazz album of all time, and certainly the best-selling: Kind of Blue. 3 Shades of Blue is James Kaplan's magnificent account of the paths of the three giants Miles, Coltrane and Evans to the mountaintop of 1959 and their path on from there. It's a book about music, and business, and race, and heroin, and the towns that gave jazz its home, from New York and LA to Philadelphia, Chicago and Kansas City. It's an astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange hothouses that can produce its full flowering. It's a book about the great forebears of this golden age, particularly Charlie Parker, and the people, like Ornette Coleman, who would take the music down strange new paths. And it's about why this period has never been replicated, why the world of jazz most people visit is a museum to it. But above all this is a book about three very different men-their struggles, their choices, their tragedies, their greatness. Bill Evans had a gruesome downward spiral, John Coltrane took the mystic's path into a space far away from mainstream concerns. Miles had three or four sea changes in him before the end. The tapestry of their lives is, in Kaplan's hands, an American Odyssey, with no direction home. It is also a masterpiece, a book about jazz that is as big as America"--

“ The Ellington Century is a wonderful journey through the world of music and art. If you are already an aficionado of Ellington's music, you will enjoy the author's informative and detailed analysis of the composer's work and musical influences. If you are less familiar, this book puts Ellington's music in perspective with the great ‘classical’ composers of the twentieth century. David Schiff's remarkable insight into the historical and musical parallels between these composers is a delight to read and his references are vast, from Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Stravinsky’s Agon to television’s Sesame Street . Schiff writes with a sense of humor and an enthusiasm for Ellington's music that comes out on every page.”—George Manahan, Music Director, American Composers Orchestra “David Schiff points us forward, observing that ‘Ellington’s music asks us to see with our ears and hear with our eyes.’ Writing as a composer and scholar, he has a gift for making complex ideas strikingly clear. His insights move across a huge terrain of twentieth-century culture, as he builds bridges in his musical and cultural analysis where many have not seen a connection. Yet each musical work, each artist, is given his or her equal due. In this sense, he has met the spiritual and cultural challenge of Ellington’s life work.”—Marty Ehrlich, Composer/Instrumentalist, Associate Professor of Improvisation and Contemporary Music, Hampshire College

“Nat Hentoff may very well be the foremost jazz historian in the world because he was there to witness firsthand the music’s evolution from big band and swing to fusion and bossa nova; and to dive into the souls of the men and women who created it from Ellington, Basie, Miles, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington, among many others. At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene is an invaluable archive of not only the musical influence of America’s only indigenous music on the world, but its enormous impact as an engine for social change as well. It is a book that should be read by every young musician, music fan, and educator in America.”—Quincy Jones "The very best witnesses in the worlds of the law, aesthetic evaluation, social contexts of imposing significance, and artistic public performance are those who accurately understand what they have seen or what they are seeing. Nat Hentoff has been and continues to be a star witness in every one of those arenas. One of the greatest contributions of his jazz writing is that he has never felt the need to condescend to black people or to let the dictates of sociology diminish the universal significance of what they do when they do it well. Nat knows that so many jazz musicians have done what they do superbly, quite often expressing themselves beyond the narrows of color. As sensitive to the Americana of jazz as he is to its transcendent revelations about the sound of the human heart, Nat Hentoff is part of our American luck."—Stanley Crouch “ At the Jazz Band Ball is full of nuggets from Nat's rich lode of wit and wisdom, gleaned in a lifetime of fellowship with jazz and its makers.”—Dan Morgenstern, Director, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University; author of Living With Jazz: A Reader

Captures seven hit-making decades during the American recording industry's glittering, freewheeling years. Tommy LiPuma was one of America's most successful record producers whose work with seminal artists like Miles Davis, Diana Krall, Barbra Streisand, Rickie Lee Jones, George Benson, and Willie Nelson went on to sell over seventy-five million records. It is also a picaresque journey that opens with the murder of a man on a dirt path in Sicily and concludes with five trips up the Grammy red carpet. The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma is real-life Horatio Alger adventure storied with bootleggers, gangsters, artists, hipsters, set in a revolutionary time in music history that changed popular culture around the world. Finally, it's a deeply personal account of how music saved one man's life, and how he went on to affect the lives of millions of others. "Tommy was my best friend, my creative partner, my mentor, my confidant, and my producer for twenty-four years. As time goes on, I realize just how special he was."--Diana Krall "Tommy was a fantastic producer. He always had a great sense of humour . . . he would sit in the studio with us musicians and make every session a complete joy."--Paul McCartney "Tommy was always looking for ways to bring authentic jazz and blues to a larger audience."--Donald Fagen "He leaves a great legacy of great music that's going to stand the test of time . . . . I miss him every day."--Al Schmitt "Tommy was a great producer and a real friend."--Willie Nelson I don't think that it's been noticed enough what he's done. He's been the most successfulperson, commercially, in the history of jazz."--Randy Newman

Whether you are one of the many music lovers currently discovering jazz or a long-time jazz buff interested in any style from New Orleans to the contemporary scene. Understanding Jazz offers you new insights into this uniquely American form of music. In Understanding Jazz, Leroy Ostransky takes you through the history of jazz, beginning with its origins in the marching bands of 1800s, through New Orleans, swing, and bop, right up to the present day. From King Oliver and Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis and John McLaughlin, Ostransky evaluates the contributions of the major figures in jazz and shows how jazz reflected the major events in our history, from prohibition to the civil rights movement. In addition, Ostransky gives you useful insights into the problem of defining jazz, explanations of the role of improvisation, analysis of the techniques, and examples of the elements of style which make one artist different from another. Exploring jazz and its many meanings--racial issue, social phenomenon, political statement, and artistic event-- Understanding Jazz is a valuable history and analysis of the music that America gave the world.

The Jazz Book of Two Lifetimes NEA Jazz Master saxophonist Dave Liebman and pianist Richie Beirach have enjoyed a fifty-year friendship on and off the bandstand. They've performed with Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Freddie Hubbard, and their own bands. Ruminations and Reflections takes readers on a rollicking journey through their musical lives. Along the way, they share their views on jazz education, prominent musicians, and musical preparation. Liebman and Beirach pay tribute to their musical mentors, tour their discography, and suggest essential recordings to study. The book's conversational style will delight students, professionals, and music lovers alike. "We really don't have an exact name for musicians like Dave and Richie. Across decades of recordings and concerts, their aspirations obliterate the definitions of any single genre. This volume reveals the deep insight and wisdom required to resolve their shared quest for meaning in music. Both are master players who continue to strive for what goes beyond and what lies beneath. Reading their words and following their stories in this wonderful book affirms the feeling that they share on the bandstand as one of the great long-term partnerships in this music." - Pat Metheny A masterclass in the art and skill of jazz Ruminations and Reflections is more than just a jazz biography, it is a masterclass in how to improvise, jazz theory, how to listen to jazz, and the business of being a musician in today's world. Never shy, these two friends share fascinating and revealing stories of growing into their musical selves, late night hangs with legendary musicians, and the jazz life. Known for their virtuosity and playing free, Liebman and Beirach share their secrets for preparing for the ultimate exercise of musical improvisation. Both musicians use their deep devotion to classical music as a basis for improvisation, crossing genres and boundaries to create spontaneous and beautiful musical experiences. As veteran educators, Dave and Richie share their wisdom and life lessons to keep the legacy of jazz improvisation and free jazz alive. Jazz musicians and students will find value in their masterful analysis of duo playing, comping, and musical leadership. For fans of jazz masters and legends Ruminations and Reflections showcases never before told anecdotes and opinions about musical legends including, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Jack DeJohnette, Wayne Shorter, Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Chick Corea, Lee Konitz, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, and Wynton Marsalis. Jazz fans will delight in the in-depth analysis of over twenty of this duo's best recordings, providing insight and history to this important discography. A journey through modern jazz history Jazz aficionados will enjoy the personal accounts of their formative years in Brooklyn, developing a passion for music that has lasted a lifetime. A road trip through Brooklyn and Manhattan sets the scene for reminiscences about the New York City jazz scene today and in days gone by. Jazz clubs like Birdland and the Village Vanguard come to life with tales of the musicians who played there. Ruminations and Reflections chronicles the intersection of jazz and rock and roll in the fertile early 1970's New York loft scene. Beirach and Liebman were pioneers in the jazz fusion era and recount tours, jam sessions, and recordings with their bands Lookout Farm and Quest. They continue to marvel audiences in any musical setting. Along their journey, Liebman and Beirach have created a legacy of excellence and dedication to fans, fellow musicians, and the music. This book is a celebration of musical lives well-lived and a gift to us all.