The names of Nat Hentoff and Albert J. McCarthy have become almost synonymous with jazz writing. Hentoff, editor of Jazz Review, writer for Downbeat, High Fidelity, New Yorker, and theVillage Voice, and McCarthy, editor of Jazz Monthly, have raised jazz beyond mere appreciation and discography to a subject which demands the rigorous application of musicological, sociological, and historical analysis. In addition to their own contributions, the twelve articles they have commissioned by internationally noted critics and scholars provide almost revolutionary...

From the field cries and work chants of Southern Negroes emerged a rich and vital music called the country blues, an intensely personal expression of the pains and pleasures of black life. This music--recorded during the twenties by men like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Bill Broonzy, and Robert Johnson--had all but disappeared from memory until the folk music revival of the late 1950's created a new and appreciable audience for the country blues.On of the pioneering studies of this unjustly-neglected music was Sam Charter's The Country Blues. In it, Charters recreates the special world...

Once the king of the blues-derived "stride" school of jazz piano, Fats Waller earned his reputation as the most perfect of all jazz pianists with impeccable time keeping, instrumental mastery, the intensity of swing, and melodic gift. He arrived on the scene just as jazz was flowering nationwide, and he reaped a harvest of fame and fortune through his piano rolls, recordings, and much-lauded European tours. His death . . . in 1943, marked the end of the swing era. This informal narrative of Waller's life and music--a moving memoir of a musical genius and an outstanding human being--was...

Long out of print, the three beautiful volumes contained here offer the modern reader a rare opportunity to see Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, and Isadora Duncan through the eyes of their contemporaries and admirers, and to share the excitement they were causing at the height of their careers. Originally published in conjunction with the Ballet Society, founded by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein, the books present essays, reviews, memoirs, photographs, and sketches, many of which are had to find elsewhere. These books are companions to the art of Nijinsky, Pavlova, and Duncan,...

Always elusive, constantly moving, incessantly changing, John Coltrane stood astride the jazz world of the late '50s and '60s. He was a giant of the saxophone and a major composer. His music influenced both rock stars and classical musicians. There was a mystical quality, a profound melancholy emanating from this quiet, self-contained man that moved listeners--some of whom knew little about music but heard something beyond music's boundaries in the sounds his saxophone created. J. C. Thomas traces John Coltrane's life and career from his North Carolina childhood through his apprenticeship...

Back in the thirties and forties, when New York City was the capital of the jazz world--you could hail a cab, ask the driver to take you to "The Street," and find yourself on 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Musicians, jazz lovers, college students, big businessmen--everybody knew that this was "The Street that Never Slept," the Street where every night was New Year's Eve, the Street that Variety editor Abel Green so aptly dubbed "America's Montmartre." Here, for the price of a drink or two, you could walk through the whole history of jazz. Hot jazz was born and raised on...

For this first full-length reminiscence, Reisner interviewed eighty-one of Parker's friends, relatives, and fellow performers. From Charlie Mingus, one of the few real innovators since Bird, and Dizzy Gillespie, whom Parker once called 'the other half of my heart, ' to jazz historian Rudi Blesh and Parker's mother, each remembers Bird in his or her own special way.

The Complete Operas of Verdi is the first full-length study of all of Verdi's operas. This work of the brilliant British music critic Charles Osborne covers Verdi's complete operatic oeuvre- including the missing choral works, songs, a string quartet, and the Messa da Requiem. The Shakespeare's Falstaff and Othello, show how the legendary composer added both depth and dignity to the Italian operatic repertoire.

The last few years have witnessed an enormous resurgence in the popularity of jazz, after some lean times in the sixties when many potential jazz fans turned to rock. Now the pendulum is on the backswing, and vintage and modern jazz as well as "jazz rock" are attracting huge new audiences. One factor involved in the comeback of jazz among blacks and whites alike is the rise of black consciousness, with its search for roots in the American experience. Nat Hentoff's The Jazz Life explores the social, economic, and psychological elements that make up the context of modern jazz. Among the...

In 1933 Irving Berlin wrote to composer-lyricist Cole Porter, "I am mad about Night and Day." Millions of others throughout the world have been "mad about" that Porter gem, as well as dozens of others, including, to name just a few, Begin the Beguine, From This Moment On, It's De-Lovely, Just One of Those Things, Love for Sale, and My Heart Belongs to Daddy. Cole Porter (1891-1964) set new standards for popular song-writing, and his lyrics and melodies are as bright and sophisticated today as when they first dazzled audiences decades ago. Porter's own life matched that of...