Led by Frank Sinatra, the generation that emerged during and after World War II raised the performance of the popular song to the level of art. Gene Lees' fascinating book examines some of the most gifted of these singers, including Sinatra, Dick Haymes, Peggy Lee, Jo Stafford, and Sarah Vaughan.
Far from being the simple intuitive performers the public thought it knew, these people emerge--in Singers and the Song--as intelligent, skillful, and fully conscious artists dedicated to their work. Lees also discusses the composers, including the great film composer, Hugo Friedhodfer, and the...

Jazz: America's Classical Music is a delightful introduction and guide to this complex and compelling music and to its rich history. In an engaging and conversational style, renowned jazz teacher Grover Sales tells of the lives and music of the greats--Ellington, Tatum, Hawkins, Coltrane, Parker, Hines, Goodman, Armstrong, and many others--with a mix of important facts, fascinating anecdotes, and brilliant interpretations. Illustrated with astonishing photographs of the artists in performance, Jazz: America's Classical Music is a classic text, an ideal book for beginners and an...

When Alec Wilder's American Popular Song first appeared, it was almost universally hailed--from The New York Times to The New Yorker to Down Beat--as the definitive account of the classic era of American popular music. It has since become the standard work of the great songwriters who dominated popular music in the United States for half a century. Now Wilder's classic is available again, with a new introduction by Gene Lees.
Uniquely analytical yet engagingly informal, American Popular Song focuses on the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic qualities that distinguish American popular music...

Few people know jazz as well as Gene Lees. As a musician, songwriter, former editor of Down Beat, and creator of the acclaimed Jazzletter, he has steeped himself in the music for decades. And no one writes about jazz better than Lees. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the leading jazz historians. The Washington Post called him "one of those writers who's a joy to read on any subject at all." No less than Dizzy Gillespie has called Lees "the glowing jewel of jazz" for his perceptive writing about the music. Now comes the book that jazz lovers (and Lees's fans) have been waiting...