Jazz is one of America's greatest gifts to the arts, and native Texas musicians have played a major role in the development of jazz from its birth in ragtime, blues, and boogie-woogie to its most contemporary manifestation in free jazz. Dave Oliphant began the fascinating story of Texans and jazz in his acclaimed book Texan Jazz, published in 1996. Continuing his riff on this intriguing musical theme, Oliphant uncovers in this new volume more of the prolific connections between Texas musicians and jazz.
Jazz Mavericks of the Lone Star State presents sixteen...
Jazz is one of America's greatest gifts to the arts, and native Texas musicians have played a major role in the development of jazz from its birth ...
The early swing era of jazz, from 1930 to 1941, represents both an extension of developments of the previous decade and an introduction of new tendencies that influenced subsequent periods of jazz history. Major big bands and individual artists established important styles that brought wide popularity to the music, while small groups created innovative approaches that determined the directions jazz would take in the years to come. This was a time marked by colorful band leaders, flashy instrumental soloists, showy orchestras, and engaging singers, and Oliphant's reference guide to this...
The early swing era of jazz, from 1930 to 1941, represents both an extension of developments of the previous decade and an introduction of new tend...
Texas musicians and jazz share a history that goes all the way back to the origins of jazz in ragtime, blues, and boogie-woogie. Texans have left their mark on all of jazz's major movements, including hot jazz, swing, bebop, the birth of the cool, hard bop, and free jazz. Yet these musicians are seldom identified as Texans because their careers often took them to the leading jazz centers in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Kansas City, and Los Angeles.
In Texan Jazz, Dave Oliphant reclaims these musicians for Texas and explores the vibrant musical culture that brought...
Texas musicians and jazz share a history that goes all the way back to the origins of jazz in ragtime, blues, and boogie-woogie. Texans have left t...
In the tradition of literary pilgrimages, the one is this book is both physical and spiritual. Dave Oliphant moves us around West, Central, and East Texas in poems named after towns: Wink, Denton, Houston, Honey Island. These poems find the spiritual in the ordinary and share such insights through sight and sound-especially the many sounds of music. Read the poems aloud and listen; you will hear music through the entire collection. The first poem starts the book's pilgrimage with a psalm of daily life, and the final poem offers a magnificent chorus of folk songs, symphonies, yodels, pop...
In the tradition of literary pilgrimages, the one is this book is both physical and spiritual. Dave Oliphant moves us around West, Central, and East T...
Dave Oliphant's thirteenth book of poetry, The Cowtown Circle, is divided into six sections, moving from an eclectic gathering of poems devoted to nature, topical issues, and the imprisonment of captured WWII German soldiers in Hearne, Texas, to a section of Maria Poems (a series begun in 1976) and to sections on grandchildren and a visit to New York City, on music (classical, jazz, and Indian), on U.S. Presidents, and on a group of modernist Texas artists active during the Second World War."
Dave Oliphant's thirteenth book of poetry, The Cowtown Circle, is divided into six sections, moving from an eclectic gathering of poems devoted to nat...
Dave Oliphant is widely considered the finest poetry critic ever produced by Texas. This volume brings together some 40 years of essays, articles, and reviews on the topic of Texas poetry -- its history as well as addressing individual poets and their books. Only one other book in the last two decades addressed the topic, and "Generations of Texas Poets" is larger, more comprehensive, and of superior literary quality. In 1971, Larry McMurtry famously descried the lack of good Texas poetry; Oliphant has spent a lifetime nurturing it, publishing it, and has become its best critic.
Dave Oliphant is widely considered the finest poetry critic ever produced by Texas. This volume brings together some 40 years of essays, articles, and...
A book forty-one years in the making, written between 1975 and 2016, Dave Oliphant's MarIa's Book presents what Douglas Flaherty has called "a delicately passionate record of an internationally conspired love affair. Oliphant's poems to his wife are valentines for the ages."
With its publication in 2016, MarIa's Book marks the golden anniversary of Dave and MarIa's marriage.
A book forty-one years in the making, written between 1975 and 2016, Dave Oliphant's MarIa's Book presents what Douglas Flaherty has called "a deli...
With these poems devoted to jazz, Dave Oliphant offers a testament to the variety and significance of the art form and its artists. These poems are an attempt to pay homage to the art of jazz and to its musicians, whose lives and performances have long been a source of pleasure, inspiration, and solace.
With these poems devoted to jazz, Dave Oliphant offers a testament to the variety and significance of the art form and its artists. These poems are...
