Catalog Search Results
Author
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
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Description
"Millie danced to jazz in her Italian neighborhood. Pedro danced to Latin songs in his Puerto Rican neighborhood. It was the 1940s in New York City, and they were forbidden to dance together . . . until first a band and then a ballroom broke the rules. Machito and His Afro-Cubans hit the scene with a brand-new sound, blending jazz trumpets and saxophones with Latin maracas and congas creating Latin jazz, music for the head, the heart, and the hips....
Author
Language
English
Description
Thelonious Monk is the critically acclaimed, gripping saga of an artist's struggle to "make it" without compromising his musical vision. It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the twentieth century. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations,...
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English
Description
"By the 1930s, Briggs was considered "the Louis Armstrong of Paris," and was the peer of the greatest names of his time, from Josephine Baker to Django Reinhardt. In 1940, he was arrested and sent to the prison camp at Saint Denis. Based on groundbreaking research and including unprecedented access to Briggs's oral memoir, this is a crucial document of jazz history, a fast-paced epic, and an entirely original tale of survival"--
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Language
English
Description
""Nicole Mones conjures up the jazz-filled, complex, turbulent world of Shanghai just before World War II. A rich and thoroughly captivating read."--Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai's Garden Sailing to Shanghai in 1936 to lead a black jazz orchestra, Thomas Greene goes from being flat broke in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with servants of his own, and from the classical piano pieces he was trained to play to the toe-tapping swing...
10) Ella Fitzgerald
Author
Language
English
Description
"Having lost her mother at a young age, Ella Fitzgerald struggled as a child, especially during the Great Depression. But after winning over the audience with her singing at an Amateur Night at the Apollo, Ella's career began, and she eventually went on to become a world-renowned singer known as the First Lady of Song. Complete with an introduction from Chelsea Clinton, black-and-white illustrations throughout, and a list of ways that readers can...
11) David and Ameena
Author
Language
English
Description
"Modern-day New York, a subway train. David, an American-Jewish jazz musician, torn between his dreams and his parents' expectations, sees a woman across the carriage. Ameena, a British-Pakistani artist who left Manchester to escape the pressure from her conservative family, sees David. When a moment of sublime beauty occurs unexpectedly, the two connect, moved by their shared experience. From this flows a love that it appears will triumph above all....
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Language
English
Formats
Description
Playboy-the magazine, the empire, the lifestyle-is one of the world's best-known brands. Since the launch of Playboy magazine in 1953, two elements have been remarkably consistent: the first, obviously, is the celebration of nubile, female flesh. The second, readers may be surprised to learn, is Playboy's involvement in the music scene. The Playboy experience was never just about sex but about lifestyle. Music-particularly the finest jazz, a personal...
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Language
English
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Description
This immersive new autobiography provides insight into the early life and illustrious career of the late great Ramsey Lewis, one of the most popular jazz pianists of all time.
Beginning with his childhood growing up in Chicago's Cabrini Green neighborhood, Ramsey Lewis recounts his memories of the music in his parents' church and his early piano lessons. As he learned classical technique, Lewis also absorbed countless jazz records and heard gospel...
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English
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Description
"A tour de force. . . . Crouch has given us a bone-deep understanding of Parker's music and the world that produced it. In his pages, Bird still lives." - Washington Post
A stunning portrait of Charlie Parker, one of the most talented and influential musicians of the twentieth century, from Stanley Crouch, one of the foremost authorities on jazz and culture in America.
Throughout his life, Charlie Parker personified the tortured American artist:...
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English
Formats
Description
From T. J. English, the New York Times bestselling author of Havana Nocturne, comes the epic, scintillating narrative of the interconnected worlds of jazz and organized crime in 20th-century America.
Dangerous Rhythms tells the symbiotic story of jazz and the underworld: a relationship fostered in some of 20th century America's most notorious vice districts. For the first half of the century mobsters and musicians enjoyed a mutually beneficial partnership....
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English
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Description
"The early years of Sarah Vaughan's career coincided with the waning of the swing era, and this biography shows how the change both fuelled and limited her career." - The New Yorker
"Queen of Bebop explores the hard choices of many a jazz singer when rock 'n roll began stealing audience focus, relying on a variety of performers to shed light on Vaughan's mindset. A welcome and well-researched accounting of Vaughan's life story. " - NPR.org
"Necessary...
17) Bessie
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Known as the "Empress of the Blues," Bessie Smith was a successful vaudeville entertainer who became the highest paid African American performer of the Roaring Twenties. This revised and expanded biography debunks many of the myths that have circulated since her untimely death in 1937.
Writing with insight and candor about the singer's personal life and career, the author supplements his research with dozens of interviews with her relatives, friends,...
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