Tertulia Logo
Sign upLog In
Cart Icon0
Cart Icon0
The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Visions of Jazz: The First Century, Gary Giddins

Visions of Jazz: The First Century

Gary Giddins

Paperback
Regular price$28.99With free membership trial$14.4950% off your first book+ Free shipping
In Stock– Ships within one business day

Do you recommend this book?

Yes!

No

Poised to become a classic of jazz literature, Visions of Jazz: The First Century offers seventy-nine chapters illuminating the lives of virtually all the major figures in jazz history. From Louis Armstrong's renegade-style trumpet playing to Sarah Vaughan's operatic crooning, and from the swinging elegance of Duke Ellington to the pioneering experiments of Ornette Coleman, jazz critic Gary Giddins continually astonishes the reader with his unparalleled insight. Writing with the grace and wit that have endeared his prose to Village Voice readers for decades, Giddins also widens the scope of jazz to include such crucial American musicians as Irving Berlin, Rosemary Clooney, and Frank Sinatra, all primarily pop performers who are often dismissed by fans and critics as mere derivatives of the true jazz idiom. And he devotes an entire quarter of this landmark volume to young, still-active jazz artists, boldly expanding the horizons of jazz--and charting and exploring the music's influences as no other book has done.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • Publish Date: May 18th, 2000
  • Pages: 704
  • Language: English
  • Edition: Revised - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.21in - 6.14in - 1.41in - 2.14lb
  • EAN: 9780195132410
  • Categories: • Genres & Styles - Jazz• History & Criticism - General• Music

About the Author

Gary Giddins is the jazz critic for the Village Voice. He lives in New York City.

More books by Gary Giddins

Book Cover for: Jazz: Essential Listening, Scott Deveaux
Book Cover for: Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong, Gary Giddins
Book Cover for: Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star: The War Years, 1940-1946, Gary Giddins
Book Cover for: Faces in the Crowd: Musicians, Writers, Actors, and Filmmakers, Gary Giddins
Book Cover for: Riding on a Blue Note: Jazz and American Pop, Gary Giddins
Book Cover for: Rhythm-A-Ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation, Gary Giddins
Book Cover for: Warning Shadows: Home Alone with Classic Cinema, Gary Giddins
Book Cover for: Jazz, Scott Deveaux
Book Cover for: After the Fireworks: Three Novellas, Aldous Huxley
Book Cover for: Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century, Gary Giddins
Book Cover for: Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams - The Early Years 1903 - 1940, Gary Giddins
Book Cover for: Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker, Gary Giddins

What people are saying

Praise for this book

"The publication of Visions of Jazz is a major event because Gary Giddins is our best jazz critic...[It] is the finest unconventional history of jazz ever written--a brilliant, indispensable book."--Alfred Appel, Jr., The New York Times"One of our most skillful jazz critics offers a monumental work of ambition...[Giddins] brings an unerring critical intelligence to his analyses of the music and a formidable grasp of music theory and practice...This is an important book, one that any serious student of jazz will want to own."--Kirkus Reviews"This gigantic book of 79 essays amounts, willy-nilly, to a grand, brilliant history of the most American of arts."--The New York Times Book Review, A Notable Book of 1998"No American writer has ever written better about music, as richly demonstrated in Giddins' Visions of Jazz. This splendid critical history is classic Giddins: breathtaking in its scope, audacious in its erudition, and profoundly mindful of the connection between biography and art."-- Fortune"Giddins' eclectic range and meticulous attention to detail are nothing less than astonishing. Visions of Jazz is a landmark destined to occupy a permanent niche on the shelf of essential jazz literature."--Grover Sales, The Los Angeles Times Book Review

What people are saying

See more