WR120: Boston Jazz Now

Jazz and its colorful, expansive history resonate in this unique collection of 60 essays specially-commissioned from today's top jazz performers, writers, and scholars. Contributors include such jazz insiders as Bill Crow, Samuel A. Floyd Jr., Ted Gioia, Gene Lees, Dan Morgenstern, Gunther Schuller, Richard M. Sudhalter, and Patricia Willard. Both a reference book and an engaging read, the Companion surveys the evolution of jazz from its roots in Africa and Europe until the present. The Oxford Companion to Jazz will provide a quick reference source as well as a dynamic and broad overview for all lovers of jazz, from novices to aficionados.

Gioia tells the story of jazz in a book that portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history. Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. And as he traces the spread of this protean form, Gioia provides much insight into the social context in which the music was born.

An updated new edition of Ted Gioia's universally acclaimed history of jazz, with a wealth of new insight on this music's past, present, and future. Gioia's story of jazz portrays the most legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the scenes in which they evolved. From Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, Miles Davis's legendary 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, and Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality to current innovators such as Kamasi Washington and Esperanza Spalding, Gioia takes readers on a sweeping journey through the history of jazz.

This guide looks at more than 250 seminal jazz compositions that sit at the heart of the jazz repertoire. The book offers discussions of each song, with information about how the song was written, who recorded it, the song's place in jazz history, and much more. Gioia includes recommendations for more than 2,000 recordings, with a list of suggested tracks for each song.

From birth dates to gig dates and from recordings to television specials, Feather and Gitler provide detailed information on the careers of 3.300 jazz musicians from around the world. Arranged alphabetically according to last name, each entry of this book chronologically lists the highlights of every jazz musician's career.