Details
Synopsis
Gary Giddins' idiosyncratic series of essays on key figures in 20th-century jazz doesn't pretend to be an all-inclusive guide to the key players in the first century of the music's history; his introduction makes plain that, aside from obvious inclusions like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, he regards generally unsung candidates like Bert Williams, who wrote and performed in the first all-black musical on Broadway, and pioneering early jazz vocalist Ethel Waters, among a host of others, as equally worthy of attention, as much for their "inventiveness, irreverence, and canny involvement with other musics and life as we live it" as for their musical contributions. Consequently, VISIONS OF JAZZ contains a plethora of lively and engaged jazz writing, with chapters on the little-known Cuban composer and arranger Chico O'Farrill, who worked with Benny Goodman, Machito, and Count Basie, and the blind saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who played three horns simultaneously and sampled liberally from idioms ranging from Dixieland to free jazz, among dozens of others. In its celebration of the adventurous and experimental spirit of the music, VISIONS is a superlative primer in jazz appreciation.
| Size | | Length: | 690 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 2.0 in | | Weight: | 40.8 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "Almost every aspect of American music during the past seventy years, the modern era, is prefigured in the flurry of activity documented in recording studios between 1923 and 1927."
Industry Reviews
"Unlike too many other books inside the little world of jazz, Giddins has an expansive, welcoming view of it, one broad enough to embrace Rosemary Clooney as well as Ella Fitzgerald, Irving Berlin as well as Duke Ellington. He understands that jazz is American to the core and that the very essence of America is heterogeneity. It may not have been intended as such, but 'Visions of Jazz' is a celebration and reaffirmation of precisely that."
Washington Post Book World - Jonathan Yardley (09/13/1998)
"'Visions of Jazz' is Giddins' magnum opus, 690 pages of painstakingly researched devotion that reveal his remarkable catholicity of taste, or rather passion. Eschewing a chronological, or even an orderly, history of the music, Giddins' loosely structured series of essays celebrates...diverse musicians and styles...."
Los Angeles Times Book Review - Grover Sales (09/27/1998)
"Giddins doesn't attempt to cover all the major hitters in depth; he couldn't possibly do so and keep a work of this magnitude manageable. He has chosen to focus on 'a tableau of innovators, journeymen, precursors, and sidesteppers...who generate a distinct musical vision, a personal expression that, large or small, is unique and ultimately matchless....[G]iddins' own passions and commitment burn through 'Visions of Jazz's' vibrant, melodious pages like a hot, blue flame."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - Don Asher (10/11/1998)
"...the finest unconventional history of jazz ever written--a brilliant, indispensable book, comprehensive enough given the certainty that a total history of jazz at this point, the century mark, invites a shallow inclusiveness."
New York Times Book Review - Alfred Appel Jr. (10/18/1998)
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