Saxophone Colossus

Download or read book Saxophone Colossus written by Aidan Levy and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2022-12-06 with total page 864 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **Winner of the American Book Award (2023)** ​**Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award (2023)** The long-awaited first full biography of legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins Sonny Rollins has long been considered an enigma. Known as the “Saxophone Colossus,” he is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz improvisers of all time, winning Grammys, the Austrian Cross of Honor, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize and a National Medal of Arts. A bridge from bebop to the avant-garde, he is a lasting link to the golden age of jazz, pictured in the iconic “Great Day in Harlem” portrait. His seven-decade career has been well documented, but the backstage life of the man once called “the only jazz recluse” has gone largely untold—until now. Based on more than 200 interviews with Rollins himself, family members, friends, and collaborators, as well as Rollins’ extensive personal archive, Saxophone Colossus is the comprehensive portrait of this legendary saxophonist and composer, civil rights activist and environmentalist. A child of the Harlem Renaissance, Rollins’ precocious talent landed him on the bandstand and in the recording studio with Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, or playing opposite Billie Holiday. An icon in his own right, he recorded Tenor Madness, featuring John Coltrane; Way Out West; Freedom Suite, the first civil rights-themed album of the hard bop era; A Night at the Village Vanguard; and the 1956 classic Saxophone Colossus. Yet his meteoric rise to fame was not without its challenges. He served two sentences on Rikers Island and won his battle with heroin addiction. In 1959, Rollins took a two-year sabbatical from recording and performing, practicing up to 16 hours a day on the Williamsburg Bridge. In 1968, he left again to study at an ashram in India. He returned to performing from 1971 until his retirement in 2012. The story of Sonny Rollins—innovative, unpredictable, larger than life—is the story of jazz itself, and Sonny’s own narrative is as timeless and timely as the art form he represents. Part jazz oral history told in the musicians’ own words, part chronicle of one man’s quest for social justice and spiritual enlightenment, this is the definitive biography of one of the most enduring and influential artists in jazz and American history.

Download or read book Saxophone Colossus written by Bob Blumenthal and published by Harry N. Abrams. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jazz legend Sonny Rollins will celebrate his 80th birthday this fall, and Saxophone Colossus will be published to mark this occasion and honor his incredibly prolific career. This intimate appreciation combines the images of John Abbott, who as Rollins's photographer of choice for the past 20 years has captured the saxophonist at home and at work, and the essays of Bob Blumenthal, a jazz critic who has chronicled Rollins and his art for nearly four decades. Sonny Rollins has been at the center of jazz and its evolution virtually from his birth. Growing up in Harlem in the heyday of swing and coming of age as the first wave of modernists announced their discoveries, he quickly found himself sharing bandstands with his idols and making music of his own that continues to influence and inspire. Saxophone Colossus, named for the 1956 masterpiece of the same title, is Abbott and Blumenthal's tribute to Rollins's music and spirit.

Download or read book Taj Mahal Foxtrot written by Naresh Fernandes and published by Antique Collector's Club. This book was released on 2017-03-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: -An intimate look at a period of modern Indian history that has shaped the music of the subcontinent today -Features detailed sections on several important Indian and American jazz musicians, including Chic Chocolate, 'the Louis Armstrong of India'; and Teddy Weatherford In 1935, a violinist from Minnesota named Leon Abbey brought the first 'all negro' jazz band to Bombay, leaving behind a legacy that would last three decades. In a decade, swing found its way onto the streets of India. It influenced Hindi film music: the very soundtrack of Indian life. The optimism of jazz became an important element in the tunes that echoed the hopes of newly independent India. This book tells a story of India, especially of the city of Bombay, through the lives of a menagerie of geniuses, strivers, and eccentrics, both Indian and American, who helped jazz find a home in the sweaty subcontinent. They include the burly African-American pianist Teddy Weatherford; the Goan trumpet player Frank Fernand, whose epiphanic encounter with Mahatma Gandhi drove him to try to give jazz an Indian voice; Chic Chocolate, who was known as' the Louis Armstrong of India'; Anthony Gonsalves, who lent his name to one of the most popular Bollywood tunes ever; and many more. Taj Mahal Foxtrot, at its heart, is a history of Bombay in swing time.

Download or read book Sonny Rollins Omnibook for C Instruments written by Sonny Rollins and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2019-09-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Jazz Transcriptions). The Sonny Rollins Omnibook celebrates the bebop legend that worked with Miles, Monk, MJQ, and many others. His solo work has earned him many accolades, including Grammy Awards, election into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an Edward MacDowell Medal, and the Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama. This collection features 50 of his best, including: Airegin * All the Things You Are * Almost like Being in Love * Bouncing with Bud * Doxy * Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye * I'll Remember April * Just in Time * Namely You * Oleo * On a Slow Boat to China * St. Thomas * Solid * Sonnymoon for Two * Vierd Blues * Woodyn' You * and more.

Download or read book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die written by Tom Moon and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 2008-08-28 with total page 1026 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to music provides recommendations on one thousand recordings that represent the best in such genres as classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, and opera, with listening notes, commentary, and anecdotes about performers.

Download or read book Jazz Arranging and Performance Practice written by Paul E. Rinzler and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 1999-07-29 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike most jazz arranging books, which focus on the rudiments of arranging (transposition, ranges, notation, and so forth), this book deals with the real substance of arranging for small jazz ensembles, in addition to the rudiments. Rinzler devotes a chapter to each of the following arranging elements: intros, endings, accents/breaks/dynamics, time and tempo changes, style changes, form, rhythm section procedure, harmony and orchestration. Over a hundred musical examples demonstrate arranging techniques that apply to 147 jazz standards and modern compositions.

Download or read book Imaginary Power, Real Horizons written by Richard Gilman-Opalsky and published by AK Press. This book was released on 2024-07-09 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A defense of the radical imagination from a scholar of social movements. Political theorist and philosopher Richard Gilman-Opalsky’s Imaginary Power, Real Horizons is a tribute to the imagination and to its necessity for liberatory struggle. “‘Impractical’ is the name given to anyone who imagines something radically other than what exists,” he writes. However, many things—such as the abolition of slavery—were dismissed as impractical before they came to be. In a warm, plainspoken manner, these essays chart the affects of creativity and utopianism through topics as varied as the cyclical nature of popular movements; the international history of May Day; the experience of teaching political theory and Marxism in contemporary China; and the revolutionary aspirations of Free Jazz. The human imagination is a real, world-creating power, and those who would declare otherwise have a poor understanding of history. Imaginary Power, Real Horizons is a call to action for those who would dare to dream of a society organized by a different logic than capitalism.