The Uncrowned King Of Swing

Download or read book The Uncrowned King of Swing written by Jeffrey Magee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-13 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Benny Goodman was the "King of Swing," then Fletcher Henderson was the power behind the throne. Now Jeffrey Magee offers a fascinating account of Henderson's musical career, throwing new light on the emergence of modern jazz and the world that created it. Drawing on an unprecedented combination of sources, including sound recordings and hundreds of scores that have been available only since Goodman's death, Magee illuminates Henderson's musical output, from his early work as a New York bandleader, to his pivotal role in building the Kingdom of Swing. He shows how Henderson, standing at the forefront of the New York jazz scene during the 1920s and '30s, assembled the era's best musicians, simultaneously preserving jazz's distinctiveness and performing popular dance music that reached a wide audience. Magee reveals how, in Henderson's largely segregated musical world, black and white musicians worked together to establish jazz, how Henderson's style rose out of collaborations with many key players, how these players deftly combined improvised and written music, and how their work negotiated artistic and commercial impulses. Whether placing Henderson's life in the context of the Harlem Renaissance or describing how the savvy use of network radio made the Henderson-Goodman style a national standard, Jeffrey Magee brings to life a monumental musician who helped to shape an era. "An invaluable survey of Henderson's life and music." --Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times "Magee has written an important book, illuminating an era too often reduced to its most familiar names. Goodman might have been the King of Swing, but Henderson here emerges as that kingdom's chief architect." --Boston Globe "Excellent.... Jazz fans have waited 30 years for a trained musicologist...to evaluate Henderson's strengths and weaknesses and attempt to place him in the history of American music." --Will Friedwald, New York Sun

Download or read book The Uncrowned King of Swing written by Jeffrey Magee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Benny Goodman was the "King of Swing," then Fletcher Henderson was the power behind the throne. Now Jeffrey Magee offers a fascinating account of Henderson's musical career, throwing new light on the emergence of modern jazz and the world that created it. Drawing on an unprecedented combination of sources, including sound recordings and hundreds of scores that have been available only since Goodman's death, Magee illuminates Henderson's musical output, from his early work as a New York bandleader, to his pivotal role in building the Kingdom of Swing. He shows how Henderson, standing at the forefront of the New York jazz scene during the 1920s and '30s, assembled the era's best musicians, simultaneously preserving jazz's distinctiveness and performing popular dance music that reached a wide audience. Magee reveals how, in Henderson's largely segregated musical world, black and white musicians worked together to establish jazz, how Henderson's style rose out of collaborations with many key players, how these players deftly combined improvised and written music, and how their work negotiated artistic and commercial impulses. Whether placing Henderson's life in the context of the Harlem Renaissance or describing how the savvy use of network radio made the Henderson-Goodman style a national standard, Jeffrey Magee brings to life a monumental musician who helped to shape an era. "An invaluable survey of Henderson's life and music." --Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times "Magee has written an important book, illuminating an era too often reduced to its most familiar names. Goodman might have been the King of Swing, but Henderson here emerges as that kingdom's chief architect." --Boston Globe "Excellent.... Jazz fans have waited 30 years for a trained musicologist...to evaluate Henderson's strengths and weaknesses and attempt to place him in the history of American music." --Will Friedwald, New York Sun

Download or read book Annual Review of Jazz Studies 13: 2003 written by Edward Berger and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2007-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 13th issue of the ARJS includes an extensive study of the saxophonist Sonny Red, an analysis of a composition by Steve Swallow, a new perspective on John Coltrane's compositional approach, and an examination of Miles Davis's classic 'Walkin', ' plus book reviews and a continuing bibliography of scholarly articles about jazz in non-jazz journals

Download or read book Swingin' the Dream written by Lewis A. Erenberg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-09-08 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1930s, swing bands combined jazz and popular music to create large-scale dreams for the Depression generation, capturing the imagination of America's young people, music critics, and the music business. Swingin' the Dream explores that world, looking at the racial mixing-up and musical swinging-out that shook the nation and has kept people dancing ever since. "Swingin' the Dream is an intelligent, provocative study of the big band era, chiefly during its golden hours in the 1930s; not merely does Lewis A. Erenberg give the music its full due, but he places it in a larger context and makes, for the most part, a plausible case for its importance."—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World "An absorbing read for fans and an insightful view of the impact of an important homegrown art form."—Publishers Weekly "[A] fascinating celebration of the decade or so in which American popular music basked in the sunlight of a seemingly endless high noon."—Tony Russell, Times Literary Supplement

Download or read book Irving Berlin's American Musical Theater written by Jeffrey Magee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-06 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From patriotic "God Bless America" to wistful "White Christmas," Irving Berlin's songs have long accompanied Americans as they fall in love, go to war, and come home for the holidays. Irving Berlin's American Musical Theater is the first book to fully consider this songwriter's immeasurable influence on the American stage. Award-winning music historian Jeffrey Magee chronicles Berlin's legendary theatrical career, providing a rich background to some of the great composer's most enduring songs, from "There's No Business Like Show Business" to "Puttin' on the Ritz." Magee shows how Berlin's early experience singing for pennies made an impression on the young man, who kept hold of that sensibility throughout his career and transformed it into one of the defining attributes of Broadway shows. Magee also looks at darker aspects of Berlin's life, examining the anti-Semitism that Berlin faced and his struggle with depression. Informative, provocative, and full of colorful details, this book will delight song and theater aficionados alike as well as anyone interested in the story of a man whose life and work expressed so well the American dream.

Download or read book Howard Hawks written by Ian Brookes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading international scholars consider the films and legacy of Howard Hawks. Diverse contributions consider Hawks' work in relation to issues of gender, genre and relationships between the sexes, discuss key films including Rio Bravo, The Big Sleep and Red River, and address Hawks' visual style and the importance of musicality in his film-making.

Download or read book Jazz and Culture in a Global Age written by Stuart Nicholson and published by Northeastern University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Noted jazz scholar, biographer, and critic Stuart Nicholson has written an entertaining and enlightening consideration of the music's global past, present, and future. Jazz's emergence on the world scene coincided with America's rise as a major global power. The uniqueness of jazz's origins--America's singularly original gift of art to the world, developed by African Americans--adds a level of complexity to any appreciation of jazz's global presence. In this volume, Nicholson covers such diverse and controversial topics as jazz in the iPod musical economy, issues of globalization and authenticity, jazz and American exceptionalism, jazz as colonial tip of the sword, global interpretation, and the limits of jazz as a genre. Nicholson caps the volume with fascinating and anecdote-rich discussions of jazz as a form of "modernism" in the twentieth century, the history of jazz fads (such as the cakewalk) that elicited very different reactions among American and European audiences, and a hearty defense of Paul Whiteman and his efforts to legitimize jazz as art. Stuart Nicholson has written a thought-provoking and opinionated work that should equally engage and enrage all manner of jazz lovers, scholars, and aficionados.