Provides information jazz theory for all types of musicians, and covers harmony, scales and modes, voicing, arrangement techniques, improvisational strategies, fundamentals, and other related topics; and also includes exercises.

Billie Holiday describes her early childhood in an East Baltimore ghetto, her career as an internationally-acclaimed jazz vocalist, and her years spent battling a drug habit.

"Featuring 100 photographs of Frank Sinatra working with orchestras and arrangers, listening to playbacks, and, of course, singing, this book tells the whole story of how he created the Sinatra sound and translated the most intense personal emotions into richly worked-out songs of unrivalled expressiveness. One of the thrills of listening to Sinatra is wondering how he did it-and this book explains it all, bringing the dedicated fan and the casual...

"Almost unbearably vivid ... James Gavin has brought us as close as life to his subject." --David Hajdu, New York Times Book Review "Definitive ... a haunting prose poem that's every bit as affecting as one of Baker's solos." --Entertainment Weekly "Superb ... unerring ... a stark, troubling portrait of both the artist and his times." --Publisher's Weekly This first major biography of the most romanticized icon in jazz thrillingly recounts his wild...

"A flavorful account of New York City politics during the 1920s Jazz Age centering on the intersecting careers of the city's popular "Night Mayor," Jimmy Walker, and the state's patrician governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mitgang's extensive use of newspaper quotes and legal transcripts helps paint vivid portraits of Walker, Roosevelt and the large cast of characters who played a part in Walker's fall from grace and Roosevelt's meteoric rise to four-term...

Illustrations and rhyming text celebrate the roots of jazz music.

"Sonny Rollins is one of the most prolific sax players in the history of jazz, but in 1959, at the height of his career, he vanished from the scene. His return to music was an interesting journey - with a long detour on the Williamsburg Bridge. Too loud to practice in his apartment, Rollins played on the New York City landmark for two years among the cacophony of the traffic and the stares of bystanders. Then in 1962, Rollins went back to the studio...

"Nat Hentoff, renowned jazz critic, civil liberties activist, and fearless contrarian-"I'm a Jewish atheist civil-libertarian pro-lifer"-has lived through much of jazz's history and has known many of jazz's most important figures, often as friend and confidant. Hentoff has been a tireless advocate for the neglected parts of jazz history, including forgotten sidemen and -women. This volume includes his best recent work-short essays, long interviews,...

"New York City has always been a mecca in the history of jazz, and in many ways the city's jazz scene is more important now than ever before. Blowin' the Blues Away examines how jazz has thrived in New York following its popular resurgence in the 1980s. Using interviews, in-person observation, and analysis of live and recorded events, ethnomusicologist Travis A. Jackson explores both the ways in which various participants in the New York City jazz...

"Floyd Levin, an award-winning jazz writer, has personally known many of the jazz greats who contributed to the music's colorful history. In this collection of his articles, published mostly in jazz magazines over a fifty-year period, Levin takes us into the nightclubs, the recording studios, the record companies, and, most compellingly, into the lives of the musicians who made the great moments of the traditional jazz and swing eras. Brilliantly...