**A masterpiece that brings to life the fascinating story of the
quintessential American music--jazz. Visually stunning, with more than
five hundred photographs, this companion volume to the acclaimed
ten-part PBS TV series is an exploration of the music that celebrates
all Americans at their best.
**
Here are the stories of the extraordinary men and women who made the
music: Louis Armstrong, the fatherless waif whose unrivaled genius
helped turn jazz into a soloist's art and influenced every singer, every
instrumentalist who came after him; Duke Ellington, the pampered son of
middle-class parents who turned a whole orchestra into his personal
instrument, wrote nearly two thousand pieces for it, and captured more
of American life than any other composer. Bix Beiderbecke, the doomed
cornet prodigy who showed white musicians that they too could make an
important contribution to the music; Benny Goodman, the immigrants' son
who learned the clarinet to help feed his family, but who grew up to
teach a whole country how to dance; Billie Holiday, whose distinctive
style routinely transformed mediocre music into great art; Charlie
Parker, who helped lead a musical revolution, only to destroy himself at
thirty-four; and Miles Davis, whose search for fresh ways to sound made
him the most influential jazz musician of his generation, and then led
him to abandon jazz altogether. Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Dizzy
Gillespie, Art Tatum, Count Basie, Dave Brubeck, Artie Shaw, and Ella
Fitzgerald are all here; so are Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, Lester
Young, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and a host of others.
But Jazz is more than mere biography. The history of the music echoes
the history of twentieth-century America. Jazz provided the background
for the giddy era that F. Scott Fitzgerald called the Jazz Age. The
irresistible pulse of big-band swing lifted the spirits and boosted
American morale during the Great Depression and World War II. The
virtuosic, demanding style called bebop mirrored the stepped-up pace and
dislocation that came with peace. During the Cold War era, jazz served
as a propaganda weapon--and forged links with the burgeoning
counterculture. The story of jazz encompasses the story of American
courtship and show business; the epic growth of great cities--New
Orleans and Chicago, Kansas City and New York--and the struggle for
civil rights and simple justice that continues into the new millennium.
