Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include

Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!

Size: 5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches; Pages lightly age-toned. Text free of

Size: 5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches; Pages lightly age-toned. Text free of underlining, writing and highlighting. This book is "one of the great books on jazz, " according to the New York Times Book Review. For thirty years, beginning in the mid-twenties, Marshall Stearns listened to jazz, read about it, and talked to all the musicians who played it that he could discover. The result is this superlative history, the first and the most renowned systematic outline of the evolution of this unique American musical phenomenon. Mr. Stearns tells how the African Negro's musical heritage joined with European forms in the New World. He discusses work songs, spirituals, and blues; the birth of jazz in New Orleans and its dissemination to St. Louis, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York. He follows its course through the era of swing and bop to the beginnings of rock in the 'fifties, vividly depicting the great innovators and popularizers, as well as covering such technical elements as the music's form and structure. The effect of jazz upon American culture and the American character has been all-pervasive. It has become a major cultural export, and recently, reshaped by the countries it has conquered, a major cultural import as well. Jazz is a fact that must be faced, and studied, and there is no better way to find out about it than in the pages of Mr. Stearns's book. "He has set down the results of his research and his speculations in a style blessedly free of jargon and, despite the often technical nature of the subject, sufficiently lucid to make himself plainly understood."--New Yorker "Man, this book tells the real story of jazz..."--Louis Armstrong "Here is the basic history of jazz we have all been waiting for...as an introduction to the subject for the intelligent reader it is unsurpassed."--Duke Ellington Educated at Harvard and Yale, the late Dr. Stearns was Professor of English Literature at Hunter College. He was a founder and executive director of the Institute of Jazz Studies in New York, and he lectured extensively on jazz. 416 pages.