Some jazz reading

Lately, I've been reading a lot about jazz. Today I finished what turned out to be one of the best books about jazz that I've ever read, Jazz Styles: History and Analysis. It looks at the history of jazz through the styles and performers down through the years, which when you get right down to it, really is what has defined jazz. As it gets closer to modern times, things start to get blurry and the lines dividing jazz from other types of music that are called “jazz” start to break down. I suppose that part of it has to do with we are still defining those styles so we don’t quite have a handle on whether it really is part of a category we tend to lump it into in the moment.

Actual scan of my actual copy. Notice the dog eared edges.

The other great thing about this book is it comes with a set of CD’s to illustrate the styles and musicians. They were hard to track down used and they are too expensive to buy new, as is this book, but I still managed to find a set for under $20. And, because the book is a textbook, if you pick up an older edition (like mine, the ninth, two editions older than current), you save a ton of money and sacrifice almost no content. (I mean, seriously, what historic jazz has happened in the last five years? That’s right. Nothing.)

My sole complaint about the book is I found it a little superficial in exploring the musicians’ lives and lifestyles. True that you can illustrate jazz history through jazz styles without getting into where the musicians were born, or what influenced their life outlook to make them as great as they were, or why they died so young, or all that, but personally, I wanted to know a little more. Still, I guess we should applaud the author for knowing what to include and what to leave out. I mean, he managed to write a book about jazz history without using the word “heroin”.

Not sure if I’m going to read Ralph Ellison or another history book next, but the education continues.