One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, GQ, Billboard, JazzTimes In jazz parlance, “playing changes” refers to an improviser’s resourceful path through a chord progression. In this definitive guide to the jazz of our time, leading critic Nate Chinen boldly expands on that idea, taking us through the key changes, concepts, events, and people that have shaped jazz since the turn of the century—from Wayne Shorter and Henry Threadgill to Kamasi Washington and Esperanza Spalding; from the phrase “America’s classical music” to an explosion of new ideas and approaches; from claims of jazz’s demise to the living, breathing scene that exerts influence on mass culture, hip-hop, and R&B. Grounded in authority and brimming with style, packed with essential album lists and listening recommendations, Playing Changes takes the measure of this exhilarating moment—and the shimmering possibilities to come.
Named "Best Jazz Book of 2008" by The Jazz Journalists Association "2009 Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research" by ARSC (Association for Recorded Sound Collections) Legendary African American jazz bassist and photographer Milt Hinton (1910-2000) tells his compelling life story and illustrates it with more than 260 of his photographs, exquisitely reproduced in this collectors' edition. Hinton's stories--witnessing a lynching as a child in Mississippi, working for Al Capone, breaking the color line in the recording studio--are equal to his celebrated photographs: capturing life on the road with Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday at her last recording date, and personal and professional views of icons such as Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Dizzy Gillespie, and Barbra Streisand. Playing the Changes draws from Hinton and Berger's earlier Bass Line, but differs significantly from that 1988 classic. Milt's narrative takes up where the earlier story left off, and more than 140 new photographs augment 115 of his best-known images. It also boasts a CD of Milt telling stories and performing music, as well as a discography and filmography.
Catherine and Darius Brubeck’s 1983 move to South Africa launched them on a journey that helped transform jazz education. Blending biography with storytelling, the pair recount their time at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where they built a pioneering academic program in jazz music and managed and organized bands, concerts, and tours around the world. The Brubecks and the musicians faced innumerable obstacles, from the intensification of apartheid and a lack of resources to the hardscrabble lives that forced even the most talented artists to the margins. Building a program grounded in multi-culturalism, Catherine and Darius encouraged black and white musicians to explore and expand the landscape of South African jazz together Their story details the sometimes wily, sometimes hilarious problem-solving necessary to move the institution forward while offering insightful portraits of South African jazz players at work, on stage, and providing a soundtrack to the freedom struggle and its aftermath. Frank and richly detailed, Playing the Changes provides insiders’ accounts of how jazz intertwined with struggle and both expressed and resisted the bitter unfairness of apartheid-era South Africa.
Playing the Changes on the Jazz Metaphor proposes an expanded view of the jazz metaphor in a broadened perspective that embraces a wide range of possibilities in organizational, management, and marketing-related themes. This monograph presents a new Typology of Jazz Musicians based on different kinds of artistic offerings. This typology will combine three key distinctions or dimensions to construct a twelve-fold classification that - when extended to the sphere of organizational behavior and business strategy as a Typology of Management and Marketing Styles - will shed light on different ways in which the jazz metaphor relates to organizational design, business practice, management skills, and marketing opportunities. In order to describe these typologies, the author examines important aspects of a first-level jazz metaphor as it relates to organizational issues involved in shaping the jazz improvisation into a form of collective collaboration. This is followed by attention to a second-level linguistic metaphor based on viewing jazz as a kind of language at the foundation for a collaborative conversation.
An eye-opening view of the unprecedented global spread of El Sistema—intensive music education that disrupts the cycles of poverty. In some of the bleakest corners of the world, an unprecedented movement is taking root. From the favelas of Brazil to the Maori villages in New Zealand, from occupied Palestine to South Central Los Angeles, musicians with strong social consciences are founding intensive orchestra programs for children in need. In this captivating and inspiring account, authors Tricia Tunstall and Eric Booth tell the remarkable story of the international El Sistema movement. A program that started over four decades ago with a handful of music students in a parking garage in Caracas, El Sistema has evolved into one of classical music’s most vibrant new expressions and one of the world’s most promising social initiatives. Now with more than 700,000 students in Venezuela, El Sistema’s central message—that music can be a powerful tool for social change—has burst borders to grow in 64 countries (and that number increases steadily) across the globe. To discover what makes this movement successful across the radically different cultures that have embraced it, the authors traveled to 25 countries, where they discovered programs thriving even in communities ravaged by poverty, violence, or political unrest. At the heart of each program is a deep commitment to inclusivity. There are no auditions or entry costs, so El Sistema’s doors are open to any child who wants to learn music—or simply needs a place to belong. While intensive music-making may seem an unlikely solution to intractable poverty, this book bears witness to a program that is producing tangible changes in the lives of children and their communities. The authors conclude with a compelling and practicable call to action, highlighting civic and corporate collaborations that have proven successful in communities around the world.
From the bestselling author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG! Mr. and Mrs. Twit are the smelliest, nastiest, ugliest people in the world. They hate everything—except playing mean jokes on each other, catching innocent birds to put in their Bird Pies, and making their caged monkeys, the Muggle-Wumps, stand on their heads all day. But the Muggle-Wumps have had enough. They don't just want out, they want revenge.
