The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz

The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz

Author: the late Leonard Feather

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007-04-01

Total Pages: 739

ISBN-13: 0199886407

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Do you want to know when Duke Ellington was king of The Cotton Club? Have you ever wondered how old Miles Davis was when he got his first trumpet? From birth dates to gig dates and from recordings to television specials, Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler have left no stone unturned in their quest for accurate, detailed information on the careers of 3.300 jazz musicians from around the world. We learn that Duke Ellington worked his magic at The Cotton Club from 1927 to 1931, and that on Miles Davis's thirteenth birthday, his father gave him his first trumpet. Jazz is fast moving, and this edition clearly and concisely maps out an often dizzying web of professional associations. We find, for instance, that when Miles Davis was a St. Louis teenager he encountered Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie for the first time. This meeting proved fateful, and by 1945 a nineteen-year-old Davis had left Juilliard to play with Parker on 52nd Street. Knowledge of these professional alliances, along with the countless others chronicled in this book, are central to tracing the development of significant jazz movements, such as the "cool jazz" that became one of Miles Davis's hallmarks. Arranged alphabetically according to last name, each entry of this book chronologically lists the highlights of every jazz musician's career. Highly accessible and vigorously researched, The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz is, quite simply, the most comprehensive jazz encyclopedia available.


Ray Brown's Bass Method

Ray Brown's Bass Method

Author: Ray Brown

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 0793594561

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(Bass Instruction). Legendary jazz bassist Ray Brown reveals his lessons and teaching philosophy in this in-depth book. Includes: solo exercises and arpeggios; music fundamentals; right- and left-hand positions; scales; chords; exercises in tenths; rhythm patterns with "drops"; diminished chords; runs and variations; blues patterns; extension scales; and much more.


Answered Prayers

Answered Prayers

Author: Truman Capote

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2012-05-15

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 0345803043

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Although Truman Capote's last novel was unfinished at the time of his death, its surviving portions offer a devastating group portrait of the high and low society of his time. • Includes the story La Cote Basque featured in the major FX series Feud: Capote Vs. the Swans. "Prose that makes the heart sing and the narrative fly." —The New York Times Book Review Tracing the career of a writer of uncertain parentage and omnivorous erotic tastes, Answered Prayers careens from a louche bar in Tangiers to a banquette at La Côte Basque, from literary salons to high-priced whorehouses. It takes in calculating beauties and sadistic husbands along with such real-life supporting characters as Colette, the Duchess of Windsor, Montgomery Clift, and Tallulah Bankhead. Above all, this malevolently finny book displays Capote at his most relentlessly observant and murderously witty.


Capote's Women

Capote's Women

Author: Laurence Leamer

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2023-08-29

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0593328108

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DON’T MISS FX’s FEUD: CAPOTE VS. THE SWANS—THE ORIGINAL SERIES BASED ON THE BESTSELLING BOOK—NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON HULU! New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote's never-published final novel, Answered Prayers—the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote's ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his "swans." "There are certain women," Truman Capote wrote, "who, though perhaps not born rich, are born to be rich." Barbara "Babe" Paley, Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C. Z. Guest, Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy's sister)—they were the toast of midcentury New York. Capote befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. Then, in one fell swoop, he betrayed them in the most surprising and shocking way possible. Bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer delves into the years following the acclaimed publication of Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1958 and In Cold Blood in 1966, when Capote struggled with a crippling case of writer's block. While enjoying all the fruits of his success, he was struck with an idea for what he was sure would be his most celebrated novel...one based on the remarkable, racy lives of his very, very rich friends. For years, Capote attempted to write what he believed would have been his magnum opus, Answered Prayers. But when he eventually published a few chapters in Esquire, the thinly fictionalized lives (and scandals) of his swans were laid bare for all to see, and he was banished from their high-society world forever. Laurence Leamer recreates the lives of these fascinating women, their friendships with Capote and one another, and the doomed quest to write what could have been one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.


Book Scavenger

Book Scavenger

Author: Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company (BYR)

Published: 2015-06-02

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 162779526X

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A New York Times-Bestseller! For twelve-year-old Emily, the best thing about moving to San Francisco is that it's the home city of her literary idol: Garrison Griswold, book publisher and creator of the online sensation Book Scavenger (a game where books are hidden in cities all over the country and clues to find them are revealed through puzzles). Upon her arrival, however, Emily learns that Griswold has been attacked and is now in a coma, and no one knows anything about the epic new game he had been poised to launch. Then Emily and her new friend James discover an odd book, which they come to believe is from Griswold himself, and might contain the only copy of his mysterious new game. Racing against time, Emily and James rush from clue to clue, desperate to figure out the secret at the heart of Griswold's new game—before those who attacked Griswold come after them too. This title has Common Core connections.


My Sax Life

My Sax Life

Author: Paquito D'Rivera

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2008-11-04

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 0810125242

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Winner of 2005 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition Winner of 2005 National Medal of Arts Since defecting from Cuba in 1980—and indeed long before that in his native land— Paquito D'Rivera has received glowing praise time and again. A best-selling artist with more than thirty solo albums to his credit, D'Rivera has performed at the White House and the Blue Note, and with orchestras, jazz ensembles, and chamber groups around the world. My Sax Life is the English-language edition of D'Rivera's memoirs, published to acclaim in 1998. Propelled by jazz-fueled high spirits, D'Rivera's story soars and spins from memory to memory in a collage of his remarkable life. D'Rivera recalls his early nightclub appearances as a child, performing with clowns and exotic dancers, as well as his search for artistic freedom in communist Cuba and his hungry explorations of world music after his defection. Opinionated but always good-humored, My Sax Life is a fascinating statement on art and the artist's life.


Ron Carter

Ron Carter

Author: Dan Ouellette

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780989982511

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Autobiography of Legendary Jazz Bassist Ron Carter


Freddie Mercury: An Intimate Memoir by the Man who Knew Him Best

Freddie Mercury: An Intimate Memoir by the Man who Knew Him Best

Author: Peter Freestone

Publisher: Omnibus Press

Published: 2010-01-07

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0857121278

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An intimate memoir of the flamboyant Queen singer by the man who knew him best. Peter Freestone was Freddie Mercury’s Personal Assistant for the last 12 years of his life. He lived with Mercury in London, Munich and New York, and he was with him when he died. In this book, the most intimate account of Mercury’s life ever written, he reveals the truth behind the scandalous rumours, the outrageous lifestyle and Mercury’s relationships with men, women and the other members of Queen. From the famous names – including Elton John, Kenny Everett, Elizabeth Taylor and Rod Stewart – to the shadowy army of lovers, fixers and hangers-on, Peter Freestone saw them all play their part in the tragi-comedy that was Freddie Mercury’s life. Freestone lived with Mercury in Europe and America for over a decade. From the East 50s apartment in New York to Kensington Lodge, the house in London where Mercury died – not to mention innumerable international hotel rooms and apartments in between – Freestone was always on hand to serve and protect the man he had first met in the Biba department store in the early 1970s. Then Queen was a largely unknown band. Soon it would be the most glitzy of glam rock bands. Freestone saw the fame arrive and with it the generosity, the excess, and the celebrity friends who came and went. “I was chief cook and bottle washer, waiter, butler, valet, secretary, amanuensis, cleaner, baby-sitter… and agony aunt,” he writes. “I shopped for him both at supermarkets and art markets, I travelled the world with him, I was with him at the highs and came through the lows with him. I saw the creative juices flow and I also saw the frustration when life wasn’t going well. I acted as his bodyguard when needed and in the end, of course, I was one of his nurses.” Freestone’s bet-selling account of a talented and extravagant star’s life and death is compelling, entertaining and ultimately, very touching. Illustrated with many photos from personal and Freestone’s own archives. Press Reviews“An entertaining and thought provoking read” – PRS for Music Sales “This collection of Freddie’s own words is the closest thing there is to an autobiography of a man with no regrets. The foreword is written by his mother” – reFRESH magazine, Leading Gay mag in the UK