(Jazz Transcriptions). 35 Marsalis songs transcribed for B-flat instruments exactly from his recorded solos, with solo analysis sections and a complete discography. Includes: Au Privave * Black Bottom Stomp * Caravan * Cherokee (Indian Love Song) * Donna Lee * Embraceable You * Free to Be * Honeysuckle Rose * In Walked Bud * Johnny Come Lately * La Vie En Rose * Loose Duck * My Funny Valentine * Rubber Bottom * Stardust * A Train, a Banjo, and a Chicken Wing * Union Pacific Big Boy * When It's Sleepy Time down South * You Don't Hear No Drums * and more.
A year in the life of the jazz musician and composer includes his views on rap, the road, romance, creativity, politics, culture, and the role of the artist in American society.
Profiles twenty-six of the jazz greats of all time, from Count Basie to Louis Armstrong, through a review of their work, their life stories, and their greatest hits by one of today's top jazz performers. A is for "almighty" Louis Armstrong, whose amazingartistry unfolds in an accumulative poem shaped like the letter he stands for. As for sax master Sonny Rollins, whose "robust style radiates roundness," could there be a better tribute than a poetic rondeau? In an extraordinary feat, Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz composer Wynton Marsalis harmonizes his love and knowledge of jazz's most celebrated artists with an astounding diversity of poetic forms-from simple blues (Count Basie) to a complex pantoum (Charlie Parker), from a tender sonnet (Sarah Vaughan) to a performance poem snapping the rhythms of Art Blakey to life.
Housed on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the University Musical Society is one of the oldest performing arts presenters in the country. A past recipient of the National Medal of Arts, the nation’s highest public artistic honor, UMS connects audiences with wide-ranging performances in music, dance, and theater each season.Between 1987 and 2017, UMS was led by Ken Fischer, who over three decades pursued an ambitious campaign to expand and diversify the organization’s programming and audiences—initiatives inspired by Fischer’s overarching philosophy toward promoting the arts, “Everybody In, Nobody Out.” The approach not only deepened UMS’s engagement with the university and southeast Michigan communities, it led to exemplary partnerships with distinguished artists across the world. Under Fischer’s leadership, UMS hosted numerous breakthrough performances, including the Vienna Philharmonic’s final tour with Leonard Bernstein, appearances by then relatively unknown opera singer Cecilia Bartoli, a multiyear partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and artists as diverse as Yo-Yo Ma, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Elizabeth Streb, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Though peppered with colorful anecdotes of how these successes came to be, this book is neither a history of UMS nor a memoir of Fischer’s significant accomplishments with the organization. Rather it is a reflection on the power of the performing arts to engage and enrich communities—not by handing down cultural enrichment from on high, but by meeting communities where they live and helping them preserve cultural heritage, incubate talent, and find ways to make community voices heard.
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.
Set in the studio, on the stage, and in great cities and small towns across the country, this book captures life on the road for Marsalis and his musicians, evoking the ritual and renewal, energy and spirituality. 6 photos.
