The Future of Jazz: By Will Friedwald, Ted Gioia, Jim Macnie, Peter Margasak, Stuart Nicholson, Ben Ratliff, John F. Szwed, Greg Tate, Pet [Paperback]

Will Friedwald (Author), Ted Gioia (Author), Jim Macnie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2002

Jazz is now 100 years old, a venerable American institution predicated on the unpredictable. But recent signs-ranging from Ken Burns's documentary Jazz: A History of America's Music to the dominance, in terms of sales, of reissues over new recordings-have made many question whether jazz's past has now become more important than its future, or whether jazz has any future at all. In this book, composed entirely via e-mail, 10 leading jazz critics take on the various issues surrounding jazz's future-the dominance of mainstream jazz, its spread around the world, the difficulty of making a living playing it, the growth of repertory jazz, the dearth of interest among young African Americans, the paradoxically backward-looking nature of the avant-garde, and many others. Their conclusions are as surprising, witty, and edgy as the music itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Will jazz be marginalized in the next hundred years, or will it experience a rebirth? This is the question that looms over the 10 lively essays by such music critics and musicians as Ted Gioia, Ben Ratliff and Greg Tate in The Future of Jazz. Edited by A Cappella Books editor Yuval Taylor, the pieces address topics ranging from the fusion of jazz and rock to the role of race to the business of jazz; aimed at a knowledgeable audience, they're laden with references that go beyond the fair-weather listener's knowledge of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Each essay is followed by a dialogue in which the other nine writers sound off.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This book presents an extended conversation on the future of jazz among ten prominent jazz critics, including Peter Watrous, Jim Macnie, and Ted Gioia. Each critic contributed one long essay, which is followed by shorter responses from the other critics. The writer of the essay, in turn, answers those responses. According to Taylor, editor of A Cappella and Lawrence Hill Books, the essays were composed as e-mails, and the subsequent responses were conducted via e-mail. Some of the topics include mainstream jazz, jazz and race, jazz and the world, and the business of jazz. While the commentators know their stuff, the book's e-mail experiment does not work basically, too many cooks have spoiled the broth. The critics argue to the point that the reader feels as if the discussion is more about egos than the honesty of the music. Compared with books like Howard Mandel's Future Jazz, which examines the recent jazz scene through in-depth interviews with and profiles of musicians, this one falls short. Not recommended. Ronald S. Russ, Arkansas State Univ., Beebe
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556524463
• ISBN-13: 978-1556524462
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,886,243 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful Discourse, October 26, 2009

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Annabel Harrold "Annabel Harrold" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Future of Jazz: By Will Friedwald, Ted Gioia, Jim Macnie, Peter Margasak, Stuart Nicholson, Ben Ratliff, John F. Szwed, Greg Tate, Pet (Paperback)

I like the way this book is set out...almost informally with reviewers commenting on a topic and then passing it on to the next. I think this is an indispensable addition to any jazz aficionado's library. Yes it is now 5 years old but it provides an erudite snapshot of the state of Jazz in the early 21st Century and is a great starting point for further discussion and study.