Giants of Jazz [Paperback]

Studs Terkel (Author), Robert Galster (Illustrator), Milly Hawk Daniel (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2006

A beautifully illustrated edition of Studs Terkel's timeless portraits of America's jazz legends, for readers of all ages.

Studs Terkel's first book, Giants of Jazz, is the master interviewer's unique tribute to America's jazz greats, now available in an affordable paperback edition with the original illustrations and discography.

The thirteen profiles in this "luminous" (Jazzwise) collection weave together stories of the individual jazz musicians' lives with the history of the jazz era, and the music's evolution from the speakeasies of New York to the concert halls of the world's greatest cities. Terkel—a lifelong fan and friend of many of these legends—uses firsthand interviews with artists such as Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker to tell the human stories behind the giants who shaped this uniquely American music form. Some of the many fascinating details Terkel relates include Joe Oliver's favorite meal, Fats Waller's 1932 rendezvous in Paris with eminent organist Marcel Dupré, Dizzy Gillespie's childhood trip to a pawnshop to buy his first horn, and the origin of Billie Holiday's nickname. Paperback with French flaps, thirteen b/w illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Studs Terkel is the author of twelve books of oral history, including, most recently, And They All Sang (The New Press). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters, he was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. He lives in Chicago.

Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The; Revised Edition edition (September 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156584999X
• ISBN-13: 978-1565849990
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,091,924 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lite jazz reading, April 2, 2009

By 

Nikica Gilic - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giants of Jazz (Paperback)

This book is well written (meaning: quite readable), but too simple for any serious jazz buff; it can be a nice intro for a younger reader who likes music and wants to find out about the canon of classical jazz.

The tales of King Oliver, Armstrong, Ellington, Gillespie, Goodman, Woody Herman, Holiday, Coltrane and others will probably entertain those who don't know much about the lives and music of the protagonists, the rest should skip this book.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Terkel Treatment of The Giants of Jazz, November 21, 2008

By 

Alfred Johnson (boston, ma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Giants of Jazz (Paperback)

Recently I have been on a tear reviewing the works of the recently departed Studs Terkel. As is the case, usually, when I get "hot" on an author I grab everything I can get my hands on and read it in no particular order. That is the case here. Terkel, widely known and deservedly so, as the author of oral histories concerning the pressing social issues of class, race and gender of working people (in the main)in America was also in his earlier career a popular Chicago disc jockey concentrating on jazz (and a little blues and folk as they intersected jazz). I had not previously known of that part of Studs' life and only became aware of it through reading his last work, a memoir of sorts but really a series of connected vignettes, "Touch and Go" (well worth reading by the way as background to his interest in the jazz figures highlighted here). Previously my knowledge of jazz was formed by the likes of Nat Hentoff and John Hammond. Apparently I have to revise this list to include Studs.

Why? As a member of the Generation of '68 my tastes were formed by blues, folk and early rock and roll and only incidentally by jazz. However, once one delves into the roots of all of these forms one can only understand the attractions when one sees the influences all those forms had on each other. Without going into a dissertation on the subject (useless in any case) jazz is a core beat that expressed one form of music that had its roots in the South, among blacks and was a reflection of the rural life that was being left behind as America became more industrialized. Jazz is the music of the city, as blues is (before World War II at least) the music of the southern countryside. But enough. Read Studs and you can see how the music developed (and was retarded as well by the rules of racial separation as whites looking for real music, other than the standard fare of likes of the Paul Whitman Orchestra or Tin Pan Alley, fell in love jazz after World War I).

Many of the names of the performers highlighted here have are the classic expressions of the jazz idiom. King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, The Empress Bessie Smith. The Duke (Ellington), The Count (Basie), Lady Day (Billie Holiday). Yes this is the royalty of jazz. For those who follow this space you already know of my devotion to Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith. Less well know is my devotion to the "king of Swing" Benny Goodman of the Peggy Lee days in the 1940's, Dizzy Gillespie of be-bop in the early 1950's and Duke Ellington of the early 1940's. Well, if you want to know more about them read on. By the way. This little book's format is an early example of Studs Terkel's easy style that he would work into an art form when he went full bore at his oral history interviews later. The only fault I would find here is that Studs is a little light on female singers. No Peggy Lee of the Benny Goodman days, no Margaret Whiting, no Helen Morgan, No Ivy Robertson. Oh well, I have always been a "sucker" for a `torch singer'. Maybe, Studs, except for Billie, wasn't.