Jazz in Search of Itself [Hardcover]

Larry Kart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 2004

In this engaging and astute anthology of jazz criticism, Larry Kart casts a wide net. Discussing nearly seventy major jazz figures and many of the music’s key stylistic developments, Kart sees jazz as a unique perpetual narrative—one in which musicians, their audiences, and the evolving music itself are intimately intertwined.
Because jazz arose from the collision of specific peoples under particular conditions, says Kart, its development has been unusually immediate, visible, and intense. Kart has reacted to and judged the music in a similarly active, attentive, and personal manner. His involvement and attention to detail are visible in these pieces: essays that analyze the supposed return to tradition that the music of Wynton Marsalis has come to exemplify; searching accounts of the careers of Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Bill Evans, and Lennie Tristano; and writing that explores jazz’s relationship to American popular song and examines the jazz musician’s role as actual and would-be social rebel.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Kart is a genuine critic. He analyzes how a particular player sounds more closely than, it certainly seems, any other jazz writer who, like him, doesn't use musical notation to illustrate the discussion. In a piece on avant-garde saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, a listener-demanding musician, Kart describes the first 3 minutes of a 23-minute performance so concretely that one could easily check out his accuracy by listening to the same recording. By no means always so thoroughgoing, he still reliably gives readers enough solid information to aurally check up on him, and then to argue with as well as learn from his evaluations. Kart is also historically and sociologically well informed about jazz, enabling him to make cogent assessments of received opinion on historic performers such as Louis Armstrong; to ask informants the right questions or give them room to say arresting things (see the Frank Zappa interview); and to cogently critique whole movements (e.g., jazz revivalism in "The Neo-Con Game"). Ray Olson
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Review

"A generous grab bag of essays and reviews by a shrewd listener with curious ears and an open mind."—Terry Teachout

"With great feeling, one of jazz’s most far-reaching and influential critics illuminates what jazz is, what it means (to its creators and to us listeners) and, crucially, what is valuable about it—what a joy to have this collection of essays at last."—John Litweiler, author of The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1St Edition edition (October 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300104200
• ISBN-13: 978-0300104202
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,203,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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