The History of Jazz (Paperback)

by Ted Gioia (Author) "An elderly black man sits astride a large cylindrical drum..." (more)
Key Phrases: sideman stints, fusion idiom, modern jazz players, New Orleans, New York, Swing Era (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Beginning with details provided from firsthand accounts of slave dances in the early 19th-century New Orleans, Gioia relates the story of African American music from its roots in Africa to the international respect it enjoys today. Styles that developed in such hotbeds as New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York are considered along with the artists that personify these styles. With the arrival of more white musicians, such as Benny Goodman in the Swing Era, jazz achieved the height of mass popularity. This was quickly followed by the more experimental modern jazz movement, with artists like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie redefining the music and moving beyond entertainment into the realm of "serious" music. This well-researched, extensively annotated volume covers the major trends and personalities that have shaped jazz. The excellent bibliography and list of recommended listening make this a valuable purchase for libraries building a jazz collection.?Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
Gioia, musician and critic, winner of the ASCAPDeems Taylor Award for The Imperfect Art (not reviewed) takes on a daunting task, tracing the history of jazz from preCivil War New Orleans to the embattled music of today--and does a creditable job of it. Jazz's history has been written by entirely too many mythographers and polemicists. Gioia, mercifully, spares us the myths and polemics. ``The Africanization of American music,'' as he calls it, begins farther back in American history than New Orleans's aptly named Storyville red-light district around the turn of the century; he starts his narrative in the slave market of the city's Congo Square in 1819, and when it comes to Storyville, he offers hard facts to puncture the picturesque racism that finds jazz's roots in the whorehouses of New Orleans. Indeed, one of the great strengths of Gioia's account is the sociohistorical insights it offers, albeit occasionally as throwaway sidelights, such as his observation about drumming as an avatar of regimentation more than of freedom. He is particularly good in explaining how the music was disseminated and shaped by new technologies--the player piano, the phonograph, radio. He is also excellent at drawing a portrait of a musician's style in short brushstrokes. His prose is for the most part fluid and even graceful (although his metaphors do get a bit strained at times, as in his comparison of Don Redman's ``jagged, pointillistic'' arrangement of ``The Whiteman Stomp'' and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle). Although Gioia is much too generous to jazz-rock fusion of the '70s and '80s and probably gives more space than necessary to white dance bands like the Casa Loma orchestra, if you wanted to introduce someone to jazz with a single book, this would be a good choice. (9 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 019512653X
• ISBN-13: 978-0195126532
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #62,636 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Burns Delivers the Pictures, but Giola Gives You the Text, January 25, 2001

By	M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The History of Jazz (Hardcover)

Anyone purportedly writing a "History of Jazz" faces a daunting task: A complex history of interwoven musical strands, the linkages and evolutions (sometimes skipping a generation), the geographic spread to Europe and elsewhere, the eventual fragmentation of jazz into diverse sounds and approaches, and the opinions of knowledgeable, rabid fans.

Ted Giola succeeds magnificently: This is the best single-volume history of jazz I've seen. While not without some minor flaws (see below), this is a comprehensive, generally very well written, and intriguing story of the genesis and development of jazz. It is a compelling story, and Giola writes without mythologizing jazz, or constantly needing to remind us that this is, indeed, art. The giants of jazz-- Armstrong, Ellington, Parker, Holiday, etc. are critiqued rather than lionized.

Giola proceeds through the now familiar African, American, African-American, and European roots of jazz that emanated first from New Orleans. He traces its developmental routes through Chicago and New York, the Armstrong solo evolution, and the diverse "territory bands" such as those of Bennie Moten and Count Basie.

Fortunately, Giola does not limit himself to a strictly chronological narrative. He interrupts the timeline with revealing excursions into topics such as the development of instrumental styles (e.g., piano, trumpet), and jumps ahead to show the impact of early influences on later styles (e.g., Lester Young and bebop). He also pays attention to cultural, technological, and economic context, without letting these subtexts blare over the music. Giola knows music from the "inside" as well as the outside, and his discussions of jazz technique and harmonic and rhythmic innovations are detailed and precise. His deconstruction of various solos and styles is illuminating: Charlie Parker's "Indiana" is a version "where almost every bar features one or more altered tones-an augmented fifth, a major seventh played against a minor chord, a flatted ninth leading to a sharpened ninth...a textbook example of how bop harmonic thinking revolutionized the flow of the melodic line in jazz." Yet Giola is also astute in directing our attention to the "core of simplicity" ...the "monophonic melody statements" in bop.

Giola's critiques of various musicians are generally fair and accurate, and he discusses the famous as well as the overlooked. Every jazz fan, however, will probably find some favorite musician given insufficient coverage, or will disagree with a Giola critique. There's no mention of Carmen McCrae, about half a page on Sarah Vaughan, very little mention of European jazz, not much discussion of Miles Davis' or Basie's later work ("The Atomic Mr. Basie," for example). For my tastes, there is not enough on Mingus' sidemen (other than Eric Dolphy and Rahsaan Roland Kirk) and he describes the Mingus Town Hall Concert as a fiasco. (Organizationally it was a disaster, but musically it succeeded.) Giola's statement that "Mingus was the closest jazz has come to having its own Ezra Pound," is baffling. To a large degree, however, these are editorial (the book is only 395 pages long), as well as critical decisions. Not everyone would agree, as I do, with Giola's dismissive statement that Kenny G. "sold over $20 million of emaciated pseudo-jazz to a devoted audience. A critic cannot and should not please everyone.

Giola commands our respect because of his thorough knowledge of jazz and its web-like variations and influences. He knows his material well, whether it's the origins of jazz or the "Third Stream" and "Free Jazz" movements of relatively recent years. I recommend this book very highly to both musician and non-musician alike, jazz aficionado and novice. You may read the book as an introduction to jazz, or to achieve a greater synthesis of what you already know. It may also serve as a springboard to more narrowly focused jazz writing, such as Rosenthal's "Hard Bop" or Lees' "Meet Me at Jim and Andy's." There is a general index, an index of songs and albums, 15 pages on recommended listening, eight black and white photos, some notes on sources, as well as suggestions for further reading. This book, and perhaps a copy of the "Penguin Guide to Jazz," could easily serve as the core of a jazz lover's bookshelf.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Among my top five of Jazz Books, April 24, 2000

By	Ian Muldoon (Coffs Harbour, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The History of Jazz (Hardcover)

I have a reasonable library of jazz books (including The Horn by JC Holmes, American Musicians by Whitney Balliett, Reading Jazz by Gottlieb, etc, etc) but my top five are HEAR ME TALKIN' TO YA by Hentoff and Shapiro; FOUR LIVES IN THE BEBOP BUSINESS by A.B. Spellman; STRAIGHT LIFE by Art and Laurie Pepper; THE STORY OF JAZZ by Marshall Stearns; and AS SERIOUS AS YOUR LIFE by Val Wilmer. What do I want in a jazz book? I want information, authenticity, entertainment; and decent writing. Now I have to move Mr Stearns over to make way for Mr Gioia and his HISTORY OF JAZZ for I believe it deserves to be in that exalted company.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Survey of Jazz, December 8, 1999

By	miss teri parson - See all my reviews

Is there any other book that is as true as this book, when recalling the intricate history of jazz? If there is, it has escaped my eyes and i invite the opurtunity to read it. Ted Gioia is not only articulate in his representation of jazz history, but his facts are documented well above reproach. He even includes a suggested listening section at the back of the book. Incredible book! I am using it as an aid in teaching my highschool class the history of jazz. This book is a necessary investment for any jazz afficianado.