This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but millions of other items are. Join Amazon Prime today. Already a member? Sign in.

51 used & new from $1.66
See All Buying Options

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Tell a Friend
Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now
 
See larger image
 
Please tell the publisher:
I'd like to read this book on Kindle
 
  

Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now (Hardcover)

by Robert Gottlieb (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)


Available from these sellers.


51 used & new available from $1.66
Also Available in: List Price: Our Price: Other Offers:
Paperback $22.95 $15.61 58 used & new from $3.50
 
   

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties

Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties by Scott Saul

$15.21
Jazz in Black and White: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Jazz Community

Jazz in Black and White: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Jazz Community by Charley Gerard

$72.95
Swing Under the Nazis: Jazz as a Metaphor for Freedom

Swing Under the Nazis: Jazz as a Metaphor for Freedom by Mike Zwerin

$17.95
Miles

Miles by Miles Davis

4.5 out of 5 stars (65)  $10.88
The History of Jazz

The History of Jazz by Ted Gioia

4.4 out of 5 stars (22)  $13.57
Explore similar items : Books (24) Music (1)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Anthologies of jazz writing tend to be mixed bags, combining reviews, profiles, and usually a couple of short stories in which the protagonist happens to play the tenor saxophone. This collection from former New Yorker editor Robert Gottlieb is indeed such a miscellany, but it has been assembled with rare taste and discrimination. The emphasis on autobiographical writing is particularly welcome, reminding us that, in prose as in jazz, voice is the ultimate artistic thumbprint.

From Publishers Weekly
The former Knopf and New Yorker chief was a late but vastly enthusiastic convert to the joys of jazz, as he explains in his introduction, and this vast compendium is certainly a labor of great love. It is also, at this size, unwieldy and, it would seem, priced rather high for the market it deserves. There are more than 100 pieces here, most of them culled from out-of-print books, as well as magazines both prominent and obscure. The effort to pull together so large a collection of such pieces, on a subject that in general has defied analysis, has clearly been prodigious, and jazz buffs owe a great deal to Gottlieb for rescuing so much of this material from obscurity. There are plenty of dashing portraits, autobiographical and otherwise, of jazz greats ranging from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker (rightly seen as the twin pillars in jazz history to date), such curios as an early essay by the Swiss classical conductor Ernst Ansermet on the impact of jazz in Europe right after WWI and many fine accounts of memorable nights on the bandstands of the '30s and '40s. The reportage section reminds us again of how sterling a stylist the New Yorker's Whitney Balliett is, and there is a definitive piece on the essential differences between classical and jazz criticism by Winthrop Sargeant. Almost everything is worth its weight, including the reminders of the great debate that used to rage over the merits of bop versus classical New Orleans style, exemplified here in pieces by the French critic Hugues Pannassie and English poet Philip Larkin (himself a noted buff). It's a feast that also enshrines a great deal of American social history; but perhaps a Best of Reading Jazz selection, at a third of the size and about half the price, would be more realistic.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 1068 pages
  • Publisher: Pantheon; 1 edition (November 12, 1996)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0679442510
  • ISBN-13: 978-0679442516
  • Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 2.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,384,667 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
    (Publishers and authors: Improve Your Sales)
  • In-Print Editions: Paperback  |  All Editions