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Scott Knowles DeVeaux
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Jazz Edition Unstated

by Scott DeVeaux (Author), Gary Giddins (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 115 ratings
A vivid history of jazz in a classroom text by two exceptional authors€”a leading scholar and a respected critic.Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux write with intellectual bite, eloquence, and the passion of unabashed fans. They explain what jazz is, where it came from, how it works, and who created it, all within the broader context of American life and culture.
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  1. ISBN-10
    039397880X
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0393978803
  3. Edition
    Edition Unstated
  4. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  5. Publication date
    January 6, 2009
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    8 x 1.3 x 10.9 inches
  8. Print length
    619 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Jazz is a very detailed, very well-written book with great photographs. The students will be attracted to it and I’ve adopted it starting this summer.”
- Marc Mannino, Manatee CC

About the Author

Scott DeVeaux is a nationally recognized jazz scholar whose 1997 book The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History won the American Book Award, an ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award, the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society, and the ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Sound Research. He has taught jazz history at the University of Virginia for more than 25 years.

Gary Giddins is the Executive Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the City University of New York. He was the Village Voice jazz columnist for over 30 years and remains a preeminent jazz critic who received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, and the Bell Atlantic Award for Visions of Jazz: The First Century in 1998. His other books include Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams: The Early Years, 1903–1940, which won the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award and the ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Sound Research; Weatherbird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century; Faces in the Crowd; Natural Selection; Warning Shadows; and biographies of Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker. He has won an unparalleled six ASCAP–Deems Taylor Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Peabody Award in Broadcasting.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 6, 2009
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ Edition Unstated
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 619 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 039397880X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393978803
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.64 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 1.3 x 10.9 inches
  • Best Sellers Rank: #7,413,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 115 ratings

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Scott Knowles DeVeaux

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
115 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find this jazz book essential for aficionados, with one noting its valuable insights into musicians' thought processes. Moreover, the book receives positive feedback for its accessibility, with one customer describing it as a friendly overview. Additionally, they appreciate its historical content, with one review highlighting its comprehensive coverage. However, the structure receives mixed reactions, with one customer noting its textbook-like format.

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Jazz musicAccessibilityHistoryStructure
6 customers mention "Jazz music"6 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate this jazz book, describing it as essential for aficionados, with one customer noting its valuable insights into musicians' thought processes and another highlighting its detailed analysis of tunes.

"Worth it for the music collection alone! Good resource for any Jazz lover!" Read more

"...recommend to any one who is interested in the history of Jazz & loves Jazz." Read more

"...of each of the musical samples does provide valuable insight into how jazz musicians think, as well as the changes in jazz structure over time...." Read more

"...Readable and accessible material. I especially liked the analysis of tunes." Read more

3 customers mention "Accessibility"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book accessible, with one describing it as a friendly overview and another noting it serves as an easily recommended introduction.

"...the mechanical structures analyzed by this otherwise fine and accessible study. But first a curiosity has to be planted...." Read more

"...of the text, but the fact that it included bar charts and additional information that he, as a musician, really valued...." Read more

"...Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, serves as a serious but friendly overview of this great but undervalued pillar of American and world culture...." Read more

3 customers mention "History"3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's historical content, with one describing it as essential for jazz students.

"...The Birth of Bebop was an in-depth history that delved into the events, personalities and details associated with the bebop revolution. "..." Read more

"A complete, up-to-date history of jazz and those who created it. Readable and accessible material. I especially liked the analysis of tunes." Read more

"...This book is essential history for a jazz student...." Read more

3 customers mention "Structure"1 positive2 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the structure of the book, with some finding it well-organized, while others note it lacks a clear organizing principle.

"...Jazz", on the other hand, is structured more like a textbook...." Read more

"...Perhaps the greatest delight is hearing coherent and structured synopses of many things you pick up incoherently over years of listening...." Read more

"...Without an organizing principle, without a widely accepted tradition, without emphasis not merely on the performance of the music but on..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Tender Combo
    5.0 out of 5 stars Misguided expectations
    Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2012
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    I bought this book on the strength of Scott Deveaux's Birth of Bebop, which for a history book, was a close to an electrifying page-turner as I have ever read. The Birth of Bebop was an in-depth history that delved into the events, personalities and details associated with the bebop revolution.
    "Jazz", on the other hand, is structured more like a textbook. Granted, covering 120+ years of jazz history in 600 pages is a daunting task requiring judicious editing and selective topical choices, but I was disappointed with the lack of detail in this volume. This book might be a good starting place for someone with no previous knowledge of jazz. As I previously suggested, it might work well as a textbook in a Jazz 101 class. The formal analysis of each of the musical samples does provide valuable insight into how jazz musicians think, as well as the changes in jazz structure over time. However, if you are someone with an interest in the real historical details, I would suggest you look elsewhere.
    My disappointment with this book is less related to the structure or contents of the book itself and more a function of my mistaken expectations, though, and I think it still deserves five stars for what it is.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • DomJazzure
    5.0 out of 5 stars An ear-opener for the most seasoned listener
    Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2010
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    The book arrived looking a little too much like homework. But by the second chapter - its worth getting the collection of CDs that baby sit this book even if you have a lot of the recordings separately, especially useful on MP3 - it was soon obvious that the authors must have been at pains to keep this to one volume. And by the third chapter I wished there were several more volumes and much more extensive analysis of the musicians included and those not mentioned.
    Perhaps the greatest delight is hearing coherent and structured synopses of many things you pick up incoherently over years of listening. There's not much of the subjective in this tome which, since the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, serves as a serious but friendly overview of this great but undervalued pillar of American and world culture. More like this please...
    17 people found this helpful
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  • Pilgrim
    5.0 out of 5 stars For the new and the advanced jazz fan and musician
    Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2010
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    I gave this book to my son, who is a professional jazz guitarist, for Christmas. He really appreciated it, not only for the quality of the illustrations and the thoroughness of the text, but the fact that it included bar charts and additional information that he, as a musician, really valued. I, a non-musician, thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the subject and now am listening to musicians and forms of jazz I did not understand before. It has enhanced both my enjoyment and my appreciation of jazz.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • Samuel
    4.0 out of 5 stars Easily recommended introduction
    Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2010
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Many followers of this music have two lists--the "responsible" one of received wisdom concerning the evolution and essence of this challenging but ceaselessly rewarding art form and, second, a private "hall of fame" reserved for personal favorites. Giddins adheres to the first list, the party line, which is what makes the book suitable as a textbook on the subject for the reader, whether a student in a college class, a curious novitiate, or a veteran musician who has never taken the time to get the "big picture." Many musicians in this latter group were offended by the Ken Burns' jazz series on PBS, even directing their displeasure toward Wynton Marsalis for brainwashing the ambitious, talented filmmaker (whose film, above all, demonstrated that this music actually CAN be learned, understood, appreciated by a non-musician like its "A" student director). But Wynton was taking his cues from the likes of Giddins along with a legacy of jazz historians and writers too numerous to mention--Stearns, Ulanov, Hentoff, Williams, Berendt, Hodeir, Gridley (to name a few). This same cadre of musician-dissenters will find litle consolation in the present volume, which consigns Stan Kenton to 2-3 mentions (his low profile in these jazz histories--more than any other musician's--seems to irritate the non-canonical musician-"experts").

    But at a time in human history when the sense of the past is being digitalized, disseminated, dispersed, atomized, and disintegrated as at no other time, what is needed, above all else, is some sense of coherence, continuity, and responsible prioritizing. Editing for a jazz webzine, not to mention observing the present-day participants in this music, will soon reveal that what was once taken for granted--namely, that jazz is an African-American art form--is now either considered irrelevant or, worse, politically incorrect. But without a past, without a progenitor, without a lineage there is no art form--simply a miscellaneous collection of undeniably talented, creative artists producing original music that, since it fits in no tradition or cultural timestream, will expend its energies coincidentally with the lives of the assorted performers.

    That's why writers and volumes such as Giddins' do us all, not to mention the music, a favor. It well may be that jazz today has its greatest acceptance among whites in Norway, Finland, Canada, Russia, Israel as well as listeners in Asia, but that latter-day universality cannot alter the origins of the music, anymore than Kurosawa's version of "King Lear" can replace Shakespeare's. It boggles the mind that musicians are so ignorant of the importance of a "canon" to the academization and study of literature or of French "auteur theory" to the relatively recent (since the 1970s) academic courses offered in film history, aesthetics, appreciation. Without an organizing principle, without a widely accepted tradition, without emphasis not merely on the performance of the music but on receptionist aesthetics, jazz is a music that's thrown to the winds, outside the bunkers of institutional protectionism, subject to the whims of the marketplace. It has had its time as the individualist's counter-cultural expression; now that position can be occupied by the rappers; jazz and its most representative geniuses may instead occupy a more central position in the realm of the arts that, providing they are understood (I only wish there were as many individuals capable of reading poetry as there are poets!), comprise the examined life that enriches the experience of human beings in general and of Americans in particular.

    As for that personal list, after a lifetime of listening to this music some of us find ourselves spending more time with Hank Mobley and Sonny Stitt than with Bird and Trane, with late Bill Evans than the early trio with Scott LaFaro, with the 1970s Jazz Messenger recordings than those Blakey made in the '60s and '80s. And along the way we have little epiphanies about the enormous importance of Norman Granz, who preserved the language of Diz and Bird, Ella and Pops, as opposed to other labels that perennially went for the hook, the hit, and the buck. And we remain grateful as never before that "Kind of Blue" came out on Columbia, assuring the sonic depth and resonance that, 50 years later, would still accommodate an ever-expanding throng of listeners, or we thank the muses that Helen Keane would see to it that the musician with the most extraordinary touch perhaps in recorded jazz piano history (the equivalent of classical music's Michaelangeli) would not be homogenized to the point of being indistinguishable from Horace Silver. All of these stories need to be told, along with the lives of the musicians whose personal "voices" many of us respond to more than the mechanical structures analyzed by this otherwise fine and accessible study. But first a curiosity has to be planted. Then the other audience will come to go over the crop, hand selecting its most prized fruits. (Were it not for French theory, it's entirely possible that "Citizen Kane" would be a forgotten, even non-existent film (more Hollywood films have perished than have been preserved.) Books like "Jazz" ensure that the life of Louis' "West End Blues" or "Hawk's "Body and Soul" or Bird's "Embraceable You" endure for longer than any single individual's lifetime.
    12 people found this helpful
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  • Leslie
    5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Book for the Jazz Aficionado and Serious Student
    Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2013
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    I purchased this book for my son who is a graduate student in jazz at a top university and it was the perfect gift. This book is essential history for a jazz student. My second son, who also studies jazz, demanded his own copy and has talked about the book at great length; he was even able to update his professor on some facts! He feels like it is bringing lightness to his musical darkness.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Babyruth
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book on the history of Jazz
    Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2014
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    This was a gift to my grandson, who is a music major, & he loves Jazz. When I saw this book, I thought he would like it. After speaking to him, he told me he loved the book & found it very interesting. He would certainly recommend to any one who is interested in the history of Jazz & loves Jazz.
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  • Jesse E.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2021
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Amazing book tbh
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Katarina Skakun-Ward
    5.0 out of 5 stars Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux have made learning about the history of Jazz easy!
    Reviewed in Canada on September 20, 2014
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Informative, laid out perfectly. Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux have made learning about the history of Jazz easy!
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  • GD
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 1, 2024
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Excellent
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  • Nini47
    5.0 out of 5 stars Impeccable
    Reviewed in France on May 6, 2014
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Produit tout à fait conforme aux attentes, je l'ai offert à mon père pour noel il était ravie! Très bien et très complet!
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  • Vinyl Connection
    5.0 out of 5 stars First Class Jazz
    Reviewed in Australia on September 1, 2025
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Thorough, informed and eminently readable, this is an outstanding book on jazz. Highly recommended.
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  • Pierluigi Romagnoli
    5.0 out of 5 stars Probabilmente la migliore storia del jazz disponibile in inglese
    Reviewed in Italy on August 31, 2023
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Pur con tutti i limiti del genere, non può esistere un libro omnicomprensivo di un genere, o meglio, di una attitudine per sua natura incatalogabile. Almeno in questo libro, con tanti e i soliti commenti, manchevolezze più o meno condivisibili, ma come dicevo in questo libro c'è professionalità. Non il solito copia incolla e i tantissimi luoghi comuni che leggo nei libri scritti dagli italiani che non sanno nemmeno dove sta di casa il Jazz. Lo raccomando a chi si vuole avvicinare al jazz, a questo monte Fuji, che sembra sempre se stesso, ma che lo apprezzi ogni volta che lo osservi da una angolazione diversa. Adatto anche per me, che c'ho 3000 titoli jazz. Saluti.
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