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Summary
Summary
"Jazz gets an Aplus. Jazz is a collage for the senses: well-crafted time charts, poignant black-and-white prints, contemporary color photographs, illustrative musical notations, and descriptive drawings". -- Jam Magazine
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fodham, British jazz critic for the Guardian and author of Let's Join Hands and Contact the Living , here presents a lively visual overview of jazz history. Along with hundreds of photos, time charts and other illustrations, the book covers jazz through the 1990s and offers ample descriptions of jazz instruments--voice, strings, drums and woodwinds--and musical techniques--melody, composing, dance roots and improvisation. Fodham highlights more than 250 classic jazz recordings, providing brief commentary along with a picture of each album cover. Informative biographical sketches celebrate 20 jazz greats, including Billie Holiday, Jelly Roll Morton, Lester Young and Ornette Coleman. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Guardian Review
Some of his audience began heckling the American piano star Brad Mehldau ("Play some piano! Play a solo!") during his untypically funky electric set with drummer Mark Guiliana. As the duo Mehliana, the pair were stirring the new brew of improv, 1970s dance-funk, and drum'n'bass with which they've enthused club audiences this year. It enthused most of this London jazz festival audience, too, though clearly not all of Mehldau's longer-term acoustic-jazz admirers. The barrackers hung on until the encore, only beating a slow retreat when Mehldau responded by turning up the loudest synth-bass thunder he could muster. The set had begun reflectively with mingled acoustic-piano and Fender Rhodes lyricism, and built over Guiliana's bass-drum barrages and remarkable tonal variety at speed. Oceanic vintage-synth sounds washed over roaring low-end noise, then turned to a Ray Charlesian soul-blues theme. A typical Mehldau piece of Bach-like modulation brought cheers, and the encore became a headlong Joe Zawinul-like charge. But it was still pure Mehldau in its care for detail and its song-shapes, just with some loudly infectious histrionics piled on top. Later, at Cafe OTO, the American jazz visionary Wadada Leo Smith launched the first of three nights devoted to his civil-rights epic Ten Freedom Summers, with his fine American group including pianist Anthony Davis and bassist John Lindberg, and Britain's Ligeti Quartet. Against wall-high video screens merging the band in action with haunting images from the race conflicts of the 1960s, Smith steered narratives of eddying improv-strings, jazz ensemble call-and-response, quotes from John Coltrane's iconic Alabama, and elliptical Miles Davis-like passages led by his own blistering trumpet phrasing. It was beautiful and sobering music, and one of the festival's big triumphs to have helped stage it. The London Jazz Festival continues until Sunday. - John Fordham Caption: Captions: Sobering epic . . . Wadada Leo Smith Some of his audience began heckling the American piano star Brad Mehldau ("Play some piano! Play a solo!") during his untypically funky electric set with drummer Mark Guiliana. As the duo Mehliana, the pair were stirring the new brew of improv, 1970s dance-funk, and drum'n'bass with which they've enthused club audiences this year. It enthused most of this London jazz festival audience, too, though clearly not all of Mehldau's longer-term acoustic-jazz admirers. The barrackers hung on until the encore, only beating a slow retreat when Mehldau responded by turning up the loudest synth-bass thunder he could muster. - John Fordham.
Library Journal Review
Fordham, jazz correspondent for the Guardian , attempts to provide a comprehensive guide to the history, instruments, musicians, and recordings of jazz. In discrete, beautifully illustrated sections, he begins with a sketchy but interesting history of jazz from its inception to the current scene. The author continues with an overview of the techniques involved in playing more than a dozen instruments. He also includes one- and two-page biographies of 20 jazz greats; descriptions of harmony, rhythm, and jazz dance; and an occasionally arbitrary compendium of classic recordings. Though distinguished by its many color photos, Jazz provides only cursory treatment of the many complex topics it tackles. For large music collections.-- David Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
