Jazz: A Crash Course

by Simon Adams

This is a user-friendly, comprehensive guide to the people, the terminology and the 100 year history of the musical movement of jazz. It covers jazz from its birth in the deep South through its move... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0823009793
• ISBN13: 9780823009794
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill Publications
• Length: 143 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

A Sound Introduction

In this short and extensively illustrated book, music reviewer Simon Adams provides an encapsulated history of a century's worth of the different music we collectively label "jazz". By definition, a crash course could only provide snippets of information on subjects worthy of whole volumes, and Adams' greatest success here is that he admits this limitation and keeps moving the story forward. Thus the reader - encouraged to become the listener - is left wanting more.Another highlight of this book is its respectful but unvarnished look at the darker side of jazz: that jazz and sex have been somewhat intertwined from the beginning, and that many talented musicians destroyed their lives on booze and drugs, are facts simply presented, not sensationalized. It is clear the author would rather talk about the music, and for that we should thank him.Nonetheless, the book is not perfect. For a book that claims to examine a "truly global musical movement" and "the shape of jazz to come", omitting even a passing mention of ska music is a glaring oversight. Also, the author does at times try a little too hard to be hip, with "club talk" and "gosh facts" to "beef up your jazz cred [at] pompous wine bars" and the inclusion of altogether irrelevant trivia in a timeline atop every page. Still I praise and recommend this book, and if what I see as shortcomings help sell the book to the mass market, how can I complain?