Jazz Styles: History & Analysis

by Mark C. Gridley

Book Overview

America's most popular introduction to jazz For undergraduate courses in Jazz History, Jazz Survey, Evolution of Jazz, Introduction to Jazz, and Jazz Appreciation. America's most widely used... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0131931156
• ISBN13: 9780131931152
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 418 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.5" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

Best Artists And Instruments Lists By Era

This book gets the AWARD for BEST ARTISTS LISTS BY SECTION. Every section has specific, relevant artists lists. Usually sorted by the instrument the artist played. I use this book the most of any resource for learning a specific artist AND instrument artist played for the era.

This book connects the dots...

I had begun to get serious about immersing myself in Jazz. A little dive around the corner was showing excellent Jazz groups and I had to take the opportunity to discover this great art form. My daughter lent me a textbook she had from college. I immediately picked it up and for several hours was scanning it backwards and forwards. I kept referencing all the artists and songs I had heard of all my life and this book very handily made the connections. It's loaded with clear and concise and insightful teaching aids. I can now understand much better the overall experience and history of jazz. The technical parts are still quite overwhelming, but the author's writing is very articulate and non-judgmental. I've rarely seen a more learning friendly book. As I started to mention, you can start anywhere you want in this book and just take what you can handle. It occurred to me that a popularized version of this book might sell quite well as the author clearly has the stuff to do that.

not for jazz scholars alone

It has been nearly 30 years since Mark Gridley's first edition of Jazz Styles appeared, and no other treatment of jazz styles comes close to his careful analysis of how jazz has been made since its inception. It is a work of great and serious scholarship, an invaluable resource for students of the genre. Yet, Jazz Styles is also an enjoyable and entertaining companion for anyone who wants to become a more perceptive listener to jazz. The Listening Guides are useful even for those 'veteran' jazz fans familiar with the works described. Gridley will take you to ever-deeper levels of appreciation for jazz in all its varieties.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Jazz

This is the most accurate, user-friendly intro to jazz. It focuses on the music, not the personal lives of the musicians. It explains, patiently and systematically, in luminously clear prose, what jazz is and how to get the most out of listening to it. It details the origins of jazz as well as the distinguishing characteristics of all the major styles: Dixieland, Swing, Bebop, Cool, Hard Bop, "Free Jazz" and Avant-Garde of the 60s and 70s, and Jazz-Rock Fusion. It profiles 144 musicians' contributions (their sources, their styles, and lists of the others they influenced) and provides classification of more than 1000 other musicians, in easy-to-understand categories. Strategies for locating the best albums for all the top musicians. Optional CD of historic recordings is available. Optional CD of narrated demonstrations of the jazz instruments, song forms and methods that jazz musicians use to make their music is also available. Loaded with instrument sketches and photos of key musicians in action, this is America's most widely-used intro to jazz and has been translated into 5 foreign languages. Its author is an award-winning researcher and jazz musician who has travelled to South America, The Caribbean and Africa, as well as all the jazz centers of America. His work is so down-to-earth and practical that it has been adopted for use in jazz appreciation and jazz history courses at more than 500 high schools and colleges.

Gridley Swings -- and hits The Groove On this One!

This is my first in depth study on Jazz in America. My first musical interests as a teenager were jazz, classical, and Bob Dylan. I began listening to Miles Davis, Al Hirt, Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane in the early sixties. They were followed by Bob Dylan, and, in 1967, my last year in the Army, Bay Area bands. An avid tape collector, I got reintroduced to jazz in the last few years as I have returned to those roots and sought some information about the origins of jazz, as well as the key players in the United States. Gridley's book was found at a used book store, alas, without the cassettes. I have longed for the cassettes, so that I could hear the music he references in his text. This IS a text book. I found it challenging, not having any musical knowledge. I still am in over my head on the musical descriptions, but the chapters are logically broken down into the origins of jazz in New Orleans, early jazz, bop, hard bop, Chicago style jazz, west coast jazz, etc. Gridley clearly knows his players. He shows the progressions of players and followers and has special designations for some of the more modern jazz players in my time frame -- Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charlie Parkery, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, Art Blakey, etc. And he also references some of the newer men or groups on the jazz scene, including Sun Ra, Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra. I saw the latter play in the late sixties. Gridley's description, for instance, of Mahavishnu's kinetic energy of those years is apt. I personally left that show wired to the max, convinced I could never endure anything like that again. I am sure that this book is associated with college level music courses that are meant for musically inclined students who want to go deeper into the genre. And this book, in my opinion, is so well written, with such a deep glossary, such vivid musical descriptions of the various sounds produced by different musicians and groups, that I am convinced it would be a maximum value for such a student. I will most likely shell out the full price so that I can grab the cassettes. I believe that this book, coupled with the cassettes, will allow me to go much deeper into my own personal revival of American Jazz. I would STRONGLY recommend this book for novices and college level students who are interested in jazz at a more professional level. Organizationally, the book is right on. Plenty of charts that describe the various "roots" of American jazz as they coalesced in New Orleans. And Gridley makes a point that sounds valid in saying that not all those various "roots" were African-American. I am grateful I found this gem in the half-priced book store and will surely purchase the original in the near future. I think you will like this one if you are approaching jazz at both an afficionado and technical level. Good reading!