Great textbook to read and keep
Great textbook focussed on American instrumental Jazz. Ideal format for the non-musician beginner or enthusiast as well as for the apprentice musician.
You may like to read it more then once. The more you learn about Jazz, the deeper you?ll understand and appreciate this book.
It is very didactic yet vivid explanation of the styles of major musicians from the origins of Jazz to swing, bop, cool, free, fusion, and recent developments until year 2005.
Includes appendices on Jazz styles, elements of music, strategies for album buying. Thousands of references for recordings, supplemental reading, solo transcriptions, biographies.
Comprises listening guides to the 32 recordings on the accompaning two Classic CDs. The accompaning Demonstration CD explains about the sound of different instruments.
I recommend to always buy the accompanying CDs, as well as the separate Smithsonian Collection of Classic CDs (an expensive set of 5 CDs) to which the textbook continuously refers to.
It does not contain biographic information on musicians as it concentrates exclusively on their contribution to music.
