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The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1000 Best Albums
by Brian Morton Richard CookThe Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings is firmly established as the world's leading guide to recorded jazz, a mine of fascinating information and a source of insightful - often wittily trenchant - criticism. This is something rather different: Brian Morton (who taught American history at UEA) has picked out the 1000 best recordings that all jazz fans should have and shows how they tell the history of the music and with it the history of the twentieth century. He has completely revised his and Richard Cook's entries and reassessed each artist's entry for this book. The result is an endlessly browsable companion that will prove required reading for aficionados and jazz novices alike.'It's the kind of book that you'll yank off the shelf to look up a quick fact and still be reading two hours later' Fortune'Part jazz history, part jazz Karma Sutra with Cook and Morton as the knowledgeable, urbane, wise and witty guides ... This is one of the great books of recorded jazz; the other guides don't come close' Irish Times
Hindustani Music in the 20th Century
by W. van der MeerAIM In spite of a reasonably extensive literature in English' and Indian vernaculars, there are extremely few books on Indian music that can be considered of a scientific standard. I found, when I took up an interest in Indian music in 1967, that even protracted reading of the studies in English was not conducive to an understanding of the principles of performance. Most of my study and research have been devoted to the gradual refinement of this very understanding. In the course of time it also became obvious that different scholars and different musicians held divergent views on many basic concepts of Indian music. Therefore, one of my tasks was to assess the degree of variability in Indian music. As a corollary I wanted to know how this variability could manifest itself as change in a relatively short and well-documented period. It is often assumed that traditional cultures, as e. g. in India, are rather inert and that the art forms hardly ever change. This study proves the contrary: Indian music has a strong vitality. If we examine the different treatises through the centuries this vitality would appear to be a basic characteristic. I felt that at least an effort to discover the roots of such change would be valuable as a contribution to the study of art history and possibly to the sociology of culture.
Offenbach: His Life And Times (Life And Times Ser.)
by Peter GammondThis eBook version of musicologist Peter Gammond’s best-selling biography of the German-French composer Offenbach ties in with the 200th anniversary of his birth in June 2019. Composer, cellist and impresario of the romantic period, Offenbach is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. Author Peter Gammond, himself 93, commented: "Nothing will shake my belief that Offenbach's music with its magical mixture of vivacity and tenderness is unique, unmistakable and undying.” The book includes a useful appendix which catalogues all Offenbach’s works, early productions and works planned but not completed at his death.
Whose Music?: Sociology of Musical Languages
by John ShepherdWhose Music? combines historical, musicological, and sociological materials and styles of analysis in ways that connect to the field of sociology. The analyses of social class systems presented here speak in translatable ways to analyses of musical forms. Not only that, both are connected to an understanding of the organizations through which works are distributed to their audiences. Perhaps most importantly for the contemporary reader, this book depicts the part of the process by which dominant class groups justify their domination--cultural and otherwise.
Whose Music?: Sociology of Musical Languages
by John ShepherdWhose Music? combines historical, musicological, and sociological materials and styles of analysis in ways that connect to the field of sociology. The analyses of social class systems presented here speak in translatable ways to analyses of musical forms. Not only that, both are connected to an understanding of the organizations through which works are distributed to their audiences. Perhaps most importantly for the contemporary reader, this book depicts the part of the process by which dominant class groups justify their domination--cultural and otherwise.
African Rhythm and African Sensibility: Aesthetics and Social Action in African Musical Idioms (Religion And Postmodernism Ser.)
by John Miller Chernoff"We have in this book a Rosetta stone for mediating, or translating, African musical behavior and aesthetics."—Andrew Tracey, African Music "John Miller Chernoff, who spent 10 years studying African drumming, has a flair for descriptive writing, and his first-person narratives should be easily understood by any reader, while ringing unmistakably true for the reader who has also been to West Africa."—Roderick Knight, Washington Post Book World "Ethnomusicologists must be proud that their discipline has produced a book that will, beyond doubt, rank as a classic of African studies."—Peter Fryer, Research in Literatures "A marvelous book. . . . Not many scholars will ever be able to achieve the kind of synthesis of 'doing' and 'writing about' their subject matter that Chernoff has achieved, but he has given us an excellent illustration of what is possible."—Chet Creider, Culture "Chernoff develops a brilliant and penetrating musicological essay that is, at the same time, an intensely personal and even touching account of musical and cultural discovery that anyone with an interest in Africa can and should read. . . . No other writing comes close to approaching Chernoff's ability to convey a feeling of how African music 'works'"—James Koetting, Africana Journal "Four stars. One of the few books I know of that talks of the political, social, and spiritual meanings of music. I was moved. It was so nice I read it twice."—David Byrne of "Talking Heads" The companion cassette tape has 44 examples of the music discussed in the book. It consists of field recordings illustrating cross-rhythms, multiple meters, call and response forms, etc.
Disraeli the Novelist (Routledge Library Editions: The Nineteenth-Century Novel)
by Thom BraunFirst published in 1981, this book attempts to approach a better understanding of Disraeli the man through his life as a novelist. It is not a series of literary criticisms, rather an attempt to see how ‘fiction’ and the act of ‘fictionalising’ played an important part in Disraeli’s life. The author discusses how Disraeli’s novels in terms of how they reflected various stages of his life and development while assuming no knowledge of the, now mostly out-of-print, books on the part of the reader. This book fills the gap between the standard and comprehensive political biographies and the few literary analyses that appeared the twenty years prior to its publication.
Disraeli the Novelist (Routledge Library Editions: The Nineteenth-Century Novel)
by Thom BraunFirst published in 1981, this book attempts to approach a better understanding of Disraeli the man through his life as a novelist. It is not a series of literary criticisms, rather an attempt to see how ‘fiction’ and the act of ‘fictionalising’ played an important part in Disraeli’s life. The author discusses how Disraeli’s novels in terms of how they reflected various stages of his life and development while assuming no knowledge of the, now mostly out-of-print, books on the part of the reader. This book fills the gap between the standard and comprehensive political biographies and the few literary analyses that appeared the twenty years prior to its publication.
Full Moon: The Amazing Rock and Roll Life of Keith Moon
by Dougal ButlerWith Chris Trengove and Peter LawrenceIn 1967 Peter 'Dougal' Butler became a roadie for The Who and their mercurial genius drummer Keith Moon. Soon he would be Moon's personal assistant, chauffeur, and all-purpose wingman. The ride lasted a tumultuous ten years, ending just prior to Moon's untimely death in 1978. Full Moon is Butler's memoir of that ride: essential reading for Who fans, and a masterclass in the mayhem caused by rock 'n' roll excess. 'The most candid insight into the Who star's life.' Daily Star 'Written in a wonderful fast, racy style, Runyonesque and full of good jokes.' Girl About Town 'A welcome change from the usual bland rock book reportage... Butler clearly has a deep and lasting affection for Moon.' Andy Gill, NME 'Certainly outrageous, sometimes funny, but mostly a sad account of life with a talented neurotic.' Daily Mirror
Shout!: The True Story of the Beatles
by Philip NormanThe first and best Beatles biography, Norman had close working relationships with each of the Fab Four, having interviewed them many times since 1965 and observed first hand the events that led to the split during 1969-70. The resulting book contained unique insights into the rise of the Beatles, their final years, the chaos of Apple and the collapse of hippy idealism. Now fully updated, and written with all of Norman's trademark verve and skill, this is an essential book for anyone with an interest in pop music, the Sixties and the pleasures and perils of god-like fame. 'Nothing less than thrilling . . . the definitive biography' New York Times 'This stands as the first (and still the best) collision of Beatles history and literary depth . . . just about everything is rendered with beautiful prose and laser-like insight' Q
Jazz & Blues (Routledge Library Editions: Popular Music)
by Graham VulliamyThis book, first published in 1982, shows that jazz and blues are music forms that are about individualism, experiment, expression and feeling. From their origin in the work songs and spirituals of America’s southern slaves, through to their adaptation to the urban adaptation to the urban environment in Chicago and New Orleans, the author details the social and economic background that saw the birth of the blues and jazz, and introduces and appraises their leading exponents. He shows how African rhythms were combined with an American musical tradition to produce a distinctive style which was to revitalise Western music.
Jazz & Blues (Routledge Library Editions: Popular Music)
by Graham VulliamyThis book, first published in 1982, shows that jazz and blues are music forms that are about individualism, experiment, expression and feeling. From their origin in the work songs and spirituals of America’s southern slaves, through to their adaptation to the urban adaptation to the urban environment in Chicago and New Orleans, the author details the social and economic background that saw the birth of the blues and jazz, and introduces and appraises their leading exponents. He shows how African rhythms were combined with an American musical tradition to produce a distinctive style which was to revitalise Western music.
The Man Verdi
by Frank WalkerIn this classic biography of composer Giuseppe Verdi, Frank Walker reveals Verdi the man through his connections with the individuals who knew him best. “Walker focuses on some of the more significant people in Verdi’s life and carefully scrutinizes his relationships with them. His wife, Giuseppina Strepponi; his student and amanuensis, Emanuele Muzio; the conductor who first fully understood Verdi’s mature art, Angelo Mariani; the great prima donna, Teresa Stolz; the incomparable librettist and friend of his old age, Arrigo Boito—each passes before our eyes in Walker’s meticulous reconstruction. As we learn more about them, we learn more about Verdi. We see him through the eyes of his closest friends, we watch his daily activities, his daily thoughts, his habits, his warmth, his domestic tyranny. The myth dissolves and a human being stands before us.”—Philip Gossett, from the introduction
Psychology of Music (Cognition and Perception)
by Diana DeutschThe Psychology of Music draws together the diverse and scattered literature on the psychology of music. It explores the way music is processed by the listener and the performer and considers several issues that are of importance both to perceptual psychology and to contemporary music, such as the way the sound of an instrument is identified regardless of its pitch or loudness, or the types of information that can be discarded in the synthetic replication of a sound without distorting perceived timbre. Comprised of 18 chapters, this book begins with a review of the classical psychoacoustical literature on tone perception, focusing on characteristics of particular relevance to music. The attributes of pitch, loudness, and timbre are examined, and a summary of research methods in psychoacoustics is presented. Subsequent chapters deal with timbre perception; the subjective effects of different sound fields; temporal aspects of music; abstract structures formed by pitch relationships in music; different tests of musical ability; and the importance of abstract structural representation in understanding how music is performed. The final chapter evaluates the relationship between new music and psychology. This monograph should be a valuable resource for psychologists and musicians.
Schubert (The\composer As Contemporary Ser.)
by Peter GammondFranz Schubert was born on January 31 1797 and lived in Vienna, the cultural hub of Europe at a time of continuous political and intellectual upheaval. Schubert himself, however, preferred a secluded existence in drawing-rooms and coffee houses with his literary and artistic friends. He did not have the advantages of an academic background or of rich patronage and consequently he was never well off and suffered great neglect in his lifetime. His health deteriorated and he died before his 32nd birthday on November 19 1828 but he had been extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of more than 600 secular vocal works, seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of his music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death with such luminaries as Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers championing his works. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical and early Romantic eras and is one of the most frequently performed composers of the early 19th-century.
Surrender: Bono Autobiography: 40 Songs, One Story
by Bono'A brilliant, very funny, very revealing autobiography-through-music. Maybe the best book ever written about being a rockstar' CAITLIN MORAN_______________________________________________________________Bono - artist, activist and the lead singer of Irish rock band U2 - has written his autobiography: honest and irreverent, intimate and profound, Surrender is the story of the remarkable life he's lived, the challenges he's faced and the friends and family who have shaped and sustained him.'When I started to write this book I was hoping to draw in detail what I'd previously only sketched in songs. The people, places, and possibilities in my life. Surrender is a word freighted with meaning for me. Growing up in Ireland in the seventies with my fists up (musically speaking), it was not a natural concept. A word I only circled until I gathered my thoughts for the book. I am still grappling with this most humbling of commands. In the band, in my marriage, in my faith, in my life as an activist. Surrender is the story of one pilgrim's lack of progress ... With a fair amount of fun along the way.' - BonoAs one of the music world's most iconic artists and the cofounder of organizations ONE and (RED), Bono's career has been written about extensively. But in Surrender, Bono's autobiography, he picks up the pen, writing for the first time about his remarkable life and those he has shared it with. In his unique voice, Bono takes us from his early days growing up in Dublin, including the sudden loss of his mother when he was 14, to U2's unlikely journey to become one of the world's most influential rock bands, to his more than 20 years of activism dedicated to the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty. Writing with candour, self-reflection, and humour, Bono opens the aperture on his life - and the family, friends and faith that have sustained, challenged and shaped him.Surrender's subtitle, "40 Songs, One Story," is a nod to the book's 40 chapters, which are each named after a U2 song. Bono has also created 40 original drawings for Surrender which will appear throughout the book.
Tchaikovsky: The Man and his Music
by Prof. David BrownThis volume uniquely combines a lively biography of one of the best-loved composers of the nineteenth century with a detailed chronological guide to much of his oeuvre, from the most popular - Swan Lake or the 1812 Overture - to the lesser known pieces. David Brown enthusiastically and sensitively guides the reader through Tchaikovsky's music in the context of his life. His writing on the music is accessible and informative, both for the professional musician and the keen amateur listener. The biographical writing includes fascinating quotations from the composer's letters, and those of his friends; the Tchaikovsky that emerges is, despite his periodic struggle with depression, a man with a positive attitude to life, and a kind and supportive friend to many around him. This is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Tchaikovsky, his music, or the culture of the time.'One of the finest one-volume biographies to have appeared in recent years, written with such insight that it feels as though one is on a hot-line to the composer himself . . . by the end I felt I knew Tchaikovsky so much better. A classic.' Classic FM Magazine'I can't imagine a more intelligently sympathetic treatment of the man and his music.' BBC Music Magazine
Voice Without Restraint: Bob Dylan's Lyrics 1961 - 1979
by John HerdmanBob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in June 2016, and seldom in recent years has it been more richly deserved.That a song writer’s lyrics should be regarded as literature was an idea at which many were surprised.Others have felt that to isolate the lyrics of a song from its musical context is unreal. Ultimately that is true: a song is an indefeasible whole, an inseparable marriage of words and music which achieves its overall emotional effect by that symbiosis and not otherwise.Yet it can also be said that the two components can be separately considered as two elements in the artist’s creative utterance, and discussed as such.The evidence of Dylan’s manuscripts supports the view that in writing his lyrics his way of going about things is not always widely different from that of a poet.Bob Dylan commented on the Nobel Prize in Literature which was awarded to him "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition": "When I first received this Nobel Prize for Literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature. I wanted to reflect on it and see where the connection was."Voice Without Restraint, refers to and is from the song “I dreamed I saw St Augustine” on John Wesley Harding, and is a phrase chosen to evoke the full-blooded commitment to his artistic utterance which is the hallmark of Bob Dylan’s voice – in all senses.
Wild Thing: The short, spellbinding life of Jimi Hendrix
by Philip NormanAlmost 50 years after his lonely death, Hendrix is the abiding symbol of musical genius cut tragically short. Wild Thing will be the first biography to bring together the splendour and sadness of his brief life, and to attempt to unravel the circumstances of his death. Hendrix revolutionised classic rock, inventing a whole new vocabulary for the guitar. Onstage he pushed the boundaries of Sixties permissiveness, fellating the strings of the guitar with his tongue, lying it flat and straddling it, even setting fire to it. Yet in private he was polite, shy and sweet-natured. Norman will explore these contradictions in a narrative that takes us from Hendrix's roots in Seattle to his louche and glamorous life in Mayfair, when London was the world's most 'swinging' capital and then back to the US with the series of historic outdoor rock festivals that rounded out the decade. Wild Thing will be a celebration of matchless artistry, and a gripping chronicle of those now mythical times. But it will also investigate the peculiar conditions of his death, part whodunnit as it tells the most cautionary of rock 'n' roll parables. After all these years of rumour and speculation, Jimi's ghost may finally be laid to rest.
Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory
by Houston A. Baker, Jr.Relating the blues to American social and literary history and to Afro-American expressive culture, Houston A. Baker, Jr., offers the basis for a broader study of American culture at its "vernacular" level. He shows how the "blues voice" and its economic undertones are both central to the American narrative and characteristic of the Afro-American way of telling it.
Domenico Scarlatti (PDF)
by Ralph KirkpatrickAgain available in paperback, this definitive work on the genius of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) is the result of twelve years of devoted effort by America's foremost harpsichordist and one of the principal authorities on eighteenth-century harpsichord music. Mr. Kirkpatrick traveled extensively to collect material that has tripled the known facts about Scarlatti's life, providing the first adequate biography of one of the greatest harpsichord composers of the eighteenth century and one of the most original composers of all time. The second half of his book is an illuminating study of Scarlatti's 555 sonatas, concluding with a chapter on their performance. The book contains extensive appendixes, including discussions of ornamentation and Scarlatti's vocal music, and an updated section of addenda and corrigenda.
Karawitan: Source Readings in Javanese Gamelan and Vocal Music, Volume 2 (Michigan Papers On South And Southeast Asia #30)
by Judith BeckerThe twentieth century has spawned a great interest in Indonesian music, and now books, articles, and manuscripts can be found that expound exclusively about karawitan (the combined vocal and instrumental music of the gamelan). Scholar Judith Becker has culled several key sources on karawitan into three volumes and has translated them for the benefit of the Western student of the gamelan tradition. The texts in her collection were written over a forty-five-year time period (ca 1930–1975) and include articles by Martopangrawit, Sumarsam, Sastrapustaka, Gitosaprodjo, Sindoesawarno, Poerbapangrawit, Probohardjono, Warsadiningrat, Purbodiningrat, Poerbatjaraka, and Paku Buwana X. The final volume also contains a glossary of technical terms, an appendix of the Javanese cipher notations (titilaras kepatihan), a biographical listing, and an index to the musical pieces (Gendhing).