Jazz is the great American art form, its very essence is predicated on freedom and creativity. Its sound unequivocally calls forth narratives of past struggles and future dreams. Yet jazz can be as inscrutable as it is mesmerizing, especially to outsiders who don't know what to make of improvisation or unexpected shifts in melody or tempo. How does a casual listener learn to understand and appreciate the nuances between the unapologetic and innovative...

Provides an explanation of the basic elements of jazz, traverses the genre's history to see how it evolved, and profiles its key figures, theories, controversies, and role in American culture.

"The Philosophy of Modern Song is Bob Dylan's first book of new writing since 2004's Chronicles: Volume One and since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers a master class on the art and craft of songwriting. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes...

With style, wit, and expertise, Leonard Bernstein shares his love and appreciation for music in all its varied forms in The Infinite Variety of Music, illuminating the deep pleasure and sometimes subtle beauty it offers. He begins with an "imaginary conversation" with George Washington entitled "The Muzak Muse" in which he argues the values of actively listening to music by learning how to read notes, as opposed to simply hearing music in a concert...

The term "world music" encompasses both folk and popular music across the globe, as well as the sounds of cultural encounter and diversity, sacred voices raised in worship, local sounds, and universal values. It emerged as an invention of the West from encounters with other cultures, and holds the power to evoke the exotic and give voice to the voiceless. Today, in both sound and material it has a greater presence in human societies than ever before....

"A resource of music pedagogy that centers on one of the most ancient musical repertoires honored by the church and music historians. Though it may not be common to see the word 'expressive' describing Gregorian chant, a repertoire often associated with subdued solemnity, this volume by renowned scholar and practitioner Alberto Turco includes an abundance of insights into the Gregorian art and proposes that chant is first and foremost sung prayer,...

"Once you've collected every 7" from your favorite label, broken your back in the mosh pit, and become so well-versed in the interpersonal dynamics of every hardcore band that there's nothing more to learn, what's a punk to do? Try jazz, recommends Bob Suren. No, really. Suren, who wrote Crate Digger about his life and work in punk, turns his obsessive gaze onto another form of rebellious, improvisational outsider music, but this time with more sax"--...

Part biography, part criticism, and part analysis, this fascinating study of one of music's greatest geniuses is above all an authoritative commentary on the entire corpus of Debussy's work for solo piano. Written with special insights for the performer. Includes 21 illustrations.

Instead of following the traditional chronological order in studying the Beethoven piano sonatas, Kenneth Drake places them in categories that reflect certain qualities of the music. Approaching the sonatas as an interpreter's search for meaning, he begins with the Classic composers' expressive treatment of the keyboard - such as touches, articulation, line, color, silence, and the pacing of musical ideas. He then analyzes individual Beethoven sonatas,...

"Americans love musicals. Americans invented musicals. Americans perfected musicals. But what, exactly, is a musical? In [this book], Jack Viertel takes them apart, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate...