Setting the tempo : fifty years of great jazz liner notes / edited and with an introduction by Tom Piazza.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Piazza, Tom, 1955-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jazz--History and criticism.

Jazz.

Physical Description:

xiv, 369 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Edition:

First Anchor Books Trade paperback edition.

Other Title:

Fifty years of great jazz liner notes

50 years of great jazz liner notes

Place of Publication:

New York : Anchor Books, 1996.

Summary:

Since the introduction of the long-playing record, some of the best, most insightful--and most beloved--writing about jazz has appeared on the backs of record covers. Over the years, jazz writers and prominent jazz musicians have annotated record albums with background on the musicians and the recordings, historical context, and musical analysis. These annotations, or "liner notes," provide a window on the recording process, as well as intimate anecdotes and personal views of the musicians that have an immediacy and warmth rarely found elsewhere--setting the tempo, in a sense, for the listener's appreciation of the music.

In Setting the Tempo, author and jazz authority Tom Piazza presents fifty of the finest and most distinctive notes from the beginning of the genre, in the 1940s, through the present. Among them are Duke Ellington's moving reminiscences of stride piano master James P. Johnson; brilliant impressions of John Coltrane by poet LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka); bass virtuoso and composer Charles Mingus's harangue against his critics; composer Gunther Schuller's extraordinary story of locating Charlie Parker's alto saxophone teacher; and meditations on different meanings of freedom in jazz by pianist Bill Evans and alto innovator Ornette Coleman. Stanley Crouch; Dan Morgenstern, Ira Gitler, Robert Palmer, and other critics are also represented by some of their strongest work.

Contents:

I. The Early Years 7

Chicago Jazz (Decca) / George Avakian 9

New Orleans Jazz (Decca) / Charles Edward Smith 25

Frank Teschemacher/Chicago Style Clarinetist (Brunswick) / George Frazier 51

II. A Moment's Notice 59

Bunk Johnson/Bunk Johnson and His Superior Jazz Band (Good Time Jazz) / David Stuart 61

Buster Smith/The Legendary Buster Smith (Atlantic) / Gunther Schuller 69

Duke Ellington/Ellington at Newport (Columbia) / George Avakian 80

Booker Ervin/Setting the Pace (Prestige) / David Himmelstein 86

Barry Harris/Barry Harris Plays Barry Harris (Xanadu) / Tom Piazza 93

III. Straight Ahead 103

/ Dan Morgenstern

Pee Wee Russell/Memorial Album (Prestige) 105

Coleman Hawkins/The Hawk Flies (Milestone) 111

Al Cohn and Zoot Sims/Body and Soul (Muse) / Ira Gitler 120

/ Nat Hentoff

Charles Mingus/The Clown (Atlantic) 127

Milt Jackson/Plenty, Plenty Soul (Atlantic) 134

Warne Marsh/Warne Marsh (Atlantic) 139

/ David Himmelstein

Jaki Byard/Out Front (Prestige) 146

Lucky Thompson/Lucky Strikes (Prestige) 154

/ Martin Williams

Count Basie/Count Basie in Kansas City (RCA Victor) 160

Ornette Coleman/The Shape of Jazz to Come (Atlantic) 166

Harlan Leonard/Harlan Leonard and His Rockets (RCA Victor) / Leonard Feather 171

/ Whitney Balliett

Joe Turner/Boss of the Blues (Atlantic) 177

Gerry Mulligan Quartet/Gerry Mulligan Quartet (Pacific Jazz) 182

Jess Stacy/Tribute to Benny Goodman (Atlantic) / George Frazier 187

Coleman Hawkins/Sirius (Pablo) / Benny Green 193

Arnett Cobb/The Wild Man from Texas (Classic Jazz) / Stanley Dance 197

/ Orrin Keepnews

Thelonious Monk/April in Paris (Milestone) 203

Thelonious Monk/Straight No Chaser (Columbia) 212

Sonny Rollins/The Freedom Suite (Riverside) 215

Sonny Rollins/The Freedom Suite (Riverside) / Frank Kofsky 220

/ Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)

John Coltrane Quartet/Coltrane Live at Birdland (Impulse) 225

Billie Holiday/LadyLove (United Artists) 229

Roscoe Mitchell/Sound (Delmark) / J. B. Figi 231

/ Robert Palmer

George Russell/Outer Thoughts (Milestone) 236

Julius Hemphill/Dogon A.D. (Arista) 243

/ Stanley Crouch

Booker Ervin/The Freedom and Space Sessions (Prestige) 248

Thelonious Monk/At the Five Spot (Milestone) 255

Jaki Byard/Giant Steps (Prestige) / Tom Piazza 267

Ben Webster/Music for Loving (Verve) / Loren Schoenberg 274

Art Tatum/20th Century Piano Genius (Emarcy) / Felicity Howlett 283

IV. The Musicians Themselves 293

Lester Young/The Lester Young Story, Vol. 1 (Columbia) / Michael Brooks 295

Jimmy and Mama Yancey/Pure Blues (Atlantic) / Art Hodes 317

James P. Johnson/Father of the Stride Piano (Columbia) / Duke Ellington and Stanley Dance 320

Chu Berry/Chu Berry and His Stompy Stevedores (Epic) / Danny Barker 327

Charles Mingus/Let My Children Hear Music (Columbia) / Charles Mingus 335

/ Bill Evans

Miles Davis/Kind of Blue (Columbia) 345

Ben Webster and Joe Zawinul/Soulmates (Riverside) 347

Earl Hines/Quintessential Continued (Chiaroscuro) / Dick Wellstood 351

John Coltrane/On a Misty Night (Prestige) / Andrew White 353

Ornette Coleman/Ornette! (Atlantic) / Gunther Schuller 360

Ornette Coleman/Change of the Century (Atlantic) / Ornette Coleman 366.

ISBN:

0385480008

OCLC:

34623487