A year-by-year history of people and events, this lively multi-layered account tells the whole story of jazz music and its personalities. The Chronicle of Jazz charts the evolution of jazz from its roots in Africa and the southern United States to the myriad urban styles heard around the world today, Mervyn Cooke gives us a narrative rich with innovation, experimentation, controversy, and emotion. The book is completely up to date, exploring the exciting recent developments in the world of jazz, from the rise of modern Big Bands and the renaissance of the piano trio to the popular appeal of Jamie Cullum and HBO's Treme. Featuring hundreds of rare images, from record-cover artwork to pictures of live performances, each chronologically arranged section contains special box features on such topics as the unique tonal qualities of the bass clarinet, jazz clubs in Paris, personality sketches, and seminal gigs and albums. A substantial reference section features information on international jazz festivals, a glossary of musical terms, biographies of musicians, and extensive discography, and further reading. A celebration of the most imaginative and enduring music of the last 120 years, The Chronicle of Jazz is an essential work of reference for all music lovers.

The Chronicle of Jazz

Arts & Photography

Cooke, Mervyn

Music

Oxford University Press

The guitarist and composer Pat Metheny ranks among the most popular and innovative jazz musicians of all time. In Pat Metheny: The ECM Years, 1975-1984, Mervyn Cooke offers the first in-depth account of Metheny's early creative period, during which he recorded eleven stunningly varied albums for the pioneering European record label ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music). This impressive body of recordings encompasses both straight-ahead jazz playing with virtuosic small ensembles and the increasingly complex textures and structures of the Pat Metheny Group, a hugely successful band also notable for its creative exploration of advanced music technologies which were state-of-the-art at the time. Metheny's music in all its shapes and forms broke major new ground in its refusal to subscribe to either of the stylistic poles of bebop and jazz-rock fusion which prevailed in the late 1970s. Through a series of detailed analyses based on a substantial body of new transcriptions from the recordings, this study reveals the close interrelationship of improvisation and pre-composition which lies at the very heart of the music. Furthermore, these analyses vividly demonstrate how Metheny's music is often conditioned by a strongly linear narrative model: both its story-telling characteristics and atmospheric suggestiveness have sometimes been compared to those of film music, a genre in which the guitarist also became active during this early period. The melodic memorability for which Metheny's compositions and improvisations have long been world-renowned is shown to be just one important element in an unusually rich and flexible musical language that embraces influences as diverse as bebop, free jazz, rock, pop, country &amp; western, Brazilian music, classical music, minimalism, and the avant-garde. These elements are melded into a uniquely distinctive soundworld which, above all, directly reflects Metheny's passionate belief in the need to refashion jazz in ways which can allow it to speak powerfully to each new generation of youthful listeners.

Pat Metheny: The ECM Years, 1975-1984 (Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz)

A year-by-year history of people and events telling the story of jazz and the personalities which have formed this music style. Beginning at the turn of the century, the text charts the history of jazz from its African roots and the southern US to the myriad urban styles heard around the world today. The book looks at how jazz has been influenced by - and has influenced - other musical and artistic forms. Each chronological section contains features on topics ranging from the individual qualities of the bass clarinet and the jazz scene in Paris to personal sketches and seminal gigs.

The Chronicle of Jazz: Year-by-year, the Personalities, the Stories, the Innovations Behind This Century's Most Exciting Music.

Humor & Entertainment

Abbeville Press

An introduction to jazz covers its history and seminal figures in both the United States and Europe.

Jazz (World of Art)

Thames&Hudson

The Chronicle of Jazz /anglais

A History of Film Music

This book provides a comprehensive and lively introduction to the major trends in film scoring from the silent era to the present day, focussing not only on dominant Hollywood practices but also offering an international perspective by including case studies of the national cinemas of the UK, France, India, Italy, Japan and the early Soviet Union. The book balances wide-ranging overviews of film genres, modes of production and critical reception with detailed non-technical descriptions of the interaction between image track and soundtrack in representative individual films. In addition to the central focus on narrative cinema, separate sections are also devoted to music in documentary and animated films, film musicals and the uses of popular and classical music in the cinema. The author analyses the varying technological and aesthetic issues that have shaped the history of film music, and concludes with an account of the modern film composer's working practices.

Movies

Cambridge University Press

Benjamin Britten: Billy Budd (Cambridge Opera Handbooks)

Billy Budd, based on Herman Melville's nautical allegory, is one of Britten's most challenging operas. This comprehensive guide considers the work from both literary and musical viewpoints. Melville's novella is discussed, as is the interpretation given to the novella by the librettists E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier. A detailed synopsis guides the reader through the musical and dramatic action of the opera and in a chapter devoted to the music, Britten's distinctive technique of tonal symbolism is analyzed to demonstrate the effectiveness of his musical response to the dramatic suggestions of Melville's story. The most important critical writings on Billy Budd are represented by an expanded version of Donald Mitchell's 1979 notebook on the opera. A final chapter charts the opera's stage history and fluctuating critical reception.

REED, Philip

Britten: War Requiem (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

The book examines from various viewpoints Britten's War Requiem, written in 1962 to celebrate the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral and uniting the famous anti-war poetry of Wilfred Owen with the Latin Requiem Mass. Britten's and Owen's pacifist beliefs are compared, and the chronology of the compositional process unraveled from documentary and manuscript sources. The musical language is analyzed in detail, and the fluctuating critical responses to the score are assessed.

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Books by Cooke, Mervyn

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cooke, Mervyn. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Chronicle of Jazz

Pat Metheny: The ECM Years, 1975-1984 (Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz)

Pat Metheny: The ECM Years, 1975-1984 (Oxford Studies in Recorded Jazz)

The Chronicle of Jazz: Year-by-year, the Personalities, the Stories, the Innovations Behind This Century's Most Exciting Music.

Jazz (World of Art)

The Chronicle of Jazz /anglais

A History of Film Music

Benjamin Britten: Billy Budd (Cambridge Opera Handbooks)

Benjamin Britten: Billy Budd (Cambridge Opera Handbooks)

Britten: War Requiem (Cambridge Music Handbooks)