Jazz Greats (20th Century Composers Series)

Jazz - dubbed by Leonard Bernstein as 'the only original American art form' - is the music of a subject people moving from the shadow of slavery towards social justice. Its fascination lies both in its musical innovations and in the rich social history to which it bears witness. That history is recounted here from its beginnings to the present day through the lives of twelve great jazz-men, each of whom mastered his musical heritage, and then added to it with a personal contribution. All of these musicians were great twentieth-century composers, but since jazz is essentially an improvised musical language - themes being merely a starting point for the solos which follow - it is in this sense that their composing must be understood. Their story can touch us all: classical music-lovers will come to appreciate the subtle complexities of jazz, and experience the beauty of its raw passion; in the context of popular culture, fascinating lines of development are revealed in the tales of suffering and quiet triumph - for jazz is inextricably linked with the history of American blacks from slavery to civil rights; jazz devotees, too, can learn more of these musicians' vivid world from the testimonies of key witnesses, many recorded here for the first time.

Publishers Weekly

The latest entry in Phaidon's 20th-Century Composers series sketches the complicated history of this wholly American art form by examining the complicated lives of a few of its finest, and most well-known, practitioners. Unfortunately, Perry's short chapters find him glossing too much. While he doesn't glamorize the various drug habits and unruly lifestyles that were part and parcel of the jazz scene of previous decades, Perry's quick, friendly style does reduce such giants as Charlie Parker and John Coltrane to a few "significant" recording sessions and their already self-perpetuating legends. The question of whether Buddy Bolden's turn-of-the-century band was the first to play jazz will forever go unanswered, in spite of Perry's rehashing of an old tale. For all of his painstaking care with the facts, Perry doesn't deliver anything not already published elsewhere about Louis Armstrong, Charles Mingus or Duke Ellington. Jazz Greats isn't apt to enlighten the fan whose record collection goes deeper than Miles Davis's classic sides with Parker or a couple of Sidney Bechet albums, but novices brought into the fold by the Marsalis brothers and their neo-traditional peers might be enlightened by dipping into Perry's selective discography at the book's end. (July)