Author: Deanna Witkowski
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814664016
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
In Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, Deanna Witkowski brings a fresh perspective to the life and music of the legendary jazz pianist-composer Mary Lou Williams (1910-81). As a fellow jazz pianist-composer, adult convert to Catholicism, and liturgical composer, Witkowski offers unique insight gleaned from a twenty-year journey with Williams as her chosen musical and spiritual mentor. Viewing Williams’s musical and corporal acts of mercy as part of a singular effort to create community no matter the context, Witkowski examines how Williams created networks of support and friendship through her decades long letter correspondence with various women religious, her charitable work, and her tireless efforts to perform jazz in churches, community centers, concert halls, and schools. Throughout this fascinating story told with equal amounts of deep love and scholarly research, Witkowski illumines Williams’s passionate mantra that “jazz is healing to the soul.”
Mary Lou Williams
Author: Deanna Witkowski
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814664016
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
In Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, Deanna Witkowski brings a fresh perspective to the life and music of the legendary jazz pianist-composer Mary Lou Williams (1910-81). As a fellow jazz pianist-composer, adult convert to Catholicism, and liturgical composer, Witkowski offers unique insight gleaned from a twenty-year journey with Williams as her chosen musical and spiritual mentor. Viewing Williams’s musical and corporal acts of mercy as part of a singular effort to create community no matter the context, Witkowski examines how Williams created networks of support and friendship through her decades long letter correspondence with various women religious, her charitable work, and her tireless efforts to perform jazz in churches, community centers, concert halls, and schools. Throughout this fascinating story told with equal amounts of deep love and scholarly research, Witkowski illumines Williams’s passionate mantra that “jazz is healing to the soul.”
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814664016
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
In Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, Deanna Witkowski brings a fresh perspective to the life and music of the legendary jazz pianist-composer Mary Lou Williams (1910-81). As a fellow jazz pianist-composer, adult convert to Catholicism, and liturgical composer, Witkowski offers unique insight gleaned from a twenty-year journey with Williams as her chosen musical and spiritual mentor. Viewing Williams’s musical and corporal acts of mercy as part of a singular effort to create community no matter the context, Witkowski examines how Williams created networks of support and friendship through her decades long letter correspondence with various women religious, her charitable work, and her tireless efforts to perform jazz in churches, community centers, concert halls, and schools. Throughout this fascinating story told with equal amounts of deep love and scholarly research, Witkowski illumines Williams’s passionate mantra that “jazz is healing to the soul.”
The Godfather of British Jazz
Author: Clark Tracey
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN: 9781781793534
Category : Jazz musicians
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This is the first book about the life of jazz pianist and composer Stan Tracey CBE (1926-2013). Drawn largely from his personal diaries and some of his many interviews, his son Clark Tracey pieces together what made the late Stan Tracey a unique character in jazz music. Stan's wit and wisdom also come shining through in abundance in this long overdue account of one of the UK's most important jazz musicians. In a career that spanned 70 years, Stan Tracey recalls his earliest memories in war torn London and his first experiences of hearing jazz. As a teenager, he joined ENSA and the RAF Gang Show and for the next three years played at more venues than many musicians do in a lifetime. Once demobbed, Stan befriends pianist Eddie Thomson, vibist and drummer Victor Feldman and clarinettist Vic Ash and begins his career in music. He toured with Kenny Baker's band and the Kirchin Band before joining the Ted Heath Orchestra, then began recording under his own name. He was asked by Ronnie Scott to be the house pianist at Scott's new club, where Stan's legendary status grew for the next six years. He accompanied giants of American jazz such as Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard and many others. During this period he wrote and recorded the seminal album Under Milk Wood, which to this day remains his best selling work. Stan left Ronnie's club following a drug addiction and in the 1970s found himself penniless. His wife Jackie employed her skill in the music business as an A&R from previous years and began presenting concerts to keep Stan afloat, as he formed new musical friendships in the free/improvised idiom at that time, such as Mike Osborne and Keith Tippett. Commissions for suites emerged and Stan's writing skills found an outlet again through the formation of his various groups that were to last for nearly 30 years. Stan's achievements and awards are ample and in many cases unique. Recipient of an OBE and a CBE, Stan also received several lifetime achievement awards and in his last year became the first recipient of the Ivor Novello Jazz Award. The book includes a complete discography of all commercial recordings featuring Stan Tracey, compiled by Stephen Didymus.
Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)
ISBN: 9781781793534
Category : Jazz musicians
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This is the first book about the life of jazz pianist and composer Stan Tracey CBE (1926-2013). Drawn largely from his personal diaries and some of his many interviews, his son Clark Tracey pieces together what made the late Stan Tracey a unique character in jazz music. Stan's wit and wisdom also come shining through in abundance in this long overdue account of one of the UK's most important jazz musicians. In a career that spanned 70 years, Stan Tracey recalls his earliest memories in war torn London and his first experiences of hearing jazz. As a teenager, he joined ENSA and the RAF Gang Show and for the next three years played at more venues than many musicians do in a lifetime. Once demobbed, Stan befriends pianist Eddie Thomson, vibist and drummer Victor Feldman and clarinettist Vic Ash and begins his career in music. He toured with Kenny Baker's band and the Kirchin Band before joining the Ted Heath Orchestra, then began recording under his own name. He was asked by Ronnie Scott to be the house pianist at Scott's new club, where Stan's legendary status grew for the next six years. He accompanied giants of American jazz such as Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard and many others. During this period he wrote and recorded the seminal album Under Milk Wood, which to this day remains his best selling work. Stan left Ronnie's club following a drug addiction and in the 1970s found himself penniless. His wife Jackie employed her skill in the music business as an A&R from previous years and began presenting concerts to keep Stan afloat, as he formed new musical friendships in the free/improvised idiom at that time, such as Mike Osborne and Keith Tippett. Commissions for suites emerged and Stan's writing skills found an outlet again through the formation of his various groups that were to last for nearly 30 years. Stan's achievements and awards are ample and in many cases unique. Recipient of an OBE and a CBE, Stan also received several lifetime achievement awards and in his last year became the first recipient of the Ivor Novello Jazz Award. The book includes a complete discography of all commercial recordings featuring Stan Tracey, compiled by Stephen Didymus.
The Life of Music
Author: Nicholas Kenyon
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300260601
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 387
Book Description
Nicholas Kenyon explores the enduring appeal of the classical canon at a moment when we can access all music—across time and cultures Immersed in music for much of his life as writer, broadcaster and concert presenter, former director of the BBC Proms, Nicholas Kenyon has long championed an astonishingly wide range of composers and performers. Now, as we think about culture in fresh ways, Kenyon revisits the stories that make up the classical tradition and foregrounds those which are too often overlooked. This inclusive, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic guide highlights the achievements of the women and men, amateurs and professionals, who bring music to life. Taking us from pianist Myra Hess’s performance in London during the Blitz, to John Adams’s composition of a piece for mourners after New York’s 9/11 attacks, to Italian opera singers singing from their balconies amidst the 2020 pandemic, Kenyon shows that no matter how great the crisis, music has the power to bring us together. His personal, celebratory account transforms our understanding of how classical music is made—and shows us why it is more relevant than ever.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300260601
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 387
Book Description
Nicholas Kenyon explores the enduring appeal of the classical canon at a moment when we can access all music—across time and cultures Immersed in music for much of his life as writer, broadcaster and concert presenter, former director of the BBC Proms, Nicholas Kenyon has long championed an astonishingly wide range of composers and performers. Now, as we think about culture in fresh ways, Kenyon revisits the stories that make up the classical tradition and foregrounds those which are too often overlooked. This inclusive, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic guide highlights the achievements of the women and men, amateurs and professionals, who bring music to life. Taking us from pianist Myra Hess’s performance in London during the Blitz, to John Adams’s composition of a piece for mourners after New York’s 9/11 attacks, to Italian opera singers singing from their balconies amidst the 2020 pandemic, Kenyon shows that no matter how great the crisis, music has the power to bring us together. His personal, celebratory account transforms our understanding of how classical music is made—and shows us why it is more relevant than ever.
The Professional Arranger Composer
Author: Russell Garcia
Publisher: Alfred Music Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Arrangement (Music)
Languages : en
Pages : 176
Book Description
Designed for the musician who wants to become a professional arranger-composer. Includes a section of dance band harmony and voicing.
Publisher: Alfred Music Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Arrangement (Music)
Languages : en
Pages : 176
Book Description
Designed for the musician who wants to become a professional arranger-composer. Includes a section of dance band harmony and voicing.
A Natural History of the Piano
Author: Stuart Isacoff
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307701425
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
A beautifully illustrated, totally engrossing celebration of the piano, and the composers and performers who have made it their own. With honed sensitivity and unquestioned expertise, Stuart Isacoff—pianist, critic, teacher, and author of Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization—unfolds the ongoing history and evolution of the piano and all its myriad wonders: how its very sound provides the basis for emotional expression and individual style, and why it has so powerfully entertained generation upon generation of listeners. He illuminates the groundbreaking music of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, and Debussy. He analyzes the breathtaking techniques of Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Arthur Rubinstein, and Van Cliburn, and he gives musicians including Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Menahem Pressler, and Vladimir Horowitz the opportunity to discuss their approaches. Isacoff delineates how classical music and jazz influenced each other as the uniquely American art form progressed from ragtime, novelty, stride, boogie, bebop, and beyond, through Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Charlap. A Natural History of the Piano distills a lifetime of research and passion into one brilliant narrative. We witness Mozart unveiling his monumental concertos in Vienna’s coffeehouses, using a special piano with one keyboard for the hands and another for the feet; European virtuoso Henri Herz entertaining rowdy miners during the California gold rush; Beethoven at his piano, conjuring healing angels to console a grieving mother who had lost her child; Liszt fainting in the arms of a page turner to spark an entire hall into hysterics. Here is the instrument in all its complexity and beauty. We learn of the incredible craftsmanship of a modern Steinway, the peculiarity of specialty pianos built for the Victorian household, the continuing innovation in keyboards including electronic ones. And most of all, we hear the music of the masters, from centuries ago and in our own age, brilliantly evoked and as marvelous as its most recent performance. With this wide-ranging volume, Isacoff gives us a must-have for music lovers, pianists, and the armchair musician.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307701425
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
A beautifully illustrated, totally engrossing celebration of the piano, and the composers and performers who have made it their own. With honed sensitivity and unquestioned expertise, Stuart Isacoff—pianist, critic, teacher, and author of Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization—unfolds the ongoing history and evolution of the piano and all its myriad wonders: how its very sound provides the basis for emotional expression and individual style, and why it has so powerfully entertained generation upon generation of listeners. He illuminates the groundbreaking music of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, and Debussy. He analyzes the breathtaking techniques of Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Arthur Rubinstein, and Van Cliburn, and he gives musicians including Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Menahem Pressler, and Vladimir Horowitz the opportunity to discuss their approaches. Isacoff delineates how classical music and jazz influenced each other as the uniquely American art form progressed from ragtime, novelty, stride, boogie, bebop, and beyond, through Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Cecil Taylor, and Bill Charlap. A Natural History of the Piano distills a lifetime of research and passion into one brilliant narrative. We witness Mozart unveiling his monumental concertos in Vienna’s coffeehouses, using a special piano with one keyboard for the hands and another for the feet; European virtuoso Henri Herz entertaining rowdy miners during the California gold rush; Beethoven at his piano, conjuring healing angels to console a grieving mother who had lost her child; Liszt fainting in the arms of a page turner to spark an entire hall into hysterics. Here is the instrument in all its complexity and beauty. We learn of the incredible craftsmanship of a modern Steinway, the peculiarity of specialty pianos built for the Victorian household, the continuing innovation in keyboards including electronic ones. And most of all, we hear the music of the masters, from centuries ago and in our own age, brilliantly evoked and as marvelous as its most recent performance. With this wide-ranging volume, Isacoff gives us a must-have for music lovers, pianists, and the armchair musician.
Hans Von Bülow
Author: Alan Walker
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195368681
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 539
Book Description
Hans von Bulow's career unfolded in at least six directions simultaneously. He was a renowned concert pianist; the first virtuoso orchestral conductor; a respected (and sometimes feared) teacher; an influential editor of works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and above all of Beethoven, in the performance of whose music he had no rival; a scourge as a music critic; and lastly, he was himself also a composer of music. In Hans von Bulow: A Life and Times, Alan Walker, the acclaimed author of numerous award-winning books on the era's iconic composers, provides the first full-length English biography of this remarkable musical figure.
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195368681
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 539
Book Description
Hans von Bulow's career unfolded in at least six directions simultaneously. He was a renowned concert pianist; the first virtuoso orchestral conductor; a respected (and sometimes feared) teacher; an influential editor of works by Bach, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and above all of Beethoven, in the performance of whose music he had no rival; a scourge as a music critic; and lastly, he was himself also a composer of music. In Hans von Bulow: A Life and Times, Alan Walker, the acclaimed author of numerous award-winning books on the era's iconic composers, provides the first full-length English biography of this remarkable musical figure.
A Dream About Lightning Bugs
Author: Ben Folds
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 1984817280
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the genre-defying icon Ben Folds comes a memoir that is as nuanced, witty, and relatable as his cult-classic songs. “A Dream About Lightning Bugs reads like its author: intelligent, curious, unapologetically punk, and funny as hell.”—Sara Bareilles NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND PASTE Ben Folds is a celebrated American singer-songwriter, beloved for songs such as “Brick,” “You Don’t Know Me,” “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” and “The Luckiest,” and is the former frontman of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five. But Folds will be the first to tell you he’s an unconventional icon, more normcore than hardcore. Now, in his first book, Folds looks back at his life so far in a charming and wise chronicle of his artistic coming of age, infused with the wry observations of a natural storyteller. In the title chapter, “A Dream About Lightning Bugs,” Folds recalls his earliest childhood dream—and realizes how much it influenced his understanding of what it means to be an artist. In “Measure Twice, Cut Once” he learns to resist the urge to skip steps during the creative process. In “Hall Pass” he recounts his 1970s North Carolina working-class childhood, and in “Cheap Lessons” he returns to the painful life lessons he learned the hard way—but that luckily didn’t kill him. In his inimitable voice, both relatable and thought-provoking, Folds digs deep into the life experiences that shaped him, imparting hard-earned wisdom about both art and life. Collectively, these stories embody the message Folds has been singing about for years: Smile like you’ve got nothing to prove, because it hurts to grow up, and life flies by in seconds. Praise for A Dream About Lightning Bugs “Besides being super talented, and an incredibly poignant and multifaceted musician, Ben Folds is a fantastic author. I couldn’t put this book down—and not just because I taped it to my hand. Ben takes us into his mind and into his process from the very beginnings of his childhood to where he is today—one of the greatest musicians and writers that has ever graced the art.”—Bob Saget
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 1984817280
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the genre-defying icon Ben Folds comes a memoir that is as nuanced, witty, and relatable as his cult-classic songs. “A Dream About Lightning Bugs reads like its author: intelligent, curious, unapologetically punk, and funny as hell.”—Sara Bareilles NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND PASTE Ben Folds is a celebrated American singer-songwriter, beloved for songs such as “Brick,” “You Don’t Know Me,” “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” and “The Luckiest,” and is the former frontman of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five. But Folds will be the first to tell you he’s an unconventional icon, more normcore than hardcore. Now, in his first book, Folds looks back at his life so far in a charming and wise chronicle of his artistic coming of age, infused with the wry observations of a natural storyteller. In the title chapter, “A Dream About Lightning Bugs,” Folds recalls his earliest childhood dream—and realizes how much it influenced his understanding of what it means to be an artist. In “Measure Twice, Cut Once” he learns to resist the urge to skip steps during the creative process. In “Hall Pass” he recounts his 1970s North Carolina working-class childhood, and in “Cheap Lessons” he returns to the painful life lessons he learned the hard way—but that luckily didn’t kill him. In his inimitable voice, both relatable and thought-provoking, Folds digs deep into the life experiences that shaped him, imparting hard-earned wisdom about both art and life. Collectively, these stories embody the message Folds has been singing about for years: Smile like you’ve got nothing to prove, because it hurts to grow up, and life flies by in seconds. Praise for A Dream About Lightning Bugs “Besides being super talented, and an incredibly poignant and multifaceted musician, Ben Folds is a fantastic author. I couldn’t put this book down—and not just because I taped it to my hand. Ben takes us into his mind and into his process from the very beginnings of his childhood to where he is today—one of the greatest musicians and writers that has ever graced the art.”—Bob Saget
Public Opinion
Adrianne Geffel: A Fiction
Author: David Hajdu
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039363423X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 143
Book Description
This never-before-told story of the life and work of a (fictitious) musical phenomenon is "a revealing?and at times hilarious?satire of the music business, fame, and the cult of personality" (Clea Simon, Boston Globe). Adrianne Geffel was a genius. Praised as the “Geyser of Grand Street” and the “Queen of Bleak Chic,” she was a one-of-a-kind artist, a pianist and composer with a rare neurological condition that enabled her to make music that was nothing less than pure, unmediated emotional expression. She and her sensibility are now fully integrated into the cultural lexicon; her music has been portrayed, represented, and appropriated endlessly in popular culture. But what do we really know about her? Despite her renown, Adrianne Geffel vanished from public life, and her whereabouts remain a mystery to this day. David Hajdu cuts through the noise to tell, for the first time, the full story of Geffel’s life and work, piecing it together through the memories of those who knew her, inspired her, and exploited her—her parents, teachers, best friend, manager, critics, and lovers. Adrianne Geffel made music so strange, so compelling, so utterly unique that it is simply not to be believed. Hajdu has us believing every note of it in this slyly entertaining work of fiction. A brilliantly funny satire, with characters that leap off the page, Adrianne Geffel is a vividly twisted evocation of the New York City avant-garde of the 1970s and ’80s, and a strangely moving portrait of a world both utterly familiar and like none we’ve ever encountered.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039363423X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 143
Book Description
This never-before-told story of the life and work of a (fictitious) musical phenomenon is "a revealing?and at times hilarious?satire of the music business, fame, and the cult of personality" (Clea Simon, Boston Globe). Adrianne Geffel was a genius. Praised as the “Geyser of Grand Street” and the “Queen of Bleak Chic,” she was a one-of-a-kind artist, a pianist and composer with a rare neurological condition that enabled her to make music that was nothing less than pure, unmediated emotional expression. She and her sensibility are now fully integrated into the cultural lexicon; her music has been portrayed, represented, and appropriated endlessly in popular culture. But what do we really know about her? Despite her renown, Adrianne Geffel vanished from public life, and her whereabouts remain a mystery to this day. David Hajdu cuts through the noise to tell, for the first time, the full story of Geffel’s life and work, piecing it together through the memories of those who knew her, inspired her, and exploited her—her parents, teachers, best friend, manager, critics, and lovers. Adrianne Geffel made music so strange, so compelling, so utterly unique that it is simply not to be believed. Hajdu has us believing every note of it in this slyly entertaining work of fiction. A brilliantly funny satire, with characters that leap off the page, Adrianne Geffel is a vividly twisted evocation of the New York City avant-garde of the 1970s and ’80s, and a strangely moving portrait of a world both utterly familiar and like none we’ve ever encountered.
Murder Among Friends
Author: Candace Fleming
Publisher: Anne Schwartz Books
ISBN: 0593177428
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
How did two teenagers brutally murder an innocent child...and why? And how did their brilliant lawyer save them from the death penalty in 1920s Chicago? Written by a prolific master of narrative nonfiction, this is a compulsively readable true-crime story based on an event dubbed the "crime of the century." In 1924, eighteen-year-old college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made a decision: they would commit the perfect crime by kidnapping and murdering a child they both knew. But they made one crucial error: as they were disposing of the body of young Bobby Franks, whom they had bludgeoned to death, Nathan's eyeglasses fell from his jacket pocket. Multi-award-winning author Candace Fleming depicts every twist and turn of this harrowing case--how two wealthy, brilliant young men planned and committed what became known as the crime of the century, how they were caught, why they confessed, and how the renowned criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow enabled them to avoid the death penalty. Following on the success of such books as The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh and The Family Romanov, this acclaimed nonfiction writer brings to heart-stopping life one of the most notorious crimes in our country's history.
Publisher: Anne Schwartz Books
ISBN: 0593177428
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
How did two teenagers brutally murder an innocent child...and why? And how did their brilliant lawyer save them from the death penalty in 1920s Chicago? Written by a prolific master of narrative nonfiction, this is a compulsively readable true-crime story based on an event dubbed the "crime of the century." In 1924, eighteen-year-old college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made a decision: they would commit the perfect crime by kidnapping and murdering a child they both knew. But they made one crucial error: as they were disposing of the body of young Bobby Franks, whom they had bludgeoned to death, Nathan's eyeglasses fell from his jacket pocket. Multi-award-winning author Candace Fleming depicts every twist and turn of this harrowing case--how two wealthy, brilliant young men planned and committed what became known as the crime of the century, how they were caught, why they confessed, and how the renowned criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow enabled them to avoid the death penalty. Following on the success of such books as The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh and The Family Romanov, this acclaimed nonfiction writer brings to heart-stopping life one of the most notorious crimes in our country's history.