Esquire's World of Jazz

Fülszöveg

Esquire's World of Jazz
by the Editors of Esquire
The practice of identifying the origins of American art forms may expose the critic to dangerous abuse. But when it comes to jazz, one can usually speak out with certitude and with impunity.
Like the old-fashioned Methodist revival, baseball, July 4th oratory and the ante-bellum plantation setting for the Negro spiritual, jazz is owned by America. That it might have begun, anthropologically, in the dark interior of Africa with the primitive beat of native drums, is but of incidental consequence. For it was on these shores, in our own Southland, with the decendants of those African peoples, that the art form known as jazz took its recognizable form and pattern.
Not only did it produce the Blues, original tunes, great instrumentalists and imaginative variations on folk melodies and rhythms, but it also inspired painters, sculptors, photographers and writers who created informatively and expressively on jazz in their... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Esquire's World of Jazz
by the Editors of Esquire
The practice of identifying the origins of American art forms may expose the critic to dangerous abuse. But when it comes to jazz, one can usually speak out with certitude and with impunity.
Like the old-fashioned Methodist revival, baseball, July 4th oratory and the ante-bellum plantation setting for the Negro spiritual, jazz is owned by America. That it might have begun, anthropologically, in the dark interior of Africa with the primitive beat of native drums, is but of incidental consequence. For it was on these shores, in our own Southland, with the decendants of those African peoples, that the art form known as jazz took its recognizable form and pattern.
Not only did it produce the Blues, original tunes, great instrumentalists and imaginative variations on folk melodies and rhythms, but it also inspired painters, sculptors, photographers and writers who created informatively and expressively on jazz in their particular idioms.
In actuality, jazz must be more than sound. It is folklore and literature, criticism and partisanship; above all it is color and it is style.
That's what this book is all about and what it boldly encompasses.
From the outset of its publishing history. Esquire Magazine involved itself with jazz. In its pages, such gifted writers as E. Simms Campbell, Nat Hentoff, Leonard Feather, Budd Schulberg, Paul E. Miller, John Clellon Holmes, Chas. E. Smith, George Frazier and Ralph Ellison frequently brought the vibrant story of jazz to the magazine's readers. Jazz stars such as Louis Armstrong, (Continued on back flap)
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George Wattling, and Dizzy GIMespie wrote personal accounts of their colorful experiences from Storyville to Minton's. And even Leonard Bernstein borrowed its pages to engage in controversy with Gene Krupa, the former insisting that jazz influenced the symphony while the peripatetic drummer rejected the idea outright.
All of this and much, much, more Is contained within the pages of Esquire's World of Jazz together with perhaps the most stunning collection of jazz photographs, paintings and sculpture ever Included In one volume. Such talented artists as Larry Rivers, Bruce Mitchell, Ben Shahn, Burt Goldblatt, Philip Evergood, William King, Henry Markowltz, Jay Malsel, Art Kane, Lou Lomonaco, TomI Lingerer, Charles Stewart, Charles Peterson, Stephen Colhoun and Robert Andrew Parker are represented In magnificent reproductions.
It Is all here—the sound, sight and atmosphere of jazz beginning with New Orleans, wafting northward along the Mississippi to all sections of America and then throughout the world. It explores Dixieland—the old and the revived; fads and fancies; the Swing Era; Boogie Woogie; the Bopsters. It Includes a section of profiles on the creative titans of jazzdom's Hall of Fame, among them Satchmo, the Duke, the Bird, Monk, and Django; also the cool intellectuals and right down to the Intriguing Ornette Coleman.
And especially for the collector—and what jazz fan Isn't—there Is a fastidiously compiled dlscography of great recordings with annotative description. It covers the whole panorama of jazz as it Is embraced in this volume. Almost anything outstanding that has been enscrlbed In wax Is described In this unusual listing.
Esquire's World of Jazz is, In a sense, a labor of love. It was created by writers, artists, photographers and editors who love the sound and the very ambiance of jazz. It was created for jazz aficionados who love It no less and who would wish to enjoy, for years to come, a volume reflecting the finest In style, taste and esthetics about a subject worthy of the effort.
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