Greetings from Miami, the perfect place to get away from a blizzard. We are living in a golden age of jazz studies, as musicologists, historians, journalists, and American Studies professors are all producing great works on jazz. Below are some of my favorite books on jazz from the past decade, all of which I highly recommend. This list is just a starting-off point, as I still have a ton of reading to catch up on (such is always the case with me I'm afraid).- Robin Kelley: Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. I just finished this one last night, and it is awesome. I'll post a review of it sometime next week.
- Gabriel Solis: Monk's Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the Making (reviewed here). A perfect companion to the Kelley biography, Solis reveals how the music of Thelonious Monk could be utilized by such disparate figures as Wynton Marsalis and The Art Ensemble of Chicago to make competing statements about the nature of jazz.
- Ben Ratliff: Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. Combining biography and musical analysis, Ratliff tells us how Coltrane developed into the monolithic figure he has become and why his sound remains relevant 40 years after his death.
- John Szwed: So What: The Life of Miles Davis. The Interlude, in which Szwed unpacks the cultural significance of Miles circa 1960, is among the best essays I have ever read.
- Richard Cook: Blue Note Records: The Biography. This book is crucial to understanding the hard bop craze that shook up jazz during the late 1950s and continued paying dividends into the 1960s.
- Eric Porter: What Is This Thing Called Jazz?: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists. An intellectual history of jazz, Porter tackles a number of subjects, including Ellington, Mingus, Braxton, and Marsalis, as thinkers as well as musicians, showing how what the writings of these and other musicians deepen our understanding of their music.
- Scott Saul: Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties. Like Porter, Saul treats jazz musicians as intellectuals and artists, helping us understand the cultural and political stances which undergirded their music during the turbulent 1960s.
- John Gennari: Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics. Gennari has written a history of jazz criticism which I think is essential to decoding the writings of such luminaries as Leonard Feather, Nat Hentoff, and Martin Williams. You need to read this book.
- Penny Von Eschen: Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War. A masterful warts-and-all history of the US State Department's deployment of jazz musicians across the globe as cultural ambassadors.
- Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux: Jazz
- Ingrid Monson: Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa
- George Lewis: A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music
What did I miss? Let me know in the comments...
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