Apex Blues chronicles the extraordinary lives and musical legacies of two generation-spanning Jazz clarinet virtuosos: Jimmie Noone Sr. and his son Jimmy Noone Jr. Jimmie Noone Sr. rose to fame in the 1910s New Orleans French Quarter jazz scene, forging his iconic ‘Sweet Lorraine’ style during the dawn of the genre. Later, his son Jimmy initially made waves as a San Diego local musician before feeling called to follow in his father’s footsteps. He set out to revive his dad’s New Orleans Jazz sound and mentorship. As the author witnesses firsthand, Jimmy exceeds even his father’s musical heights through raw talent and relentless dedication to his craft. In his final days, he completes his quest: to honor Jazz history by propelling his father’s sound into the future. Jimmy cements the Noone legacy, ensuring the nation remembers what sublime Jazz can be. Spanning generations, geographies, and evolutions of musical style, Apex Blues captures how two clarinet greats shepherded Jazz from regional obscurity into an acclaimed American art form.

Apex Blues chronicles the extraordinary lives and musical legacies of two generation-spanning Jazz clarinet virtuosos: Jimmie Noone Sr. and his son Jimmy Noone Jr. Jimmie Noone Sr. rose to fame in the 1910s New Orleans French Quarter jazz scene, forging his iconic 'Sweet Lorraine' style during the dawn of the genre. Later, his son Jimmy initially made waves as a San Diego local musician before feeling called to follow in his father's footsteps. He set out to revive his dad's New Orleans Jazz sound and mentorship. As the author witnesses firsthand, Jimmy exceeds even his father's musical heights through raw talent and relentless dedication to his craft. In his final days, he completes his quest: to honor Jazz history by propelling his father's sound into the future. Jimmy cements the Noone legacy, ensuring the nation remembers what sublime Jazz can be. Spanning generations, geographies, and evolutions of musical style, Apex Blues captures how two clarinet greats shepherded Jazz from regional obscurity into an acclaimed American art form.

l + 133 pp.

Chronicles the history of blues music from its emergence in the early 1900s through the twentieth century, and describes the musical accomplishments of Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, B.B. King, and others. Includes an audio CD.

This memoir by the internationally renowned jazz pianist Art Hodes, born in Russia in 1904, is in its own way a blues, a lament for and a celebration of music and musicians we have lost. The last of the living legends among Chicago jazz musicians, Hodes joins with jazz historian Chadwick Hansen to provide a unique perspective on more than seven decades of jazz history. With an honesty not usually found in jazz books, Hot Man captures Hodes's professional career from his apprenticeship in Chicago in the 1920s to the present. The book offers remarkable inside views of gangster clubowners, the great New York jazz clubs and the vicious "jazz wars" of the 1940s, Chicago from the 1950s, the very closed and special world of jazz musicians, the curious relationships between musicians and their audiences, and Hodes's experiences with jazz greats including Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke. No other white musician has given us such a full account of learning to play from black musicians. This intimate journey takes us to a vast circle of fellow musicians, to recording companies and the business of the profession, to Nodes's other career as a writer and editor of the Jazz Record, a publication that existed through most of the 1940s. Hodes's story includes almost thirty photographs and a comprehensive discography, filling a gap in the world of jazz literature.

The story of the first roughly half century of jazz is really the story of some of the greatest musicians of all time. Scott Joplin, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald all made tremendous contributions, influencing countless jazz musicians and singers. This work provides biographical sketches of the aforementioned artists and many others who made jazz so popular in the first half of the twentieth century. Biographies cover the pioneers of jazz in New Orleans in the late 1890s and early 1900s; the soloists who fueled the Jazz Age in the 1920s; the musicians and bandleaders of the big band and swing era of the late 1920s and early 1930s; and icons from the height of jazz's popularity on through the end of the war. A discography is provided for each artist.