Get into the music with David Leander Williams as he charts the rise and fall of Indiana Avenue, the Majestic Entertainment Boulevard of Indianapolis, which produced some of the nation's most influential jazz artists. The performance venues that once lined the vibrant thoroughfare were an important stop on the Chitlin' Circuit and provided platforms for greats like Freddie Hubbard and Jimmy Coe. Through this biography of the bustling street, meet scores of the other musicians who came to prominence in the avenue's heyday, including trombonist J.J. Johnson and guitarist Wes Montgomery, as well as songwriters like Noble Sissle and Leroy Carr.

With 70 pages of illustrations, this new addition to the Melrose Square Black American Series recounts the life of one of the originators of bebop and founders of modern jazz.

Broad in scope, meticulously researched, and including titles that have long been inaccessible, this resource is an overview of the history of the genre from its beginning to the present."--BOOK JACKET.

Dave Liebman is one of the leading forces in contemporary jazz. Prominently known for performing with Miles Davis and Elvin Jones, he has exerted considerable influence as a saxophonist, bandleader, composer, author, and educator. In What It Is: The Life of a Jazz Artist, friend, pianist, and noted jazz scholar Lewis Porter conducts a series of in-depth interviews with Liebman, who discusses his professional, personal, and musical relationships with notable musicians, as well as such personal matters as contracting polio as a child. Featuring rare photos from Liebman's personal collection, this fascinating and witty story will not only appeal to jazz fans and scholars but also to those readers interested in the story of how a young man followed his dream to become one of the leading jazz artists of our time.

Arranged in sixteen musical categories, provides entries for twenty thousand releases from four thousand artists, and includes a history of each musical genre.

Jazz in New Orleans provides accurate information about, and an insightful interpretation of, jazz in New Orleans from the end of World War II through 1970. Suhor, relying on his experiences as a listener, a working jazz drummer, and writer in New Orleans during this period, has done a great service to lovers of New Orleans music by filling in some gaping holes in postwar jazz history and cutting through many of the myths and misconceptions that have taken hold over the years. Skillfully combining his personal experiences and historical research, the author writes with both authority and immediacy. The text, rich in previously unpublished anecdotes and New Orleans lore, is divided into three sections, each with an overview essay followed by pertinent articles Suhor wrote for national and local journals—including Down Beat and New Orleans Magazine. Section One, "Jazz and the Establishment," focuses on cultural and institutional settings in which jazz was first battered, then nurtured. It deals with the reluctance of power brokers and the custodians of culture in New Orleans to accept jazz as art until the music proved itself elsewhere and was easily recognizable as a marketable commodity. Section Two, "Traditional and Dixieland Jazz," highlights the music and the musicians who were central to early jazz styles in New Orleans between 1947 and 1953. Section Three, "An Invisible Generation," will help dispel the stubborn myth that almost no one was playing be-bop or other modern jazz styles in New Orleans before the current generation of young artists appeared in the 1980s.