In jazz circles, players and listeners with “big ears” hear and engage complexity in the moment, as it unfolds. Taking gender as part of the intricate, unpredictable action in jazz culture, this interdisciplinary collection explores the terrain opened up by listening, with big ears, for gender in jazz. Essays range from a reflection on the female boogie-woogie pianists who played at Café Society in New York during the 1930s and 1940s to interpretations of how the jazzman is represented in Dorothy Baker’s novel Young Man with a Horn (1938) and Michael Curtiz’s film adaptation (1950). Taken together, the essays enrich the field of jazz studies by showing how gender dynamics have shaped the production, reception, and criticism of jazz culture. Scholars of music, ethnomusicology, American studies, literature, anthropology, and cultural studies approach the question of gender in jazz from multiple perspectives. One contributor scrutinizes the tendency of jazz historiography to treat singing as subordinate to the predominantly male domain of instrumental music, while another reflects on her doubly inappropriate position as a female trumpet player and a white jazz musician and scholar. Other essays explore the composer George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept as a critique of mid-twentieth-century discourses of embodiment, madness, and black masculinity; performances of “female hysteria” by Les Diaboliques, a feminist improvising trio; and the BBC radio broadcasts of Ivy Benson and Her Ladies’ Dance Orchestra during the Second World War. By incorporating gender analysis into jazz studies, Big Ears transforms ideas of who counts as a subject of study and even of what counts as jazz. Contributors: Christina Baade, Jayna Brown, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Monica Hairston, Kristin McGee, Tracy McMullen, Ingrid Monson, Lara Pellegrinelli, Eric Porter, Nichole T. Rustin, Ursel Schlicht, Julie Dawn Smith, Jeffrey Taylor, Sherrie Tucker, João H. Costa Vargas

A deluxe photographic celebration of the unsung hero of guitar music—the effects pedal—featuring interviews with 100 musicians including Peter Frampton, Joe Perry, Jack White, and Courtney Barnett. Ever since the Sixties, fuzz boxes, wah-wahs, phase shifters, and a vast range of guitar effects pedals have shaped the sound of music as we know it. Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World’s Greatest Guitarists is a photographic showcase of the actual effects pedals owned and used by Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Frank Zappa, Alex Lifeson, Andy Summers, Eric Johnson, Adrian Belew, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Ed O’Brien, J Mascis, Lita Ford, Joe Perry, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Vernon Reid, Kaki King, Nels Cline and 82 other iconic and celebrated guitarists. These exquisitely textured fine-art photographs are matched with fresh, insightful commentary and colorfulroad stories from the artists themselves, who describe how these fascinating and often devilish devices shaped their sounds and songs.

Johnny BIG-EARS is just like every other five-year-old child, but when he starts his first day of kindergarten, children begin to tease him because of his enormously large ears. Follow Johnny as he faces the challenges that being different presents. How will Johnny react to being teased? Find out why Johnny turns out to be a winner in this endearing, thoughtful book that addresses typical childhood bullying and offers children advice on how to deal with teasing. Whether you're a parent or an educator, now you will be able to encourage your kids or students through this special book and help motivate all young kids to start feeling good about themselves no matter who they are, or what they look like!

Big ear two is the new, much enlarged second edition of Big ear, bringing the fascinating story of Big Ear up-to-date.

Finn Beloomey is a regular, happy, 7-year-old boy. Except he has GREAT BIG GIANT EARS. He starts to get made fun of by his not-so-nice neighbors, Timmy and Tammy. He comes home from school a little blue one day and then his parents teach him THE MAGIC WORDS! Will Finn use the power of the magic words to make the bullies disappear, or will Timmy and Tammy have the last laugh?

The school bully, Tom, picks on the boy with the big ear mercilessly. However, one afternoon Tom is in peril an it is the boy with the big ear who hears Tom's cry and rescues him. Tom perceives the boy with the big ear in a new light, and for the first time Tom asks, "What is your name?"The two boys actually heal each other's pain through opening up to their emotions, which leads them on a short journey into their higher selves.

Why Elephants Have Big Ears is the result of one man's lifelong quest to understand why the creatures of the earth appear and act as they do. In a wry manner and personal tone, Chris Lavers explores and solves some of nature's most challenging evolutionary mysteries, such as why birds are small and plentiful, why rivers and lakes are dominated by the few remaining large reptiles, why most of the large land-dwellers are mammals, and many more.