Re: Jazz textbooks - your recommendations

Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 16:03:54 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.jazz,rec.music.bluenote
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Michael - along with the other excellent suggestions you have received you
might consider something like:
The 101 Best Jazz Albums: A History of Jazz on Records (William Morrow and
Company, Inc., 1980, ISBN 0-688-08720-5).
Actually the 'Jazz for Dummies' book is not bad either, for beginners.
Jazz pianist Kenny Werner has a book call 'Effortless Mastery" which is
geared toward improvising musicians, but it's a good insight into how to
create jazz.
http://www.kennywerner.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=KWE&
Category_Code=EM
I have an old LP on Riverside narrated by Cannonball Adderly called "A
Child's Introduction to Jazz" which is obvioulsy geared toward kids, but
does a good job of explaining, with music, the history of jazz music. A
google search turned up this among others:
http://perso.club-internet.fr/barybary/627.htm
Since you didn't tell us much about your background, I'll assume you're not
a jazz musician, so any of these would help you teach the class.
Good luck and have a good time. It's a great oppotunity to turn some kids
on to a great art form and help create some new fans for the music.
Maybe as an assignment, you could make kids go to jazz clubs and concerts
and explain what they're hearing (and feeling and smelling :))
Glenn
www.jazzmaniac.com
"Pan" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message
news:email-address-deleted...
> I hope the crosspost is unobjectionable: I figure that I want the
> opinions of fellow musicians and aficionados alike, knowing, too, that
> there is considerable overlap. So my apologies in advance to anyone
> who reads this post twice on two newsgroups.
>
> I'm teaching an upper-divisional course in Jazz to non-majors at
> Polytechnic U. next semester. Assuming the prerequisites are being
> rigorously enforced next semester, each student would have taken a
> music course before, so it's assumed that they know the definitions of
> basic music concepts and something about listening, but it can't be
> expected that they will read music, nor is this a "how-to" course to
> teach how to read music or how to play jazz. Basically, it's jazz
> appreciation and history for some pretty smart, mostly fairly
> highly-motivated students with at least _some_ background or/and
> experience in music as listeners, if no other way (some current or
> former musicians will surely be in the class).
>
> So, anyway, I have desk copies of the following:
>
> Gridley, Mark C., _A Concise Guide to Jazz_, 4th Ed. Upper Saddle
> River, NJ: Pearson Education (Prentice Hall), 2004.
>
> Martin, Henry and Keith Waters, _Jazz: The First 100 Years_. Belmont,
> CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002.
>
> Both seem good so far, though the 2nd one strikes me as more
> impressive.
>
> What other textbooks that might be currently in print would you
> recommend I take a look at (with preference for those with
> accompanying CDs with a decent selection of complete takes)? I'm
> excited about the chance to teach this course, and I thank you very
> much in advance for any help you can give me.
>
> Michael