Book Review
Apr. 16th, 2020 10:47 pmJazz
By Gary Giddins and Scott Deveaux
This lengthy book is a very comprehensive and well-done history of jazz. It comes with four CDs of listening, and guides for all the tracks are integrated into the text. As someone who was not previously well-versed in jazz, I found this to be an incredibly useful and informative book. The listening really brought all the different musicians, styles, and periods alive and made everything much more concrete, not to mention enjoyable. The writing is very readable, and I especially appreciated the way Giddins and Deveaux were frank about who racism impacted both the development of jazz and the lives of the people who made it. I do wish that they had given a little more attention to women (or the lack thereof) in jazz, and made more of an effort to include women. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed reading Jazz - not only did I learn a lot, I discovered so much really cool music.
By Gary Giddins and Scott Deveaux
This lengthy book is a very comprehensive and well-done history of jazz. It comes with four CDs of listening, and guides for all the tracks are integrated into the text. As someone who was not previously well-versed in jazz, I found this to be an incredibly useful and informative book. The listening really brought all the different musicians, styles, and periods alive and made everything much more concrete, not to mention enjoyable. The writing is very readable, and I especially appreciated the way Giddins and Deveaux were frank about who racism impacted both the development of jazz and the lives of the people who made it. I do wish that they had given a little more attention to women (or the lack thereof) in jazz, and made more of an effort to include women. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed reading Jazz - not only did I learn a lot, I discovered so much really cool music.