Here's what I'm reading, right now:
A Miles Davis Reader
by Bill Kirchner
Acclaimed as one of the greatest influences on jazz, Miles Davis provided during his 46-year career the impetus for major changes in both the jazz idiom and popular mainstream music. A MILES DAVIS READER focuses on Davis's music but also reveals the opinions and characteristics of a musician who remained a trend-setting "hipster" even as he achieved the status of patriarch.
Jazz 101
by John F. Szwed
John Szwed's concise introduction to the history of jazz traces the music's gradual development over the past century, from its relatively unsophisticated beginnings in the bars and bordellos of New Orleans to its present-day incarnation as the quintessential American art form. Useful to both jazz newcomers and seasoned aficionados, JAZZ 101 features significant highlights in the music's development, including the developing role of the rhythm section, the rise of swing music and the big bands, the advent of bebop, the splintering of the traditional and avant-garde camps in the late 1950s, and recent developments like drum-and-bass and neo-swing. In an erudite, analytical, and passionate narrative, Szwed also reveals some of the techniques behind jazz improvisation, as well as recounting the social pressures that led to the music's marginalization in cities like New York during the 1970s. Mini-biographies of five major jazz innovators, including saxophonist Lester Young and pianist Art Tatum, and appendices including a selected bibliography and record guide round out a valuable addition to the understanding of this vibrant genre.
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