Starting with the origins of jazz, this book traces the genre's history as it evolved from ragtime in the clubs of New Orleans. Each of the book's 15 chapters covers an era in jazz history focusing on the people who shaped the music, from Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and Jaco Pastorius to the greats of today like Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Pat Metheny, and more. Each chapter also includes a printed music example tracing the evolution of the music, offers suggested listening, and contains a brief list of historical events that helped shape the society in general (making this book a useful text for cross-curriculum study). Additional features include printed musical examples and suggested lessons; an included CD with examples; streaming audio examples at MusicAlive.com. By speaking to the student musician, veteran performer and educator David Lee Fish has created uncommon opportunities for music teachers to relate the work of jazz masters, their instruments, and their musical achievements to popular music and today's jazz styles.

Jazz on Film reviews, analyzes, and rates virtually every appearance of a jazz musician or singer on film. After presenting a detailed essay on the history of jazz on film and television, 1,300 movies, documentaries, shorts, videos, and DVDs are rated and reviewed. Each film is a given a 1 to 10 rating and a concise description of its contents and value. Jazz on Film covers the entire jazz field, from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Wynton Marsalis, and Diana Krall.

Here's the complete illustrated history of Miles Davis, the popular jazz trumpeter, composer, bandleader, and musical visionary. At the forefront of bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz and jazz/rock fusion, Miles Davis remains one of the best-selling jazz artists ever. His contemporaries included other jazz greats like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and many others. A fascinating character, Miles was known to be moody, dangerous and brilliant, as well as a musical genius. The authors include Sonny Rollins, Bill Cosby, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Clark Terry, George Wein, Nalini Jones, Dave Liebman and more. Know and learn more about Miles Davis, one of the greatest influences the jazz world has known!

Cannonball Adderly introduced his 1967 recording of "Walk Tall," by saying, "There are times when things don't lay the way they're supposed to lay. But regardless, you're supposed to hold your head up high and walk tall." This sums up the life of Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, a man who used a gargantuan technique on the alto saxophone, pride in heritage, devotion to educating young people, and insatiable musical curiosity to bridge gaps between jazz and popular music in the 1960s and '70s. His career began in 1955 with a Cinderella-like cameo in a New York nightclub, resulting in the jazz world's looking to him as "the new Bird," the successor to the late Charlie Parker. But Adderley refused to be typecast. His work with Miles Davis on the landmark "Kind of Blue" album helped further his reputation as a unique stylist, but Adderley's greatest fame came with his own quintet's breakthrough engagement at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop in 1959, which launched the popularization of soul jazz in the 1960s. With his loyal brother Nat at his side, along with stellar sidemen, such as keyboardist Joe Zawinul, Adderley used an engaging, erudite personality as only Duke Ellington had done before him. All this and more are captured in this engaging read by author Cary Ginell! Quote: "Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life." - Cannonball Adderley.