arwulf
arwulf’s list
of recommended
jazz & blues literature
conjured in 2007 - revision taking place on a regular basis
Treat It Gentle by
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz by John Chilton
Coming Through
Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje
In Search of Buddy
Bolden by Donald M. Marquis
Bunk Johnson: Song of the Wanderer by Mike Hazeldine &
Barry Martyn
They All Played Ragtime by Rudi Blesh & Harriet Janis
Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy by Hans
Nathan
Black Like You:
Blackface, Whiteface,
Insult &
Imitation in American Popular Culture by John Strausbaugh
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry
1890-1919 by Tim Brooks
Jazz on the Barbary Coast by Tom Stoddard
Bourbon Street Black by Jack V. Buerkle & Danny Barker
Pops Foster: Autobiography as told to Tom Stoddard
George Lewis: A Jazzman from New Orleans by Tom Bethell
Jelly Roll, Bix and
Hoagy:
Gennett Studios and
the Birth of Recorded Jazz by Rick Kennedy
Father of the Blues by W.C. Handy
Mr. Jelly Roll by Alan Lomax
Dead Man Blues: Jelly
Roll Morton Way Out West by Phil Pastras
Bessie by Chris
Albertson
Blues Legacies and
Black Feminism by Angela Davis
Blues People by Leroi
Jones
The Country Blues by Samuel B. Charters
Conversation With the Blues by Paul Oliver
Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural
History of the Mississippi Delta by Robert Palmer
Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers by Derrick
Stewart-Baxter
The Devil’s Son-In-Law: the Story of Peetie Wheatstraw and
his Songs by Paul Garon
Fattening Frogs For
Snakes: Delta Sound Suite by John Sinclair
Moanin' at Midnight: The Life and times of Howlin' Wolf by James Segrest
Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya
ed. Nat Shapiro & Nat Hentoff
Louis Armstrong in
his Own Words ed. by Thomas Brothers
Jazz From the Beginning by Garvin Bushell
Tin Pan Alley by
David A. Jasen
James P Johnson: A Case of Mistaken Identity
[and a complete JPJ
discography] by Scott Brown & Robert Hilbert
Music On My Mind by
Willie 'The Lion' Smith
Ain't Misbehavin' by
Ed Kirkeby
Fats Waller by Maurice Waller and Anthony Calabrese
Black and Blue: The
Life and Lyrics of Andy Razaf by Barry Singer
Mr. Bojangles: The Biography of Bill Robinson by Jim Haskins
& N.R. Mitgang
Remembering Bix by
Ralph Berton
We Called It Music by
Eddie Condon
Eddie Condon’s
Scrapbook of Jazz
Really the Blues by
Mezz Mezzrow
American Musicians:
56 Portraits in Jazz by Whitney Balliett
Jazzmen by Frederick Ramsey, Jr. and Charles Edward Smith
Crazy Fingers: Claude Hopkins’ Life in Jazz by Warren W.
Vache, Sr.
Tommy & Jimmy: The Dorsey Years by Herb Sanford
The World of Swing by Stanley Dance
The World of Duke Ellington by Stanley Dance
A History of Jazz in America by Barry Ulanov
The Trouble With Cinderella by Artie Shaw
The World of Earl
Hines by Stanley Dance
Good Morning Blues by Count Basie
Valaida [novel based on the life of Valaida Snow] by Candace
Allen
La Tristesse De Saint Louis: Jazz Under the Nazis
by Mike Zwerin
Red & Hot: the Fate of
Jazz in the Soviet Union by S. Frederick Starr
It Aint Necessarily So by Larry Adler
What Do They Want? by Sammy Price
I Remember by Clyde E.B. Bernhardt
Jazz Masters of New Orleans by Martin Williams
Jazz Masters of the Twenties by Richard Hadlock
Jazz Masters of the
Thirties by Rex William Stewart
Jazz Masters of the Forties by Ira Gitler
Jazz Masters of the Fifties by Joe Goldberg
Bass Lines by Milt
Hinton
The Song of the Hawk
– biography of Coleman Hawkins by John Chilton
Music Is My Mistress
by Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington In Person by Mercer Ellington & Stanley
Dance
Lush Life: A biography
of Billy Strayhorn by David Hajdu
Boy Meets Horn by Rex
Stewart
Showtime at the Apollo by Ted Fox
Billie’s Blues by Chris Albertson
If You Can’t Be Free,
Be A Mystery
In Search of Billie
Holiday by Farah Jasmine Griffin
You Just Fight for
Your Life by Frank Buchmann-Møller
Lester Leaps In by Douglas Henry Daniels
Swing to Bop by Ira
Gitler
Bird Lives by Ross
Russell
Bird: The Legend of
Charlie Parker ed. Robert Reisner
To Be Or Not To Bop
by Dizzy Gillespie
Dance of the Infidels by Francis Paudras
Thelonious Monk: The Life & Times of an American
Original
by Robin D. G. Kelley
Moment’s Notice:
Jazz in Poetry &
Prose ed. by Art Lange & Nathaniel Mackey
Jazz Is by Nat Hentoff
Beneath the Underdog by Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus: A Critical Biography by Brian Priestley
Mingus/Mingus: Two Memoirs by Janet Coleman & Al Young
Tonight at Noon – A
Love Story by Susan Graham Mingus
Visions of Cody by
Jack Kerouac
Off the Road by
Carolyn Cassady
Raise Up Off Me by
Hampton Hawes
Straight Life by Art
Pepper
Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce! By Albert Harry Goldman
Central Avenue Sounds:
Jazz in Los Angeles ed. by the Central Avenue Sounds
Editorial Committee
Black Music by Leroi Jones
Four Lives in the Be Bop Business by A.B. Spellman
The View From Within: Jazz Writings 1948-1987 by Orrin
Keepnews
Live at the Village Vanguard by Max Gordon
The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958 by John Litweiler
Jazz Lives by Michael Ullman
Miles: The
Autobiography by Miles Davis
Chasin’ the Trane by
J.C. Thomas
Coltrane: A Biography by C.O. Simpkins
John Coltrane by Bill Cole
Eric Dolphy:
A Musical Biography
& Discography by Vladimir Simosko & Barry Tepperman
Bright Moments: Life
& Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk by John Kruth
Space is the Place:
The Lives and Times of Sun Ra by John F. Szwed
As Serious As Your
Life by Valerie Wilmer
Rhythm-A-Ning: Jazz Tradition & Innovation in the 80s by
Gary Giddins
Ornette Coleman: A Harmolodic Life by John Litweiler
Tri-Axium Writings by Anthony Braxton
Forces In Motion by
Graham Lock
Blutopia by Graham
Lock
REFERENCE:
Leonard Feather’s
Encyclopedia of Jazz [various editions,
start with the first]
Who’s Who of Jazz by
John Chilton
The Big Bands by
George T. Simon
The New Grove
Dictionary of Jazz ed. Barry Kernfeld
Brian Rust: Jazz and Ragtime Records 1897-1942
Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz
1900-1950 by Roger D. Kinkle
You Got to Be
Original, Man!
The Music of Lester
Young by Frank Buchmann-Møller