Tuesday, September 10, 2013

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