This cool book explores the lives of eight of the most important jazz musicians in history. Readers will learn about the challenges and triumphs of musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Each short biography ends with a brief timeline of the person's life and achievements.

Episode 1. Jazz is born in New Orleans at the turn of the century emerging from several forms of music including ragtime, marching bands, work songs, spirituals, creole music, funeral parade music and above all, the blues. Musicians profiled here who advanced early jazz are Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Freddie Keppard, and musicians of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Episode 2. From 1917 through 1924, the "Jazz Age" begins with...

It centers around a young jazz guitarist, Jazzen Goodman, who dreams of becoming a jazz legend, hiring his best friend Dylan to film him on his journey. After being upstaged by his old bandmate at a house show where their now dueling bands are on the same bill, Jazzen has a dream about his death. Haunted by this "premonition" that he will meet his death in 30 days, Jazzen starts to devise a surefire plan that will take him to his ultimate goal of...

In the 1930's, the fictional Emmet Ray ruled as the second greatest jazz guitarist in the world. But his reputation was eclipsed by his eccentric career moves, hilarious clashes with gangsters and stormy love affairs with two very different women.

This program profiles, with first-hand observation and historical detail, the pivotal people and places in American jazz. Includes archive footage of performances by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and many other important artists.

One of the finest lineups in the history of jazz--Bobby Timmons, Jymie Merritt, Benny Golson, and the legendary trumpet player, Lee Morgan. This historic concert is the only known visual of this influential band.

A landmark biography that reclaims Ella Fitzgerald as a major American artist and modernist innovator. A landmark biography that reclaims Ella Fitzgerald as a major American artist and modernist innovator. Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) possessed one of the twentieth century's most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional...

"Sophisticated Giant presents the life and legacy of tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1923-1990), one of the major innovators of modern jazz. In a context of biography, history, and memoir, Maxine Gordon has completed the book that her late husband began, weaving his "solo" turns with her voice and a chorus of voices from past and present. Reading like a jazz composition, the blend of research, anecdote, and a selection of Dexter's personal letters...

His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of "bebop" and establishing Monk as one of America's greatest composers. Yet throughout much of his life, his musical contribution took a backseat to tales of his reputed behavior. Writers tended to obsess over Monk's hats or his proclivity to dance on stage. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental,...