Dust jacket notes: "Bessie Smith combined natural earthiness and vigor with remarkable musical sensitivity. Her art is a diamond with hundreds of facets. She took the rough, undisciplined blues form and converted it into exquisitely subtle jazz, without losing any of the power. Soul music simply could not exist today without her contribution. She was a pop singer in the best sense. Now, Bessie comes alive again in this unique collection of her most famous songs. Not just copies of sheet music, here are actual transcriptions of her recorded performances, with piano reductions and guitar chords. Chris Albertson contributes a discography and a biographical sketch of Bessie, including newly discovered information and photographs not published in his standard biography, and Gunther Schuller's notes on Bessie's unique singing style are perhaps the only good critical description of her art. This book is the ideal companion to the recent, history-making set of Bessie's complete recordings."

The songs in the songbook portion of the book are: It Makes My Love come Down; Long Road; Jailhouse Blues; Dirty No-Gooder's Blues; Down in the Dumps; In the House Blues; Shipwreck Blues; Safety Mama; Take Me For A Buggy Ride; Blue Blues; Wasted Life Blues; Standin' in the Rain Blues; Squeeze Me; Baby Won't You Please Come Home; Pickpocket Blues; Backwater Blues; Young Woman's Blues; See If I'll Care; New Orleans Hop Scop Blues; Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out; Baby Doll; Please Help Me Get Him Off My Mind; Reckless Blues; My Man Blues; Poor Man's Blues; Hard Time Blues; Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness If I Do; Cake Walking Babies From Home; Gimme a Pigfoot; Gulf Coast Blues.

Bessie Smith: Empress of the Blues

Arts & Photography

Schuller, Gunther

ALBERTSON, Chris

Music

Schirmer Reference

Horn Technique

Oxford University Press

Early Jazz is one of the seminal books on American jazz, ranging from the beginnings of jazz as a distinct musical style at the turn of the century to its first great flowering in the 1930s. Schuller explores the music of the great jazz soloists of the twenties--Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and others--and the big bands and arrangers--Fletcher Henderson, Bennie Moten, and especially Duke Ellington--placing their music in the context of the other musical cultures of the twentieth century and offering analyses of many great jazz recordings. Early Jazz provides a musical tour of the early American jazz world. A classic study, it is both a splendid introduction for students and an insightful guide for scholars, musicians, and jazz aficionados.

Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (The ^AHistory of Jazz) (VOLUME I)

Musings: The Musical Worlds Of Gunther Schuller

"Scholar, composer, conductor, teacher, author, music publisher, indefatigable advocate--Gunther Schuller isn't merely a musician; he's a monopoly." So wrote Alan Rich of New York Magazine in 1978, and his description still holds. Musings is a marvelous introduction to Schuller and his extraordinary range of musical experience, taste, and learning. The book is devided into four sections offering a rich sampling of Schuller's musical interests. In Part I, "Jazz and the Third Stream," Schuller gives us his definitions of jazz as well as insightful pieces on such figures as Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Lee Konitz, Sonny Rollins, and Cecil Taylor. Part II, "Music Performance and Contemporary Music," includes pieces on conducting, the future of opera, the question of a new classicism, and the works of Monteverdi and Stravinsky, Part III shows us "Schuller the Composer" with such pieces as "Shapes and Designs," "Composing for Orchestra," and "In Praise of Winds," as well as Schuller's own thought about his controversial opera The Visitation. The final section, "Music Esthetics and Education," finds Schuller reflecting on such matters as form, structure, and symbol in music, and the need for broadening the audience for quality music. From the scholarly to the popular and the polemical, Musings will delight Schuller's admirers and win new converts. About the Authors: Gunther Schuller is the author of Early Jazz which Nat Hentoff proclaimed a "remarkable breakthrough in musical analysis of jazz." In addition to composing and conducting, Schuller has been President of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller

Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (The ^AHistory of Jazz)

This collection of writings by Gunther Schuller--the first composer to be awarded the Elise L. Stoeger Composer's Chair of the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center--provides a marvelous introduction to the man and his extraordinary range of musical experience, taste, and learning. In Part I, "Jazz and the Third Stream," Schuller offers his reflections on jazz, insightful pieces on such figures as Duke Ellington, Cecil Taylor, and Sonny Rollins, and several essays on "the third stream," the genre where jazz and classical music intersect. Part II, "Music Performance and Contemporary Music," includes articles on the art of conducting, the future of opera, the question of a new classicism, and Schuller's own thoughts on his controversial opera The Visitation. The final section, "Music Aesthetics and Education," presents Schuller's reflections on such matters as form, structure, and symbol in music; the need for broadening the audience for quality music; and his vision of the ideal conservatory and the total musician.

Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller (Oxford Paperbacks)

A world-renowned conductor and composer who has lead most of the major orchestras in North America and Europe, a talented musician who has played under the batons of such luminaries as Toscanini and Walter, and an esteemed arranger, scholar, author, and educator, Gunther Schuller is without doubt a major figure in the music world. Now, in The Compleat Conductor, Schuller has penned a highly provocative critique of modern conducting, one that is certain to stir controversy. Indeed, in these pages he castigates many of this century's most venerated conductors for using the podium to indulge their own interpretive idiosyncrasies rather than devote themselves to reproducing the composer's stated and often painstakingly detailed intentions. Contrary to the average concert-goer's notion (all too often shared by the musicians as well) that conducting is an easily learned skill, Schuller argues here that conducting is "the most demanding, musically all embracing, and complex" task in the field of music performance. Conducting demands profound musical sense, agonizing hours of study, and unbending integrity. Most important, a conductor's overriding concern must be to present a composer's work faithfully and accurately, scrupulously following the score including especially dynamics and tempo markings with utmost respect and care. Alas, Schuller finds, rare is the conductor who faithfully adheres to a composer's wishes. To document this, Schuller painstakingly compares hundreds of performances and recordings with the original scores of eight major compositions: Beethoven's fifth and seventh symphonies, Schumann's second (last movement only), Brahms's first and fourth, Tchaikovsky's sixth, Strauss's "Till Eulenspiegel" and Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe, Second Suite." Illustrating his points with numerous musical examples, Schuller reveals exactly where conductors have done well and where they have mangled the composer's work. As he does so, he also illuminates the interpretive styles of many of our most celebrated conductors, offering pithy observations that range from blistering criticism of Leonard Bernstein ("one of the world's most histrionic and exhibitionist conductors") to effusive praise of Carlos Kleiber (who "is so unique, so remarkable, so outstanding that one can only describe him as a phenomenon"). Along the way, he debunks many of the music world's most enduring myths (such as the notion that most of Beethoven's metronome markings were "wrong" or "unplayable," or that Schumann was a poor orchestrator) and takes on the "cultish clan" of period instrument performers, observing that many of their claims are "totally spurious and chimeric." In his epilogue, Schuller sets forth clear guidelines for conductors that he believes will help steer them away from self indulgence towards the correct realization of great art. Courageous, eloquent, and brilliantly insightful, The Compleat Conductor throws down the gauntlet to conductors worldwide. It is a controversial book that the music world will be debating for many years to come.

The Compleat Conductor

Here is the book jazz lovers have eagerly awaited, the second volume of Gunther Schuller's monumental The History of Jazz. When the first volume, Early Jazz, appeared two decades ago, it immediately established itself as one of the seminal works on American music. Nat Hentoff called it "a remarkable breakthrough in musical analysis of jazz," and Frank Conroy, in The New York Times Book Review, praised it as "definitive.... A remarkable book by any standard...unparalleled in the literature of jazz." It has been universally recognized as the basic musical analysis of jazz from its beginnings until 1933. The Swing Era focuses on that extraordinary period in American musical history--1933 to 1945--when jazz was synonymous with America's popular music, its social dances and musical entertainment. The book's thorough scholarship, critical perceptions, and great love and respect for jazz puts this well-remembered era of American music into new and revealing perspective. It examines how the arrangements of Fletcher Henderson and Eddie Sauter--whom Schuller equates with Richard Strauss as "a master of harmonic modulation"--contributed to Benny Goodman's finest work...how Duke Ellington used the highly individualistic trombone trio of Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Juan Tizol, and Lawrence Brown to enrich his elegant compositions...how Billie Holiday developed her horn-like instrumental approach to singing...and how the seminal compositions and arrangements of the long-forgotten John Nesbitt helped shape Swing Era styles through their influence on Gene Gifford and the famous Casa Loma Orchestra. Schuller also provides serious reappraisals of such often neglected jazz figures as Cab Calloway, Henry "Red" Allen, Horace Henderson, Pee Wee Russell, and Joe Mooney. Much of the book's focus is on the famous swing bands of the time, which were the essence of the Swing Era. There are the great black bands--Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Earl Hines, Andy Kirk, and the often superb but little known "territory bands"--and popular white bands like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsie, Artie Shaw, and Woody Herman, plus the first serious critical assessment of that most famous of Swing Era bandleaders, Glenn Miller. There are incisive portraits of the great musical soloists--such as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Bunny Berigan, and Jack Teagarden--and such singers as Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Helen Forest.

The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945 (The History of Jazz, Volume II)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

A world-renowned conductor and composer who has lead most of the major orchestras in North America and Europe, a talented musician who has played under the batons of such luminaries as Toscanini and Walter, and an esteemed arranger, scholar, author, and educator, Gunther Schuller is without doubt a major figure in the music world. Now, in The Compleat Conductor, Schuller has penned a highly provocative critique of modern conducting, one that is certain to stir controversy. Indeed, in these pages he castigates many of this century's most venerated conductors for using the podium to indulge their own interpretive idiosyncrasies rather than devote themselves to reproducing the composer's stated and often painstakingly detailed intentions. Contrary to the average concert-goer's notion (all too often shared by the musicians as well) that conducting is an easily learned skill, Schuller argues here that conducting is "the most demanding, musically all embracing, and complex" task in the field of music performance. Conducting demands profound musical sense, agonizing hours of study, and unbending integrity. Most important, a conductor's overriding concern must be to present a composer's work faithfully and accurately, scrupulously following the score including especially dynamics and tempo markings with utmost respect and care. Alas, Schuller finds, rare is the conductor who faithfully adheres to a composer's wishes. To document this, Schuller painstakingly compares hundreds of performances and recordings with the original scores of eight major compositions: Beethoven's fifth and seventh symphonies, Schumann's second (last movement only), Brahms's first and fourth, Tchaikovsky's sixth, Strauss's "Till Eulenspiegel" and Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe, Second Suite." Illustrating his points with numerous musical examples, Schuller reveals exactly where conductors have done well and where they have mangled the composer's work. As he does so, he also illuminates the interpretive styles of many of our most celebrated conductors, offering pithy observations that range from blistering criticism of Leonard Bernstein ("one of the world's most histrionic and exhibitionist conductors") to effusive praise of Carlos Kleiber (who "is so unique, so remarkable, so outstanding that one can only describe him as a phenomenon"). Along the way, he debunks many of the music world's most enduring myths (such as the notion that most of Beethoven's metronome markings were "wrong" or "unplayable," or that Schumann was a poor orchestrator) and takes on the "cultish clan" of period instrument performers, observing that many of their claims are "totally spurious and chimeric." In his epilogue, Schuller sets forth clear guidelines for conductors that he believes will help steer them away from self indulgence towards the correct realization of great art. Courageous, eloquent, and brilliantly insightful, The Compleat Conductor throws down the gauntlet to conductors worldwide. It is a controversial book that the music world will be debating for many years to come.

Gunther Schuller is a well-known composer, conductor, educator, and author of books on jazz; his remarkable career also includes playing in the horn section of the Cincinnati Symphony while still in his teens and in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as Principal Horn from 1945 to 1959. First published in 1962, this revised edition of his classic book to horn playing includes an extensive guide to the literature for the instrument, with listings of more than 1,000 pieces from the solo, chamber, and orchestral repertory.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schuller, Gunther. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Schuller, Gunther

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Schuller, Gunther. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Bessie Smith: Empress of the Blues

Horn Technique

Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (The ^AHistory of Jazz) (VOLUME I)

Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller

Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (The ^AHistory of Jazz)

Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller (Oxford Paperbacks)

The Compleat Conductor

The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945 (The History of Jazz, Volume II)

The Compleat Conductor

Horn Technique