BiblioVault - Books about Jazz

The Real Philadelphia Book

Jazz Bridge

Temple University Press, 2022

The Real Philadelphia Book, compiled by Jazz Bridge and editors David Dzubinski and Suzanne Cloud, is a collection of more than 200 original jazz and blues compositions. Arranged alphabetically by song title, the sheet music showcases work by generations of Philadelphia musicians. This volume, which is “what every aspiring jazz musician needs to know,” features tunes from Grammy Award-winners Jimmy Heath, Grover Washington, Jr., and Christian McBride, as well as legends such as Joey DeFrancesco, Ray Bryant, and Robin and Duane Eubanks. Also included are rare compositions by jazz greats Bobby Timmons, Hank Mobley, and Lee Morgan, in addition to music by local luminaries, Rhenda Fearrington, Monnette Sudler, and Kaylé Brecher.

The aim of The Real Philadelphia Book is to help the jazz community make deeper, stronger connections while also formally documenting much of the important music created in the Philadelphia metro area by both well- and lesser-known musicians.

Including an index of composers, The Real Philadelphia Bookwill enhance and add to the rich Philadelphia jazz and blues tradition and make the Philly jazz catalogue more easily available to musicians, jazz students and educators around the world.

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Representing Jazz

Krin Gabbard

Duke University Press, 1995

Traditional jazz studies have tended to see jazz in purely musical terms, as a series of changes in rhythm, tonality, and harmony, or as a parade of great players. But jazz has also entered the cultural mix through its significant impact on novelists, filmmakers, dancers, painters, biographers, and photographers. Representing Jazz explores the "other" history of jazz created by these artists, a history that tells us as much about the meaning of the music as do the many books that narrate the lives of musicians or describe their recordings.
Krin Gabbard has gathered essays by distinguished writers from a variety of fields. They provide engaging analyses of films such as Round Midnight, Bird, Mo’ Better Blues, Cabin in the Sky, and Jammin’ the Blues; the writings of Eudora Welty and Dorothy Baker; the careers of the great lindy hoppers of the 1930s and 1940s; Mura Dehn’s extraordinary documentary on jazz dance; the jazz photography of William Claxton; painters of the New York School; the traditions of jazz autobiography; and the art of "vocalese." The contributors to this volume assess the influence of extramusical sources on our knowledge of jazz and suggest that the living contexts of the music must be considered if a more sophisticated jazz scholarship is ever to evolve. Transcending the familiar patterns of jazz history and criticism, Representing Jazz looks at how the music actually has been heard and felt at different levels of American culture.
With its companion anthology, Jazz Among the Discourses, this volume will enrich and transform the literature of jazz studies. Its provocative essays will interest both aficionados and potential jazz fans.

Contributors. Karen Backstein, Leland H. Chambers, Robert P. Crease, Krin Gabbard, Frederick Garber, Barry K. Grant, Mona Hadler, Christopher Harlos, Michael Jarrett, Adam Knee, Arthur Knight, James Naremore

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Rhythm Is Our Business

Jimmie Lunceford and the Harlem Express

Eddy Determeyer

University of Michigan Press, 2010

In the 1930s, swing music reigned, and the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra was the hottest and hippest attraction on the black dance circuits. Known for its impeccable appearance and infectious rhythms, Lunceford's group was able to out-swing and outdraw any band. For ten consecutive years, they were the best-loved attraction at Harlem's famed Apollo Theater. The group's hit recordings sold in the hundreds of thousands, and Jimmie Lunceford's band rivaled Ellington's for popularity in the African American community.

Jimmie Lunceford was also an innovator, elevating big-band showmanship to an art and introducing such novel instruments as the electric guitar and bass. The band's arrangements, written by Sy Oliver, Edwin Wilcox, Gerald Wilson, Billy Moore, Jr., and Tadd Dameron, were daring and forward looking, influencing generations of big-band writers.

Rhythm Is Our Business traces the development of the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra from its infant days as a high school band in Memphis to its record-breaking tours across the United States, Canada, and Europe. The book also unveils Lunceford's romantic yet ill-fated involvement with Yolande Du Bois, daughter of famous writer and opinion leader W.E.B. Du Bois. And by reconstructing Lunceford's last day, the book offers a glimpse into the mysteries surrounding the leader's untimely death. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and legacy of swing.

Eddy Determeyer has been a freelance music journalist for more than three decades. In 1984 Determeyer wrote a seven-part series on Jimmie Lunceford for the Dutch magazine Jazz Nu. Determeyer has written thousands of articles on music for a variety of Dutch publications and is the author of several books. He currently produces the Holiday for Hipsters radio show for Dutch station Concertzender.

Cover image: Lunceford brass section, ca. late 1936. Left to right: Paul Webster, Eddie Durham, Sy Oliver, Elmer Crumbley, Eddie Tompkins, Russell Bowles. (Bertil Lyttkens Collection)

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