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Archive for the ‘books’ Category

6 Original Boogie-woogie Piano Solos

By JadaMink On March 2, 2010 No Comments

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

These Solos were meant for collectors and/or really good pianists. Contents: Special Freight Bobo and Doodles Deuce WIld Twinklin’ The Duke and the Count Chili Sauce

Mary Elfrieda Winn was born in Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 1910. To keep order in the house, her mother used to hold Mary Lou on her lap while she practiced an old-fashioned pump organ. One day, Mary Lou’s hands beat her mother’s to the keys and she picked out a melody. When her mother discovered this (Mary Lou believes she was 22 or 23 at the time), she had professional men come to the house to play for Mary Lou. Thus, very early, Mary Lou was exposed to Ragtime, Boogie-woogie and the Blues.

Later (Mary Lou puts her age between 4 to 6 years old), the family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Mary Lou was exposed to all kinds of music. She studied

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Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams

By JadaMink On March 2, 2010 No Comments

Editorial Review

Review

“Soul on Soul offers valuable insights about how gender shaped the opportunities and reputations of the first generation of jazz women… a balanced reading of this legendary jazz pianist… Kernodle’s study… establishes a rightful place for Williams as a jazz pioneer.” –Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

Product Description

Pianist, composer, and arranger, Mary Lou Williams (1910–1981), was one of the most significant and influential artists in the history of jazz. A versatile musical genius who experimented with and mastered most of the emerging styles in jazz’s evolution, Williams wrote and arranged for such greats as Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to the likes of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. Yet throughout her prolific career of nearly six decades, she battled as an African American woman to achieve recognition, equality, and acceptance in the male-dominated world of jazz.

Now Williams’s artistic brilliance

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Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams

By JadaMink On March 2, 2010 No Comments

Editorial Review

From Publishers Weekly

In a time when the music of Harlem was beginning to stake a claim on the racially mixed Greenwich Village clientele, Williams, a young black pianist, trained her sights on a more classical venue. In 1947 she reached it, leading Carnegie Hall’s New York Philharmonic in a boogie-woogie symphony of her own composition. Williams began her jazz career as a teenager accompanying orchestras “by ear.” She soon taught herself to read and write music and gained a reputation as a masterful arranger. Her influence on the evolution of jazz spanned four decades from ragtime to bop, and can be heard in the works of jazz giants from Duke Ellington to Charlie Parker. Many musicians attribute her with genius, but lasting popular recognition has eluded her. Dahl’s (Stormy Weather) narrative, while well researched, lacks the vibrancy needed to launch Williams to the fame she nearly obtained and so

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Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

By JadaMink On February 26, 2010 No Comments

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong

Product Details
Hardcover: 496 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (December 2, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0151010897
ISBN-13: 978-0151010899
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds

Crafted with a musician’s ear and an historian’s eye, Pops is a vibrant biography of the iconic Louis Armstrong that resonates with the same warmth as ol’ Satchmo’s distinctive voice. Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout draws from a wealth of previously unavailable material – including over 650 reels of Armstrong’s own personal tape recordings – to create an engaging profile that slips behind the jazz legend’s megawatt smile. Teachout reveals that the beaming visage of “Reverend Satchelmouth” was not a mark of racial subservience, but a clear symbol of Louis’s refusal to let anything cloud the joy he derived from blowing his horn.

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Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality ~ Donald Miller

By JadaMink On February 26, 2010 No Comments

From Publishers Weekly

Miller (Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance) is a young writer, speaker and campus ministry leader. An earnest evangelical who nearly lost his faith, he went on a spiritual journey, found some progressive politics and most importantly, discovered Jesus’ relevance for everyday life. This book, in its own elliptical way, tells the tale of that journey. But the narrative is episodic rather than linear, Miller’s style evocative rather than rational and his analysis personally revealing rather than profoundly insightful. As such, it offers a postmodern riff on the classic evangelical presentation of the Gospel, complete with a concluding call to commitment. Written as a series of short essays on vaguely theological topics (faith, grace, belief, confession, church), and disguised theological topics (magic, romance, shifts, money), it is at times plodding or simplistic (how to go to church and not get angry? “pray… and go to the church

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