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Showing 1 - 20 of 438 items
I remember: eighty years of black entertainment, big bands, and the blues : an autobiography
By Clyde E. B Bernhardt. 1986
African American musician's recollections of his jazz and blues career that began in the 1920s. Describes his American and European…
tours with such prominent entertainers as Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and others. Some strong language. 1986African American musicians (Black stars #11)
By Eleanora E Tate. 2000
Profiles of African Americans who have made significant contributions to music in the United States over the past two hundred…
years. Depicts them contending with racism, segregation, and personal hardship to become jazz composers, stride pianists, concert singers, horn players, and gospel and rap artists. For grades 6-9. 2000Giants of jazz
By Studs Terkel, Robert Galster. 2002
Collective biography of thirteen American jazz greats: Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Benny…
Goodman, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane. Portraits blend musicians' life stories with information about the evolution of jazz. Includes discography. 1957Runaway American dream: listening to Bruce Springsteen
By Jimmy Guterman. 2005
Seven essays analyze the music of New Jersey rock musician Bruce Springsteen. Presents a song-by-song comparison of recordings and concert…
tours from the 1970s through 2004. Discusses band members, lovers and wives, and the commercial enterprises of the singer. 2005Evening in the palace of reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment
By James R Gaines. 2005
Describes the encounter between young Frederick the Great and the elderly kapellmeister Johann Sebastian Bach and examines Bach's masterful response…
in "A Musical Offering" to the warrior-king's compositional challenge. Combines the history of music and of eighteenth-century culture with biographies of these two notable figures of the era. 2005Provides a brief biography of Italian stringed-instrument-maker Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737). Recounts the history of five surviving violins and one cello…
from their creation among more than one thousand to modern ownership by such well-known musicians as Paganini, Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman, and Yo-Yo Ma. 2004With Billie
By Julia Blackburn. 2005
Biography of jazz singer Billie Holiday (1915-1959) based on some 150 interviews with colleagues, boyfriends, and acquaintances conducted in the…
1970s by Linda Kuehl and concluded later by Blackburn. Covers Holiday's life from her rough Baltimore childhood to New York fame. Explicit descriptions of sex, violence, and strong language. 2005Brother Ray: Ray Charles' own story
By Ray Charles. 2004
Candid autobiography of Georgia-born Grammy-winning musician Ray Charles (1930-2004). Describes overcoming poverty, blindness, his parents' deaths, and addiction to succeed…
in performing his unique blend of blues, jazz, and country styles. Includes discography and Ritz's 2004 postscript, "The Last Days of Brother Ray." Descriptions of sex and strong language. 1978Chronicles: Volume 1
By Bob Dylan. 2004
First of a three-volume memoir by music legend Bob Dylan. Describes his intellectual development, folk songs and blues he listened…
to in the 1960s, and the growth of his artistic conscience. Recalls early days in Greenwich Village, transient loves, lasting friendships, and experiences in New Orleans and Woodstock. Bestseller. 2004Celia: my life
By Celia Cruz, Ana Cristina Reymundo. 2004
Autobiography by the Afro-Cuban singer, the "Queen of Salsa," who died in 2003. Reminisces about her upbringing and early career…
in Havana and her road to international success. Recalls her voluntary exile after Castro came to power, her long marriage, and associations with other musicians. Foreword by Maya Angelou. 2004Chet Atkins: me and my guitars (Biographies and Commentary)
By Chet Atkins, Russ Cochran. 2003
Autobiography written with longtime friends the Cochran brothers. The guitarist recalls his career, beginning with his early days in Tennessee…
and Georgia, by focusing on guitars he's had over the years. Describes the evolution of his guitars' construction and includes anecdotes about favorite instruments. Introduction by Jerry Reed. 2001Sanity and grace: a journey of suicide, survival, and strength
By Judy Collins. 2003
Grammy-nominated recording artist reflects on the loss of her thirty-three-year-old son, Clark, who committed suicide in 1992. Supplementing her account…
with journal entries and song lyrics, Collins describes events surrounding his death and shares her personal struggle to cope with and understand his decision. Some strong language. 2003Blind Boone: piano prodigy
By Madge Harrah. 2004
Presents the life and career of blind pianist John William "Blind" Boone (1864-1927), who toured the United States after the…
Civil War bringing ragtime, classical, and African American music to the concert stage for forty-seven years. For grades 5-8. 2004Lullaby of birdland: The Autobiography of George Shearing (Bayou Jazz Lives Ser.)
By George Shearing, Alyn Shipton. 2004
Reminiscences by congenitally blind jazz pianist Shearing about his 1920s English childhood and early success in London before he immigrated…
to America in 1947. Recounts hobnobbing in New York with jazz greats Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie among others and recording with his famed quintet. 2004Piano notes: the world of the pianist
By Charles Rosen. 2002
Distinguished concert pianist and music critic sheds light on essential aspects of playing this demanding and rewarding instrument. Rosen discusses…
the aesthetics, acoustics, and techniques of performance and recording as well as performers' styles and manners. Includes little-known lore and insights about famous musicians. Also includes musical examples. 2002Reminiscences by members of "the greatest rock n' roll band in the world," tracing their British roots and rise to…
international fame beginning in the 1960s. Also includes essays by business participants in the Stones' career and fellow performers, including American singer Sheryl Crow. Some strong language. 2003The king and I: the uncensored tale of Luciano Pavarotti's rise to fame by his manager, friend, and sometime adversary
By Anne Midgette, Herbert H. Breslin. 2004
Luciano Pavarotti's manager/publicist candidly recounts his thirty-six-year relationship with the opera singer. Breslin describes the tenor as evolving from a…
"simple, lovely guy" to a "determined, aggressive, and somewhat unhappy superstar." Details his career, quirks, superstitions, and love life. 2004Sonic life: A memoir
By Thurston Moore. 2023
From the founding member of Sonic Youth, a passionate memoir tracing the author's life and art—from his teen years as…
a music obsessive in small-town Connecticut, to the formation of his legendary rock group, to thirty years of creation, experimentation, and wonder "Downtown scientists rejoice! For Thurston Moore has unearthed the missing links, the sacred texts, the forgotten stories, and the secret maps of the lost golden age. This is history—scuffed, slightly bent, plenty noisy, and indispensable." —Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Underground Railroad and Harlem Shuffle Thurston Moore moved to Manhattan’s East Village in 1978 with a yearning for music. He wanted to be immersed in downtown New York’s sights and sounds—the feral energy of its nightclubs, the angular roar of its bands, the magnetic personalities within its orbit. But more than anything, he wanted to make music—to create indelible sounds that would move, provoke, and inspire. His dream came to life in 1981 with the formation of Sonic Youth, a band Moore cofounded with Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo. Sonic Youth became a fixture in New York’s burgeoning No Wave scene—an avant-garde collision of art and sound, poetry and punk. The band would evolve from critical darlings to commercial heavyweights, headlining festivals around the globe while helping introduce listeners to such artists as Nirvana, Hole, and Pavement, and playing alongside such icons as Neil Young and Iggy Pop. Through it all, Moore maintained an unwavering love of music: the new, the unheralded, the challenging, the irresistible. In the spirit of Just Kids , Sonic Life offers a window into the trajectory of a celebrated artist and a tribute to an era of explosive creativity. It presents a firsthand account of New York in a defining cultural moment, a history of alternative rock as it was birthed and came to dominate airwaves, and a love letter to music, whatever the form. This is a story for anyone who has ever felt touched by sound—who knows the way the right song at the right moment can change the course of a lifeThe life of Mendelssohn
By Peter Jameson Mercer-Taylor. 2000
Biography of the German composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847). Discusses his career from childhood as a prodigy to maturity as composer,…
performer, and scholar. Examines his Jewish heritage in the culture of the era, his heavy obligations to his young family, and his compositions during the decade preceding his early death. 2000Beethoven's hair
By Russell Martin. 2000
An investigation of the convoluted history of a lock of Beethoven's hair, taken from the composer's head at his death…
in 1827. Reconstructs the snippet's odyssey from Austria to America, where it was purchased in 1994 by two Beethoven devotés intent on forensic analysis to explain Beethoven's medical problems, deafness, and cause of death. 2000