THE JAZZ SCENE - Hardcover

Hobsbawm, Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679406336 ISBN 13: 9780679406334

Publisher: Pantheon, 1993

Synopsis

From one of England's leading historians, a classic work on jazz history. Eric Hobsbawm has turned his keen eye and sharp wit to this uniquely American form of music to give the reader a completely original point of view. Widely praised when it was first published in England, this book sweeps the reader along from the steamy sidewalks of New Orleans to the smoke-filled clubs of New York, an odyssey that along the way discusses the prehistory of jazz, its expansion, its most celebrated musicians, and their instruments. This edition also includes twenty-three pieces that have never appeared in book form - concert reviews, record reviews, and essays from The New Statesman and The New York Review of Books on such legendary jazz figures as Ray Charles, Thelonius Monk, Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie. As Hobsbawm has put it, The Jazz Scene is "one person's reaction to sixty years' experience of jazz" - an invaluable guide to this extra-ordinary music.

About this title

Reviews

Written by noted historian Hobsbawm early in his career, this book was originally published in Britain in 1959. At the time it was an excellent complement to Marshall Stearn's standard, The Story of Jazz (1957), providing the first social history of jazz from a British perspective. A brief history of jazz through the 1950s, it dealt with the music business, included a still-interesting section on jazz fans, and ended with an essay about jazz as protest. This new edition, the first published in the United States, contains 23 brief essays Hobsbawm wrote during the late Fifties, early Sixties, and mid-Eighties. It also features two provocative introductions to jazz written during the last 30 years. Although most of the text is somewhat outdated, the book can be recommended for large jazz history collections because of its useful perspective.
- David Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679406336
• ISBN 13: 9780679406334
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 392