The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music

Ratliff, Ben

ISBN 10: 080509086X / ISBN 13: 9780805090864

Published by St. Martin's Griffin (edition First Edition), 2009

About this Item

It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting.

Seller Inventory # 080509086X-11-1

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (edition First Edition)
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080509086X
• ISBN 13: 9780805090864
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

"The Jazz Ear will be a permanent part of learning how to listen inside the musicians playing."―Nat Hentoff, Jazz Times

Jazz is conducted almost wordlessly: John Coltrane rarely told his quartet what to do, and Miles Davis famously gave his group only the barest instructions before recording his masterpiece Kind of Blue. Musicians often avoid discussing their craft for fear of destroying its improvisational essence, rendering jazz among the most ephemeral and least transparent of the performing arts.

In The Jazz Ear, acclaimed music critic Ben Ratliff discusses with jazz greats the recordings that most influenced them and skillfully coaxes out a profound understanding of the men and women themselves, the context of their work, and how jazz―from horn blare to drum riff―is conceptualized. Ratliff speaks with Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Branford Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Wayne Shorter, Joshua Redman, and others about the subtle variations in generation and attitude that define their music.

Playful and keenly insightful, The Jazz Ear is a revelatory exploration of a unique way of making and hearing music.

About the Author

Ben Ratliff is the author of Run the Song, Every Song Ever, and Coltrane: The Story of a Sound, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A former music critic for the New York Times, he lives in New York City and teaches at New York University