What to Listen For in Jazz (First Edition)

Barry Kernfeld provides a thorough, learned, and accessible introduction to jazz, discussing its musical concepts, procedures, and styles and providing the background necessary to fully enjoy this musical art. The book is organized around twenty-one historic jazz recordings - from the New Orleans Rhythm Kings' Tin Roof Blues (1923) to Ornette Coleman's Honeymooners (1987) - that are analyzed in the text and included in a compact disc that accompanies the book.
Barry Kernfeld draws from these musical works to illustrate jazz rhythm, forms, arrangement, composition, improvisation, style, and sound (recording fidelity, tuning systems, instrumentation, and timbre). Included in the book are more than one hundred notated music examples keyed to the compact disc and a biographical dictionary of musicians who figure prominently on the disc.

In what must be one of the most useful descriptive studies of jazz, Kernfeld focuses on analyzing the music's basic elements and showing how the music's foundations have been shaped and changed during each stage of its evolution. A useful and enjoyable accompanying compact disc exemplifies and diligent transcriptions illustrate Kernfeld's explanations of how rhythm, arrangement, and form operate in specific significant musical passages, and Kernfeld also discusses the different kinds of improvisation, commenting interestingly about the uses of contrasting sounds in live and recorded performances. He opens such time-honored standards as Sonny Rollins' "St. Thomas" and Charles Mingus' "Fables of Faubus" up to illuminating investigations, and his quick introduction to the various styles of jazz--from New Orleans to fusion--is particularly handy. Students and fans alike have much to gain from thoroughly reading this incisive guide; indeed, so do professional critics humble enough to admit that they probably don't know all this stuff already. Aaron Cohen