Musician Shipton gathers over 300 colorful images of jazz paintings, studio photos, record covers, and posters in this vibrant illustrated history. John Edward Hasse, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution Museum of American History, writes in the introduction: "Jazz appears most directly to the ear but also engages the eye. Yet the visual dimension of jazz is often overlooked." A detailed summary of early jazz follows--from the brass bands of New Orleans and Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, and Jelly Roll Morton--supported by a collection of eye-popping photos (a soft-focus head shot of Peggy Lee in 1947; Count Basie's orchestra squeezed together onstage at New York City's Famous Door jazz club in 1938) and artwork (such as Street Musicians, by Harlem-born abstract expressionist painter Norman Lewis). Meanwhile, noted illustrators, designers, and graphic artists such as Andy Warhol (who designed the cover of RCA's 1955 album Count Basie), Verve Records' David Stone Martin, and Blue Note's Reid Miles provided album cover designs for bebop and modern jazz records. Other album cover images include those of the ever-evolving Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and 21st-century jazz musicians, Kamasi Washington among them. This indispensable work of the genre's art is perfect for jazz aficionados.
--Publishers Weekly
Biografía del autor
Alyn Shipton is an award-winning author and broadcaster, who has written about jazz for over twenty years for the Times in London and is a presenter/producer of jazz programs for BBC Radio. As well as being on the editorial board for the original The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, and on the executive selection committee for the acclaimed revised edition, Jazz: The Smithsonian Collection, Shipton was consultant editor of the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. He has a lifelong interest in oral history, including editing the memoirs of Danny Barker, Doc Cheatham, and George Shearing. His monumental New History of Jazz was the Jazz Journalists' Association book of the year, and won Alyn the coveted Jazz Writer of the Year title at the British Jazz Awards. In 2003 he won the Willis Conover/Marian McPartland Award for lifetime achievement in jazz broadcasting. In 2010 he was named Jazz Broadcaster of the Year in the UK Parliamentary Jazz Awards. He lives in Oxford, UK, and rural France.