Gunther Schuller – författare

Early Jazz is one of the seminal books on American jazz, ranging from the beginnings of jazz as a distinct musical style at the turn of the century to its first great flowering in the 1930s. Schuller explores the music of the great jazz soloists of the twenties--Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and others--and the big bands and arrangers--Fletcher Henderson, Bennie Moten, and especially Duke Ellington--placing their musicin the context of the other musical cultures of the twentieth century and offering analyses of many great jazz recordings.Early Jazz provides a musical tour of the early American jazz world. Aclassic study, it is both a splendid introduction for students and an insightful guide for scholars, musicians, and jazz aficionados.

Early Jazz is one of the seminal books on American jazz, ranging from the beginnings of jazz as a distinct musical style at the turn of the century to its first great flowering in the 1930s. Schuller explores the music of the great jazz soloists of the twenties--Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and others--and the big bands and arrangers--Fletcher Henderson, Bennie Moten, and especially Duke Ellington--placing their musicin the context of the other musical cultures of the twentieth century and offering analyses of many great jazz recordings.Early Jazz provides a musical tour of the early American jazz world. Aclassic study, it is both a splendid introduction for students and an insightful guide for scholars, musicians, and jazz aficionados.

This second volume of Gunther Schuller's comprehensive history of jazz covers the period from the 1930s to the late 1940s, decades which saw the transition from big band swing to the virtuoso bop style. The first half of the book concentrates on the band leaders, singers, and composers who dominated the popular music of their day: the jazz aristocracy of Ellington, Basie, and Goodman, as well as major soloists such as Billie Holliday, Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, and Lester Young.The second half focuses on the origins and early development of bop, the major jazz form of the 1940s, and its two great exponents, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Composer, conductor, educator, jazz critic, and horn virtuoso, Gunther Schuller here brings together his writings on music. There are numerous articles about jazz, dealing with his favourite figures like Duke Ellington and Ornette Coleman, and also Schuller's concept of the 'Third Stream', the area where jazz and concert music intersect. Other sections deal with the composition and performance of contemporary music, musical education, and musical aesthetics.

Taking up where Early Jazz (OPB, #6.95) leaves off, this second volume of Gunther Schuller's history of jazz considers the swing era - the age of dance bands and radio shows. Tracing the origins of swing and its effects on American musical and social life, he assesses the distinctive sounds of great bandleaders like Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Woody Herman, instrumentalists such as Art Tatum, Cab Calloway, and Pee Wee Russell, and such vocalists as Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, and Peggy Lee.

The first edition of this book was published in 1962 and quickly established itself as the classic guide to all aspects of horn-playing, with chapters on tone-production, exercises, legato and staccato playing, and the art of practising. For this new edition the author has greatly enlarged the Repertoire List, which gives details of over 1,000 pieces from the solo, chamber, and orchestral repertoires which include one or more horns. The author draws attention to key works in each genre. There are also a number of corrections and up-datings throughout the text and a new preface outlining recent developments in the horn world.

Musings gathers together the essays, speeches, liner notes, dictionary entries, and magazine articles of Gunther Schuller, one of the most important musical figures of the century. The writings in this collection cover such artists as Paul Whiteman, Duke Ellington, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan, Gil Evans. Schuller also writes about such topics as the "Third Stream," the art of conducting, the future of opera, and the need for broadening the audience for quality music. A marvellous introduction to the man and his experience, taste and erudition, Musings is essential reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century music.