Product Description
This classic study of jazz by renowned composer, conductor, and musical scholar Gunther Schuller was widely acclaimed on its first publication in 1968.The first of two volumes on the history and musical contribution of jazz, it takes us from the beginnings of jazz as a distinct musical style at the turn of the century to its first great flowering in the 1930's.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 music in the context of the other musical cultures and languages of the 20th century and offering original analyses of many great jazz recordings.
Now reissued in paper, Early Jazz provides a musical tour of the early American jazz world for a new generation of scholars, students, and jazz fans. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Fabulous in-depth look at Jazz' early development
Hardly a stone is left unturned in this look into the early development of jazz. It provides a thorough introduction to a wide range of subjects and artists, carefully reviewing each of numerous recordings.

This is not a biographical account of the lives of the early jazz artists, but is an analysis of the styles and development. From the deep south and the roots of the music, into the Midwest and Southwestern styles, the author is thorough and careful in his look.

Much more than an introduction, this certainly would be suitable for a college course in jazz development.

understanding jazz
the author gunther does a magnifent jobof affording a history of the evolution of jazz, thisin a most scholarly fashion. thus making at times somewhat academic effecting a use of words whose understanding may be elusive to the ordinary reader.

essential reference
You can argue with Schuller, and in fact, that's half the fun.He's not always right, but he's always interesting.If you're listening to early jazz and an unfamiliar band comes on, you'll be unable to resist looking them up in this book, so put the book next to the radio.

The best musical examination of 20s jazz
Jazz criticism tends to run in two groups: one, the biographical/anecdotal(often marvelous to read), and two, word pictures of how the music made thewriter feel (often awful to read).Gunther Schuller's "EarlyJazz" does what any undergraduate musicology major would do: examinethe music note by note, and explain what's going on.While this is not aneasy book to read for people like me who have no musical training (ortalent, for that matter), it is an absolutely essential book nonetheless. Schuller goes through each major musician and movement of the twenties, andshows exactly what is occurring.What worked best for me was to have therecording he was discussing playing while I read, so I could hear what hewas talking about.Anybody in love with the early music of Armstrong orEllington needs to tackle this book sooner or later.

An American Heritage.
I can't believe that no-one has reviewed this wonderful book until now. It is one of the cornerstones of jazz criticism, and the first one not written by one of these annoying pipe-smoking, foot-tapping listeners you alwaysnotice sitting at tables beside the bandstand at jazzclubs, but by a veryfine musician who has actually been 'one of the cats'. O.K., he is a Frenchhorn-player, but jazz buffs who are 'in the know' with the work of JuliusWatkins and John Graas won't mind. But seriously: His chapters onArmstrong, Jelly Roll Morton (some thirty years before the Dirty DozenBrass Band decided to dedicate a whole CD to the music of this first truly'jazz composer'), but especially Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington willenlighten everyone who is looking for a critical assesment of the music andis tired of the endless re-telling of the phoney 'romantic' storiessurrounding this music. And for the people who think they know abouteverything: One chapter is enirely dedicated to what is known as'territory' bands, the bands that only played their home town and theregion around it. Many a gem of inspired music can be unearthed in thischapter. P.S. O.K., I'm biased. Mr. Schuller autographed my hardcover copyof the book when he was conducting the Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra, andI gatecrashed at a rehearsal. ... Read more

Product Description
Here is the book jazz lovers have eagerly awaited, the second volume of Gunther Schuller's monumental The History of Jazz.When the first volume, Early Jazz, appeared two decades ago, it immediately established itself as one of the seminal works on American music.Nat Hentoff called it "a remarkable breakthrough in musical analysis of jazz," and Frank Conroy, in The New York Times Book Review, praised it as "definitive.... A remarkable book by any standard...unparalleled in the literature of jazz." It has been universally recognized as the basic musical analysis of jazz from its beginnings until 1933.The Swing Era focuses on that extraordinary period in American musical history--1933 to 1945--when jazz was synonymous with America's popular music, its social dances and musical entertainment.The book's thorough scholarship, critical perceptions, and great love and respect for jazz puts this well-remembered era of American music into new and revealing perspective.It examines how the arrangements of Fletcher Henderson and Eddie Sauter--whom Schuller equates with Richard Strauss as "a master of harmonic modulation"--contributed to Benny Goodman's finest work...how Duke Ellington used the highly individualistic trombone trio of Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Juan Tizol, and Lawrence Brown to enrich his elegant compositions...how Billie Holiday developed her horn-like instrumental approach to singing...and how the seminal compositions and arrangements of the long-forgotten John Nesbitt helped shape Swing Era styles through their influence on Gene Gifford and the famous Casa Loma Orchestra.Schuller also provides serious reappraisals of such often neglected jazz figures as Cab Calloway, Henry "Red" Allen, Horace Henderson, Pee Wee Russell, and Joe Mooney. Much of the book's focus is on the famous swing bands of the time, which were the essence of the Swing Era. There are the great black bands--Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Earl Hines, Andy Kirk, and the often superb but little known "territory bands"--and popular white bands like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsie, Artie Shaw, and Woody Herman, plus the first serious critical assessment of that most famous of Swing Era bandleaders, Glenn Miller. There are incisive portraits of the great musical soloists--such as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Bunny Berigan, and Jack Teagarden--and such singers as Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Helen Forest. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Good Information but No Lists of Hits
I found this reference to be useful, but I was looking for lists of hits by the artists, and there was only a brief timeline of some hits.That timeline was good to have, however.

A must for every jazz / big band enthousiast
This voluminous tome is not your usual collection of reminiscences and short biographies of the big bands and their leaders (like those of George T. Simon or Richard Grudens), let alone a hagiography ('everything was better in the old days'). There are not even any photos or other illustrations. The book is an in-depth study of the development of jazz during the swing era. It is devided into sections concerning the major figures who shaped the development of swing (Ellington, Armstrong, Goodman, Lunceford, Basie etc.), a section on the great soloists (Hawkins, Norvo, Hines, Webster, Tatum, Teagarden, Allen, Russel, Wilson, Eldridge etc.), on the great black bands (Kirk, Mills Blue Rhythm Band, Webb, F&H Henderson, Erskine Hawkins, Calloway etc.), on the white bands (Casa Loma, Miller, Barnet, Shaw, T&J Dorsey, Herman, James, Kenton and even on Clinton, Chester etc.) territory bands (Leonard, Towles, Boots & His Buddies etc.) and the small bands.
He assesses the performers' strengths and weaknesses, comparing their relative merits, putting their achievements in the right perspective (e.g. Casa Loma and Horace Henderson are finally given the credit they are due, Calloway and Miller are given a much fairer treatment than other jazz studies have done), often illustrated by transcriptions of the music in question (even writing out solos, which must have been a fiendishly difficult thing to do).
Far from being an arid and academic work however, it is very well written in wonderful English which can be full of praise if something's good and delightfully scathing if something's not. A man like Artie Shaw, who often blew his own trumpet (if you'll forgive the pun) while savaging others, is relegated to his proper place with sweeping arguments based on aural evidence.
Schuller listened to literally thousands of recordings to form his opinions and the book invites the reader to do the same. When you do (as I did), you'll find that quite often he is right in his conclusions. Since music is also a matter of taste you may not always agree despite his being right.
In the almost ten years I've owned this book I have almost read it to pieces, jumping from chapter to chapter, always finding something new to discover.
The greatest asset of the book is that it made me listen again in depth to recordings and bands I took for granted, plus that it made me dicover music and bands I would not have otherwise given serious consideration (like Boots & His Buddies) and that it helped me form an opinion of my own of what I like and what not and why. As such I can not praise the book too highly.

A must have...
Sculler's second volume of the history of jazz, is momumental. He does a fine job of covering all those you've heard of, Goodman, Basie, Ellington, and then the ones you haven't. He tries to include anybody and everybody, which makes the book a little overwhelming, but on the whole it works. This book is not for the beginner, or one wanting an introduction to the Swing Era. For those, however, who are allready aquainted with jazz, and want a more in depth look at jazz in its prime time, this is a must!

An incredibly informative mess
Where to begin? Schuller wants to talk about everything - he doesn't want to miss a single band. It's not like Vol. 1 - Early Jazz where he aims and fires. Here everything is scattershot, all over the place. And two ideas come back over and over in a kind of subconscious fashion: one, the idea that riffing is a sign of knee-jerk, insufficently compositional thinking; two, that innovation in Jazz is connected to being "ahead of one's time". If I had lots of time on my hands, I'd catalog these recurrences - Oxford University Press, you're supposed to catch these things! For all of his knowledge, Schuller is insufficiently scholarly - the chapter on Basie is absurd in its criticisms of Basie for not being a compositional thinker like Ellington. I hate to get all racial, but it seems like Schuller doesn't appreciate many of the blacker aspects of Black music. And it's fine that Schuller didn't do all of his own transcriptions - but he should've at least approved them all. Bobby Stark's solo showing up next to a passionate discussion of Red Allen's solo on Henderson's King Porter Stomp gave that one away...

What did I learn from this book? Well...it made me go out and check out Bob Crosby's band more. The section on Horace Henderson was really informative. The book is filled with great things, but even on the level of basic syntax and sentence structure there are so many problems. Just to pick out one of many tortured phrases - Page 253:"I am referring to the curious fact that Basie's music is rarely memorable thematically ( nor is it in terms of timbre or color ). Nor is it WHAT? In speech, we'd understand: "memorable" . But this is supposed to be a History...how hard would it have been to bring this all in line?

If it weren't the only book of its kind...but it is. Someday there'll be more, and we'll be able to appreciate the good things about this one, and forget about the anomalies and longeurs. I hope I'll be around to see that day.

Monumental accomplishment
To get some idea of the achievement between these pages, just stop to think that Gunther Schuller listened to some 30,000 recordings, famous and obscure, from the period between 1930 and 1945, in chronological order for each band or performer.It took him fourteen years.

Now you might think after all that that he would emerge with brain so fuzzy, ears so buzzed, that he could not write intelligently about the music, so submerged had he been for so long.But au contraire--this is the most lucid, the best anthology of any jazz era I've ever seen.No one could argue it isn't the most comprehensive.Schuller analyzes bands big and small, famous and unknown, national and "territory."

Some of his opinions go against the critically-accepted grain, which seems to have ruffled a few other reviewers here, but his point of the survey, I think, was to go beyong "lazy, complacentlistening" and evaluate each work afresh.So we have a Count Basie orchestra that, while indisputably fine, isn't quite the jazz sin qua non that it's often held out to be.As Schuller points out--accurately, I think--Basie's band was a triumph because of the magnificent soloists, but frankly the arrangements were often uninspired and formulaic, the tunes undistinguished, the colors and contrasts minimized.This made me realize why I never liked other midwestern territory bands as much as the Count's: they generally didn't have the soloists, and without stellar soloists (and not just "good" soloists) it's hard to sustain interest in riffs and themes which quickly become routine. This may upset the apple cart with some people, but I think Schuller is on the money.

Similar, his assessment of Benny Goodman is generally spot-on, though I think I like some of the band's soloists more than he does and give them more credit than he does.However, he is mostly evaluating BG's studio recordings, and that band was far better live.(All bands are better in front of a live audience, of course, but the difference with BG's 30s group is truly stunning.)But Babe Russin was quite the fine understated tenor soloist, Chris Griffin was very underappreciated on trumpet (as was earlier Goodman trumpeter Nate Kazebier--hope I'm spelling that right).Jess Stacy is one of the unsung heroes of swing piano, especially as an accompanist (some of his best comping is on the 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert).Schuller basically ignores these sidemen.Even Ziggy Elman gets the short shrift, with a focus on his schlocky popular stuff instead of some of his logically-constructed solos.But I guess, even with 30,000 recordings under your belt, some performances are bound to escape your notice.

Schuller's chapter on Ellington could itself be a course at a university.You could indeed buy the book just for this section and play through all the recordings mentioned and come away far more knowledgeable about Duke, about jazz, and about music and composition in general.Discussing Schuller's take on Ellington is beyond the scope of this review, save to say it makes for pages and pages of fascinating reading.

Schuller also manages to cut through the Artie Shaw mystique (more BS than mystique, he feels; Shaw, with his verbal fecundity and limited knowledge of European art, was able to snow some jazz and pop writers, but he's just no match for Schuller).And he makes the interesting observation that Glenn Miller played far more true swing than he is credited for (though it was hardly innovative or even often very exciting swing) and Tommy Dorsey played far less, sticking with the Chicago/Dixieland two-beat style long after it had gone out of favor, until about 1940 (!).A lot of Dorsey's music is actually very hokey--"Mickey Mouse"--yet he is usually taken more seriously as a swing musician than Miller.

On the subject of smaller bands and lesser-known leaders from this period, Schuller points out how underappreciated Cab Calloway, Erskine Hawkins and Jimmy Lunceford were, and how relatively overrated Lionel Hampton, Bunny Berrigan and Louis Armstrong (of this period; the innovative Armstrong of the 20s was covered in his Early Jazz book) were.Again, these views--backed up by extremely thorough analysis and stoic discussion, will ruffle a lot of feathers among emotional keepers of the flame, but I find his analysis to be rather spot-on.Also invaluable is his clear-headed discussion of Art Tatum's strengths and weaknesses.

The book is chock full of examples in music notation, and in some instances whole solos and passages are written out.That may scare off some who cannot read music, but it shouldn't.It will largely help to have the recordings in the CD player, ready to go, so the reader can follow along with the notation.And everyone will not follow every discussion of harmonies, scales and chord progressions--no matter.You don't have to understand everything to get a lot from this work, and repeated readings will benefit you as well.Just don't show it to anyone to whom jazz is a religion, and its players are holy priests; they won't appreciate some of Schuller's deconstructions.

Incidentally, Schuller is supposedly working on a volume III that deals with the bebop era and the development of "modern" jazz.(The first volume of this series dealt with pre-1930s jazz and is also a classic.)Considering how much time the present book required, I hope he lives long enough to finish this magnificent project. ... Read more

Product Description
A world-renowned conductor and composer who has lead most of the major orchestras in North America and Europe, a talented musician who has played under the batons of such luminaries as Toscanini and Walter, and an esteemed arranger, scholar, author, and educator, Gunther Schuller is without doubt a major figure in the music world. Now, in The Compleat Conductor, Schuller has penned a highly provocative critique of modern conducting, one that is certain to stir controversy. Indeed, in these pages he castigates many of this century's most venerated conductors for using the podium to indulge their own interpretive idiosyncrasies rather than devote themselves to reproducing the composer's statedand often painstakingly detailed intentions.

Contrary to the average concert-goer's notion (all too often shared by the musicians as well) that conducting is an easily learned skill, Schuller argues here that conducting is "the most demanding, musically all embracing, and complex" task in the field of music performance. Conducting demands profound musical sense, agonizing hours of study, and unbending integrity. Most important, a conductor's overriding concern must be to present a composer's work faithfully and accurately, scrupulously following the scoreincluding especially dynamics and tempo markingswith utmost respect and care. Alas, Schuller finds, rare is the conductor who faithfully adheres to a composer's wishes. To document this, Schuller painstakingly compares hundreds of performances and recordings with the original scores of eight major compositions: Beethoven's fifth and seventh symphonies, Schumann's second (last movement only), Brahms's first and fourth, Tchaikovsky's sixth, Strauss's "Till Eulenspiegel" and Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe, Second Suite." Illustrating his points with numerous musical examples, Schuller reveals exactly where conductors have done well and where they have mangled the composer's work. As he does so, he also illuminates the interpretive styles of many of our most celebrated conductors, offering pithy observations that range from blistering criticism of Leonard Bernstein ("one of the world's most histrionic and exhibitionist conductors") to effusive praise of Carlos Kleiber (who "is so unique, so remarkable, so outstanding that one can only describe him as a phenomenon"). Along the way, he debunks many of the music world's most enduring myths (such as the notion that most of Beethoven's metronome markings were "wrong" or "unplayable," or that Schumann was a poor orchestrator) and takes on the "cultish clan" of period instrument performers, observing that many of their claims are "totally spurious and chimeric." In his epilogue, Schuller sets forth clear guidelines for conductors that he believes will help steer them away from self indulgence towards the correct realization of great art.

Courageous, eloquent, and brilliantly insightful, The Compleat Conductor throws down the gauntlet to conductors worldwide. It is a controversial book that the music world will be debating for many years to come.Amazon.com Review
What makes for a "compleat" conductor? According toGunther Schuller, it is a combination of fidelity to the score andgoing "for the grand line ... the clarification of the inherentstructure(s)." Schuller, himself a conductor, has written TheCompleat Conductor as a kind of report card on many of thiscentury's foremost practitioners of the art. Using scores fromBeethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, and Ravel as hisfinal exam, Schuller measures the work of the world's greatconductors--everyone from Toscanini to John Eliot Gardiner--againstwhat's printed on the page, and he finds most wanting in comparison.

TheCompleat Conductor is partly an indictment of the failings ofother conductors, partly Schuller's reflections on music, performance,and the authority of the score versus the authority of theconductor. Many of Schuller's pronouncements are sure to arousecontroversy, but even for music lovers who disagree with his gradingsystem, there's plenty of food for thought in The CompleatConductor. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

doesn't see the wood for the trees.
This book often inspires a fresh take on the standard repertoire,more alive than the average analysis book.It's easy to understand why Schuller has carved a reputation as a composition teacher-Bainbridge,Weir and Knussen from the UK alone!

Alas,the central thrust of 'The Compleat Conductor'-that conductors often deviate from the letter of the score(shock,horror!)....becomes weary and pedantic in the end.Schuller really doesn't see the wood for the trees and his arguments aren't as watertight as you might think as some of the other reviewers have shown.

A wonderful resource...I'm listening with new ears
This book was recommended to me during a conducting workshop.The teacher, an extremely knowledgeable musician and gifted and hardworking conductor, hated this book upon FIRST reading, and as he explored the concepts and analyses further found more enlightenment and wisdom.You can tell the folks who didn't like this book are writing off the cuff.

In The Compleat Conductor, Gunther Schuller gives us his philosophy and a short history of conducting, and then goes into some real detail analyzing eight great classical works and how even the greatest maestros can fail the composer's wishes and ideals.Schuller is VERY straightforward and covers all of his bases well, and defends his points and decisions and pickiness.A quote:"The secret of great artistry and true integrity of interpretation lies in the ability to bring to life the score for the listener (and the orchestra) through the fullest knowledge of the score, so that the conductor's personality expresses itself WITHIN the parameters of the score."Schuller maintains that composers like Beethoven and Brahms were very explicit in their desires, and that their music doesn't need all of the extra bells and whistles conductors use to manipulate an audience, and in fact a good number of conductors in the process ignore the finer points of the music.
Quote again:"...all those deviations from the score do not necessarily make the performance 'more natural,''more human.' They may create that illusion--or delusion; they may fool the unknowing, unwary listener into thinking that it was 'exciting,''moving,''authentic,' when in reality the excitement was superficial and the work was grossly misrepresented."

There are points in the book where Schuller then recommends changing this and that in various scores.But in these sections he more than backs up his reasons--perhaps there is conflict between the manuscript and printed scores, or maybe there is truly a problem in balance due to the power of different instruments, etc.

I am now listening to recordings with a new critical ear, and approaching my orchestral work with a refreshed perspective.

A wonderful resource...I'm listening with new ears
This book was recommended to me during a conducting workshop. The teacher, an extremely knowledgeable musician and gifted and hardworking conductor, hated this book upon FIRST reading, and as he explored the concepts and analyses further found more enlightenment and wisdom. You can tell the folks who didn't like this book are writing off the cuff.

In The Compleat Conductor, Gunther Schuller gives us his philosophy and a short history of conducting, and then goes into some real detail analyzing eight great classical works and how even the greatest maestros can fail the composer's wishes and ideals. Schuller is VERY straightforward and covers all of his bases well, and defends his points and decisions and pickiness. A quote: "The secret of great artistry and true integrity of interpretation lies in the ability to bring to life the score for the listener (and the orchestra) through the fullest knowledge of the score, so that the conductor's personality expresses itself WITHIN the parameters of the score." Schuller maintains that composers like Beethoven and Brahms were very explicit in their desires, and that their music doesn't need all of the extra bells and whistles conductors use to manipulate an audience, and in fact a good number of conductors in the process ignore the finer points of the music.
Quote again: "...all those deviations from the score do not necessarily make the performance 'more natural,''more human.' They may create that illusion--or delusion; they may fool the unknowing, unwary listener into thinking that it was 'exciting,''moving,''authentic,' when in reality the excitement was superficial and the work was grossly misrepresented."

There are points in the book where Schuller recommends changing this and that in various scores, which would seem to directly contradict everything he built up in the first two sections of the book. But in these sections he more than backs up his reasons--there may be a conflict between the manuscript and printed scores, maybe there is truly a problem in balance due to the power of different instruments, or else there may be problems in the publishing.His point being that you have to make informed, intelligent decisions when you bring music to life with an ensemble.Every single nitpick Schuller has with the world's greatest conductors is backed up by examples in the score and historical musical analysis.I have to admit it is a little bit fun to read some of the barbs he throws at the "great maestroes", and to know that they are fallible and not necessarily automatically superior interpreters of every work.A conductor can get a sound thrashing for certain points of his interpretation of a piece, but then on the next page be commended as being the ultimate purveyor of good taste in another passage over all others.So each conductor is only judged on their actions within the music and get equal consideration (with the exception of Bernstein who gets a poke or two for his ego and podium gyrations).

As a violinist in a couple of local symphonies and someone who has studied to a small degree the art of conducting, I have to agree with Schuller that most musicians have no idea what actually goes on within a score and that that is a real disservice to the music.Most musicians, I have discovered, also have no idea what makes the difference between a great conductor and teacher and someone who can go through the motions and look really good--without actually transferring much meaning into the music for the musicians to work with.This is why The Compleat Conductor is important for musicians to read.And if you are simply a classical music lover this could get a little bit pedantic at times, but if you also like to follow scores can be an eye-opener when you go back to listen again with your favorite recording.

By the way, Schuller does make exceptions for the different sound qualities of recordings of different time periods and does note those places where he couldn't be sure of problems because of those difficulties.There are also a couple of unfortunate editing errors, but they are small considerations within the large scope of this work.

Beethoven and Toscanini make way, Schuller knows best!
This is a very bizarre book indeed. Schuller's ideals are laudable in themselves: don't tamper with scores and don't let your ego get in the way of what the composer is saying. But his attempts to prove his point are flawed in almost every way, mainly because he constantly breaks the rules that he set out himself to start with. He obsessively analyses recordings of a number of famous great works with the score in hand, and points out the innumerable sins, blunders and stupidities that in his view virtually every conductor allows himself in virtually every bar. For some reason the author presumes he is just about the only one who knows how it should be done, or cares about doing it well, or even more amazingly: knows what the composer actually meant. E.g.: Changing anything in a score is a mortal sin, because the composer knows best - only Schuller knows better, pointing out where the composer 'forgot' something or is 'obviously' wrong, and changing instrumentation, tempo or dynamics accordingly. For some unspecified reason (a personal hotline to the hereafter maybe?) the author is the only conductor allowed to make such decisions; be sure he will hurl accusations of incompetence or arrogance at others who do the same thing! These inconsistencies are an inevitable result from the assumption that scores are fairly unambiguous and composers well nigh infallible. Of course, they aren't and they aren't.
Schuller claims objectivity, but his methods wouldn't hold their own against even the mildest scientific criteria. How can one realistically compare recordings from the '30s to state of the art CD-sound from the '90s? Can one really, objectively and consistently, judge the difference between pp and ppp? And if Schuller can't hear a particular detail, is that proof of an inadequate performance - or does it say something about differences in recording techniques, about the (unspecified) playback equipment Schuller used, or even about his hearing? Worse, Schuller's reasoning is rarely other than subjective: 'Any intelligent reading of the score will make it obvious...', and arguments like that. Also he will point out how 'natural', 'thrilling' or 'perfect'something will sound if done the right (i.e., Schuller's) way, forgetting that these are all matters of taste. Where he really gives himself away is in his vitriolic attack on the authenticists, which is so poorly argued and random that I find it hard to understand without wondering about personal motives (Schuller pulls all the stops here, and enjoys adding a footnote in which he points out that in a supposedly 'expert' booklet note on an authentic Beethoven recording the term 'mezza voce' is misspelled as 'mesa voce'. This turns out unexpectedly funny seeing that Schuller himself also misspells the term, as 'messa voce'!).
Maybe for some this book invites a new look at some scores, but it also turns music-making into a scholastic exercise at the risk of draining all feeling out of it. The useful points that are made could have been made in under 50 pages; the rest is just obsessive repetition. It might have warranted 2 stars, maybe, but I felt the overenthusiastic average rating needed some reduction towards a more realistic level.

A Must Read for Every Musician
Gunther Schuller is, in my view, the most knowledgeable living
musician. What this book provides is a factual awareness of hoaxes perpetrated by so-called 'name' conductors over the years.
Every symphony orchestra player will benefit from the information provided in this masterpiece. ... Read more

Product Description
Musings gathers together the essays, speeches, liner notes, dictionary entries, and magazine articles of 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; and such topics as the "Third Stream," the art of conducting, the future of opera, and the need for broadening the audience for quality music. Musings is essential reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century music. ... Read more

Product Description
This work offers useful information on how jazz music can be improvised. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Jerry Coker playing at Knoxville Jazz Festival 2009
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R30UZVAIYTY8CZ Jerry Coker playing at Knoxville Jazz Festival 2009 (special thanks to myjollyboy on youtube)
"Yep, I'm a "Cokehead..." Jerry Coker's wonderful little book "Improvising Jazz" expanded my jazz mind. Similar to Eugen Herrigel's "Zen and the art of Archery," Jerry's way of communicating struck a sforzando with me, a musically illiterate young man with some born-into skillz, and I got the news...I'm in the process of spreading it...All Thanks to Jerry." - Stumpbeefknob (on youtube).

Jazz singles and collections, improv, styles, theory:
Styles for the Jazz Pianist, The Rhythmic School
Round Midnight & 29 Jazz Classics (Tenor Sax)
Jazz Fiesta: Souvenirs for Piano
43 Great Golden Standards
Over 650 All Time Enduring Standards "Those Swingin' Years"Golden Standards of 1900's
Memorial Album
Across the Alley From the Alamo
The Phil Woods Quartet Live From New York (Vanguard)
Suite Moderne For B-Flat Clarinet Quartet

This was not what I thought it was going to be
Part of being a good improviser is having a vocabulary of things that you can draw from. This was not that thing. (Perhaps Coker had the idea that you can find all the lick books that you want and deliberately chose to leave licks out of this.)

But what I expected was a book that would have some songs and give three or four different solos for one song for the purposes of comparative study.

The book did teach a few things, such as concretely comparing the difference between modal jazz and the blues form-- and telling how a solo should be built. But it didn't *show* how a solo should be built and provide examples. Now that I think about it: There was not one single treble clef in the whole book. The whole thing was lead sheets and chord symbols.

It also listed several play-alongs that every jazz pianist should have (like we didn't have sense enough to go out and find the playalongs to songs that we liked).

This is definitely not worth a new purchase. Secondhand, maybe. And that is only for music dabblers (=me), because any music major would already know all the theory that he covers.

Jazz understanding
Good book if you are a jazz student or want to improve your improvising.Work book parts are a bit small.Print could be larger to help us older semi-blind students. Great resource.

An Overview of General Concepts
I purchased my first copy of "Improvising Jazz" in 1980. I had been practicing and performing jazz at high school for about a year and this book said all the things I needed to hear at that time in my music career.

What's interesting is that the content isn't really meant to be practiced or developed or anything like that. It's more of a general overview of the basic concepts and ideals of jazz improvisation. "Improvising Jazz" explains things like Swing, Melodic Development, the Role of the Rhythm Section, the Diminished scale and Functional Harmony. Thanks to this book, I had a firm understanding of "functional harmony" before I even entered college and this was partly responsible for my success in all of my theory classes.

A Classic
I had the first edition of this book when I was learning to play jazz piano in the early 1960s. It's a classic that every jazz musician should own, even if it has been superseded by more comprehensive works. It's a little short on piano voicings, and the language is definitely aimed at beginners. But it's a fun read for musicians at any level.

And in the back of the book ...

To avoid paying royalties, Coker prints scores of standard tunes with only the chord changes -- no titles or melodies. It's great fun figuring out what the tunes are. Some of them still have me stumped ... ... Read more

Product Description
Gunther Schuller is a well-known composer, conductor, educator, and author of books on jazz;his remarkable career also includes playing in the horn section of the Cincinnati Symphony while still in his teens and in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as Principal Horn from 1945 to 1959.First published in 1962, this revised edition of his classic book to horn playing includes an extensive guide to the literature for the instrument, with listings of more than 1,000 pieces from the solo, chamber, and orchestral repertory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

OK, not essential
Three things bother me about this book:

1. The chutzpah of Oxford University Press for pricing it as high as they did.
2. The author's habit of criticizing unnamed straw men to make his point.
3. There's little here that isn't covered more thoroughly and more authoritatively in Farkas Art of French Horn Playing and Reynolds The Horn Handbook.

Like Farkas, Schuller prefers a moderate approach to selecting an instrument and mouthpiece. Unlike Farkas, he's not very specific, except he doesn't like big bore horns, by which I think he means large bell throat.

Both criticize what has come to be known as the big American horn sound as being immoderate, without naming names. Could he be referring to the artist Leonard Bernstein called the finest horn player in the world? Principal horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 17, principal horn of the New York Philharmonic for 23 years, on the faculty at Juilliard for 42 years?He doesn't say.

Like Farkas, he describes embouchure and airflow, but came to some different conclusions. For example, Schuller says teeth alignment varies when you are playing ascending (with overbite) or descending (with underbite) lines.Farkas recommended aiming the airstream into the center of the mouthpiece. Schuller aims it at the side (top or bottom) of the cup - where depends on pitch. While this is interesting, I suspect most players don't know exactly where their airstream is directed and today most teachers prefer that students think about the sound they want to produce, rather than the mechanics of teeth alignment, airstream, and diaphragm.

Since Schuller is a respected composer as well as a horn player, the chapter directed to composers and conductors promises to be the most interesting. It's only 13 pages. Much of it you can find in any orchestration text: range, include rests for lip recovery and breaths. He says two biggest faults of composers are overusing horn in low register (takes longer to speak and doesn't project) and misunderstanding the variety of muted and stopped sounds available.

He says a good horn part should be hornistic; it helps to think of a modern horn in terms of harmonic series; admires R. Strauss horn parts.The chapter includes a brief description of wave interference: unison playing of horns in close proximity to each other can cause missed notes, as can directing bells toward nearby tympani.

Fifty pages are devoted to a simple listing of repertoire, without comment.

If you are a fan of Mr. Schuller, you'll probably want this book. If you intend to own every book ever written about the horn, it may be a worthwhile addition. Otherwise, you may want to borrow it from a public library before deciding whether it's worth its high price. 137 pages, paperback.

French horn instruction
This is THE book concerning horn technique.First published in 1962, updated and greatly added to 30 years later.A must for anyone playing, or contemplating playing, the horn.

Review of Horn Technique
This is an excellent handbook and supplementary guide to the Farkas book. I recommend this book to horn players of any level. Like the Farkas book, this reviews technique and tips to make good horn players even better. Thisalong with the Farkas Book, are absolute musts in the horn players library. ... Read more

Product Description
52-page stapled book contains history of the bands, bio's of artists & lots of b/w photos. There is no sheet music & no CD's, cassettes or other audio recordings associated with this offering. ... Read more

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Dust jacket notes: "Bessie Smith combined natural earthiness and vigor with remarkable musical sensitivity. Her art is a diamond with hundreds of facets. She took the rough, undisciplined blues form and converted it into exquisitely subtle jazz, without losing any of the power. Soul music simply could not exist today without her contribution. She was a pop singer in the best sense. Now, Bessie comes alive again in this unique collection of her most famous songs. Not just copies of sheet music, here are actual transcriptions of her recorded performances, with piano reductions and guitar chords. Chris Albertson contributes a discography and a biographical sketch of Bessie, including newly discovered information and photographs not published in his standard biography, and Gunther Schuller's notes on Bessie's unique singing style are perhaps the only good critical description of her art. This book is the ideal companion to the recent, history-making set of Bessie's complete recordings."The songs in the songbook portion of the book are: It Makes My Love come Down; Long Road; Jailhouse Blues; Dirty No-Gooder's Blues; Down in the Dumps; In the House Blues; Shipwreck Blues; Safety Mama; Take Me For A Buggy Ride; Blue Blues; Wasted Life Blues; Standin' in the Rain Blues; Squeeze Me; Baby Won't You Please Come Home; Pickpocket Blues; Backwater Blues; Young Woman's Blues; See If I'll Care; New Orleans Hop Scop Blues; Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out; Baby Doll; Please Help Me Get Him Off My Mind; Reckless Blues; My Man Blues; Poor Man's Blues; Hard Time Blues; Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness If I Do; Cake Walking Babies From Home; Gimme a Pigfoot; Gulf Coast Blues. ... Read more

Product Description
for horn solo
Includes 13 short pieces for horn that help the player master breath support, tonguing, articulations, rapid note-playing, and varying rhythms, all while exploring the range of the instrument. ... Read more

Product Description
Der Erwerb des Buches enthält gleichzeitig die kostenlose Mitgliedschaft im Buchklub des Verlags zum Ausprobieren - dort können Sie von über einer Million Bücher ohne weitere Kosten auswählen. Das Buch besteht aus Wikipedia-Artikeln: Dave Brubeck, Charles Mingus, Werner Heider, Astor Piazzolla, Gunther Schuller, Lalo Schifrin, Yusef Lateef, Rolf Liebermann, Jens Joneleit, Eddie Sauter, Michael Brecker, J. J. Johnson, Franz Koglmann, John Lewis, Claus Ogerman, John Dankworth, George Russell, Jimmy Giuffre, Stan Kenton, Jim Hall, Bill Dixon, Hans Reichel, André Hodeir, Louie Bellson, Mani Planzer, Teo Macero, Steuart Liebig, Günter Buhles, Giorgio Occhipinti, Allan Botschinsky, Mátyás Seiber, Patrick Bebelaar, James Newton, Yitzhak Yedid, Don Ellis, Milcho Leviev, Andrzej Trzaskowski, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Bill Russo, Bernd Konrad, Dave Amram, Niels Klein, Mark Dresser, Don Byron, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, John Graas, Dave Burrell, Teddy Charles, Harald Banter, Gil Mellé, Michael Garrick, Hannibal Marvin Peterson, Hall Overton, Helmut Brandt, Tim Garland, Gregor Hübner, Georg Gräwe, Ran Blake, Giorgio Gaslini, Anthony Davis, Tony Coe, Hugo Read, Colin Towns, Tomas Ulrich, David Baker, Anatoli Petrowitsch Wapirow, Robert Graettinger, Chico O'Farrill, Michael Villmow, Roger Kellaway, Alonzo Levister, André Jaume, Avery Sharpe, Joey Sellers, Bob Cooper, Jürgen Wuchner, Donal Fox, Laurie Johnson, Bernard Vitet, Jef Gilson, Fred Katz, Don Sebesky, Chris Beier, Milton Babbitt, Hank Levy, Frederick Fox, Bengt-Arne Wallin, Christophe Dal Sasso,. Online finden Sie die kostenlose Aktualisierung der Bücher. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: Werner Heider (* 1. Januar 1930 in Fürth / Mittelfranken) ist ein deutscher Komponist, Pianist und Dirigent. 1945-51 studierte Heider bei Willy Spilling in Nürnberg sowie an der Musikhochschule München. Ab 1949 war er Mitarbeiter des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Studio Franken. In seinen Kompositionen interessier...http://booksllc.net/?l=de&id=310654 ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Gunther Schuller, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 2306 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Répertoire Du Cor, Dennis Brain, Takenori Nemoto, David Guerrier, Gunther Schuller, Christophe Sturzenegger, Franz Strauss, Hans Pizka, Stefan Dohr, Heinrich Hüblert, Hermann Baumann. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : Voici une liste d'œuvres écrites pour le cor ou comprenant une partie importante de cor, classée par genre, par période musicale et par compositeur. Cobalt pour cor seul (2005) Blues and Variations for Monk pour cor seul Fantasy pour cor, op. 88 (1966) Fa7 Élégie pour cor naturel Clair-Obscur (2005) Graphismes (1975 ?) Bagatelle (2005) Turning Sunwards (2005) Sea Eagle Lune de sang (2004) First Partita pour cor seul, op. 62Second Partita pour cor seul, op. 62 Diàleg pour cor seul (1998) Laudatio pour cor seul Hymne pour cor seul Le Tombeau de Jean-Pierre Guézec pour cor (1971) Feld-, Wald- und Wiesen-Soli pour cor seul, PWV 53 (1991) Râ dieu solaire Monodie V pour Un Espace Sacré (1992) Characters pour cor seul (1985) Tafelmusik pour 2 cors, cordes et basse continueMenuet en do majeur pour 2 corsConcerto pour cor, violon et basse continueConcerto à trois pour cor, flûte et basse continueQuatuor en ré majeur pour 2 violons, cor et basse continueQuatuor en fa majeur pour violon, cor, violoncelle et basse continueQuintette en ré majeur pour 2 hautbois d'amour, 2 cors et basse continueQuintette en ré majeur pour 2 hautbois, 2 cors et basse continueQuintette en fa majeur pour 2 cors, 2 violons et basse continueQuintette en fa majeur pour 2 hautbois / violons, 2 cors et bassonQuintettes en fa majeur pour 2 hautbois, 2 cors et bassonQuintette en fa majeur pour 2 hautbois, 2 cors et basse continueQuintette en fa majeur pour 2 hautbois d'amour, 2 cors et basse continueDivertimento en mi bémo...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

Product Description
Nice piano arrangment by Gunther Shuller. ... Read more