New Book: JAZZ: The First Century Edited by John Edward Hasse

"This photo-rich, snappily laid-out survey covers its subject with genuine thoroughness, tracing jazz from its New Orleans origins to its present, evolving status as the most radical brand of world music." -Booklist

“Jazz has left an indelible hand print on America's history, a central thread woven through the fabric of our country." -Quincy Jones, from the foreword to Jazz: The First Century

Jazz: The First Century (William Morrow; May 2000; $40.00/hardcover) is a spectacular celebration of the first one hundred years of the most dynamic music of the twentieth century. Capturing the very essence of the music in a flawless combination of historical text and images, Jazz: The First Century, edited by John Edward Hasse, brings together some of the finest and most respected jazz authorities today and presents a comprehensive and colorful overview of the most influential music of our time.

Jazz: The First Century opens up the world of jazz to everyone, mirroring the universality of the music itself. Chronicling this most American of art forms, it brings together vibrant text, and a rich array of artwork, ranging from album covers to vintage sheet music to movie posters, all presented in a beautifully designed compendium. Among the 300 illustrations are the work of such illustrious photographers as Herman Leonard, William Claxton, and William Gottlieb.

Hasse, Curator of American Music at the Smithsonian Institution, provides the book's coverage of the beginnings of jazz as well as the swing era, while other leading experts such as Neil Tesser, David Baker, Gerald Early, John Litweiler, Kevin Whitehead, and Bob Blumenthal offer their insights into the evolution of jazz and the musicians, singers, promoters, arrangers, and supporters who made it happen.

Employing improvisation and hot rhythm, the creative possibilities of jazz have proved inexhaustible. As it evolved, the shapes jazz took made it a musical analog to historic events and trends, all of which Jazz describes in eight stunning and engaging chapters. Topics include:

• The Emergence of Jazz - One of the many syntheses of African and European traditions, jazz took root in New Orleans, a city whose fluid cultural boundaries, active Afro-Caribbean culture, vital musical life, insatiable demand for dancing, pervasive “good times" atmosphere, and adoration for brass bands created the perfect conditions for the rise of this musical form.
• The Flourishing of Jazz - In the 1920s, jazz took shape as a distinct musical style. Its first creative geniuses--Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Sidney Bechet, and Jelly Roll Morton-- transformed what had once been a rough iteration of ragtime, the blues, and marching music into an art of sophistication and depth.
• The Swing Era - In the 1930s, swing music and dancing became a huge phenomenon, taking jazz to heights of popularity never achieved before or since. The big band sound, performed by black and white bands alike, dominated the music scene and dance halls like the Savoy Ballroom in New York City, the Graystone in Detroit, and the Trianon and Aragon in Chicago became some of the nation's most influential social institutions.
• The Birth of Modern Jazz - By 1945, complex new sounds were entering the jazz lexicon and young African American players such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk were turning out bebop classics such as 'Round Midnight, Moose the Mooche, and A Night in Tunisia.
• Mainstream Jazz - This term came to embody the lyrical, cleanly structured music that remained central to the jazz experience through the remainder of the century. Miles Davis, more than any other single musician, dominated the mainstream era. Unflinchingly “cool," Davis's sound mirrored the existentialist philosophy coloring Western society in the 1950s. By 1953, “cool" became the primary concern of American art, from film to fashion to literature to theater.
• Departures and Explorations - By the end of the 1950s, jazz musicians began freeing themselves from the strictures of traditional harmony, sound, and form and many turned this same impulse toward social issues of the time, especially the burgeoning civil rights movement. Jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, and Bob Graettinger came on the scene to offer powerful advances in technique and sensibility, as well as civil-rights inspired pieces like Mingus' Fables of Faubus, a musical assault on segregationist Arkansas governor Orval Faubus.
• Jazz Worldwide - Jazz was born and raised in America but it has flourished around the world. Paris, between the wars, was a jazz hot spot that offered African Americans a far more welcoming environment than in their native United States. Latin musical concepts have flavored the jazz repertoire since its earliest days, and more recently, musicians from Brazil, Sweden, and South Africa, have played an important role in creating new conceptions of jazz.
• Late-Century Tradition and Innovation - As jazz has diversified into myriad offshoots and strains, it's become more difficult to define. The introduction of electric instrumentation, Miles Davis's concept of jazz and rock “fusion," and the neobop movement lead by Wynton Marsalis have kept mainstream jazz alive.

Jazz is enriched by not only colorful illustrations, but also by seventy fascinating sidebars (also written by leading jazz experts) that cover a range of topics from “The Swing Dances" and “The Growing Role of Women in Jazz" to “Jazz Under the Nazis" and “Worldwide Jazz Films." Chapters conclude with an annotated list of ten “Key Recordings" that serves as an indispensable guide to the music of each jazz era.

Jazz: The First Century also contains a priceless sampling of the best of jazz music recorded in the twentieth century. Informed by opinions gathered in an international survey of more than one hundred jazz historians, critics, authors, educators, musicians, and broadcasters, this list of “100 Essential Jazz Albums" is intended as a reliable selection of albums that have stood the test of time. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, which was named by 80 percent of the respondents, received the most votes by far. Other albums in the top five were: John Coltrane, A Love Supreme; Louis Armstrong, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Duke Ellington, The Blanton-Webster Band; and John Coltrane, Giant Steps. This list is supplemented by an extensive discography which contains over four hundred other great jazz albums of the century. Altogether, the book's nearly six hundred recording recommendations will be a Godsend for the reader.

At the arrival of the twenty-first century, the future of jazz appears to rest on meeting a twofold challenge: to preserve its time-honored traditions while recognizing that changes in the world inevitably will mean changes in the art form. If the past is any indication, emerging artists will continue to pull inspiration from multiple sources and discover that no matter what they need to express, they can say it in the international language of jazz. Already, innovators like Cassandra Wilson, who brings together blues, folk, funk, and rap, and Joshua Redman, a tenor saxophonist who decided to pursue jazz rather than study law at Yale, are changing the face of jazz.

With a future that holds so much promise and excitement, an authoritative look at how jazz enriched the aesthetic life of its first hundred years is essential, and no single book tells the story better than Jazz: The First Century. An altogether high-quality tribute to the music and the people who shaped it, this book will endure and be a credit to the art of jazz.

About the Editor:
John Edward Hasse is Curator of American Music at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. He is a music historian, musician, and award-winning author and record producer.
Jazz: The First Century
Edited by John Edward Hasse
Forewords by Quincy Jones and Tony Bennett
Publication date: May 2000
$40.00; Cloth; ISBN: 0-688-17074-9