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9780195082708

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Reviews

""The Jazz Scene is a concise survey that examines the music's development geographically and stylistically. By using quotations from interviews with hundreds of musicians, and linking them with his own shrewd narrative, W. Royal Stokes has put together a kind of mosaic that effectively illustrates the whole subject in a novel and instructive manner.""--Stanley Dance, author of The World of Count Basie ""The jazz scene is both the music and its history, and both continue to grow. The history grows faster because W. Royal Stokes has recorded the musician's own words and preserved them in this valuable book.""--William Conover, Voice of America ""Turn to any page and fresh stories about the jazz life jump out at you, adding to the music's remarkable history.""--Scott Yanow ""This book provides a fascinating look inside America's most distinctive contribution to world culture.""--Dave Burns, Chicago Tribune ""A brilliant and compact overview of the jazz world, past and present, in the words of the musicians themselves and a most knowledgeable observer, W. Royal Stokes.""--Bob Thiele, Jazz record producer ""An amazing book, an easy-to-read, pithy, thorough history of jazz that excites the intellect....Everyone interested in the country's cultural life should read this definitive analysis of the Afro-American musical genius and the art's mysterious influence on the American spirit.""--Leslie Gourse, author of Louis' Children ""There have been several books of jazz oral history, Hentoff and Shapiro's pioneering Hear Me Talkin' to Ya, Ira Gitler's Swing to Bop, and Nathan Pearson's Goin' to Kansas City outstanding among them. Here is a book to place beside those, and it has the difference of Stokes's own perspective as well.""--Martin Williams, author of Jazz Heritage ""Lively reading.""--The Observer (London) ""[Stokes] book cleverly cuts and compiles their comments or recollections into a vivid and readable narrative....He has talked to a sufficiently wide cross-section of musicians to provide an informal history of jazz styles....It is the author's open sympathy with all aspects of jazz that gives The Jazz Scene its particular value. Cast as a kind of lively oral patchwork, the book fits appropriately into the gap between formal histories...and purely anecdotal works....Stokes has encapsulated the compelling diversity of jazz in a single manageable volume. Thoroughly recommended, and a good value too.""--Jazz Express ""[Stokes] has taken excerpts from his countless number of discussions and seamlessly edited them together to creaate an informal history of jazz that is filled with fresh anecdotes and fascinationg stories....Stokes covers virtually every jazz era....One comes away from The Jazz Scene both entertained and educated.""--Jazziz ""The Jazz Scene is a concise survey that examines the music's development geographically and stylistically. By using quotations from interviews with hundreds of musicians, and linking them with his own shrewd narrative, W. Royal Stokes has put together a kind of mosaic that effectively illustrates the whole subject in a novel and instructive manner.""--Stanley Dance, author of The World of Count Basie ""The jazz scene is both the music and its history, and both continue to grow. The history grows faster because W. Royal Stokes has recorded the musician's own words and preserved them in this valuable book.""--William Conover, Voice of America ""Turn to any page and fresh stories about the jazz life jump out at you, adding to the music's remarkable history.""--Scott Yanow ""This book provides a fascinating look inside America's most distinctive contribution to world culture.""--Dave Burns, Chicago Tribune ""A brilliant and compact overview of the jazz world, past and present, in the words of the musicians themselves and a most knowledgeable observer, W. Royal Stokes.""--Bob Thiele, Jazz record producer ""An amazing book, an easy-to-read, pithy, thorough history of jazz that excites the intellect....Everyone interested in the country's cultural life should read this definitive analysis of the Afro-American musical genius and the art's mysterious influence on the American spirit.""--Leslie Gourse, author of Louis' Children ""There have been several books of jazz oral history, Hentoff and Shapiro's pioneering Hear Me Talkin' to Ya, Ira Gitler's Swing to Bop, and Nathan Pearson's Goin' to Kansas City outstanding among them. Here is a book to place beside those, and it has the difference of Stokes's own perspective as well.""--Martin Williams, author of Jazz Heritage ""Lively reading.""--The Observer (London) ""[Stokes] book cleverly cuts and compiles their comments or recollections into a vivid and readable narrative....He has talked to a sufficiently wide cross-section of musicians to provide an informal history of jazz styles....It is the author's open sympathy with all aspects of jazz that gives The Jazz Scene its particular value. Cast as a kind of lively oral patchwork, the book fits appropriately into the gap between formal histories...and purely anecdotal works....Stokes has encapsulated the compelling diversity of jazz in a single manageable volume. Thoroughly recommended, and a good value too.""--Jazz Express ""[Stokes] has taken excerpts from his countless number of discussions and seamlessly edited them together to creaate an informal history of jazz that is filled with fresh anecdotes and fascinationg stories....Stokes covers virtually every jazz era....One comes away from The Jazz Scene both entertained and educated.""--Jazziz ""The Jazz Scene is a very readable story by a literate and experienced witness with a sensitive and enthusiastically appreciative respect for the full sweep of the jazz tradtion. I recommendd it to all jazz fans.""--IAJRC Journal ""A big-picture historical survey, but it circumvents the inherent shortcomings of the format with large portions of interview transcript....A particularly vivid picture....An easy, rewarding read.""--Down Beat ""It clearly merits a place in any serious jazz enthusiast's library. Stokes has given us an essential historical and conceptual update of that earlier classic of oral jazz history, Hear Me Talkin' To Ya, and as such deserves both thanks and congratulations.""--Michael Tucker, azz Journal (England) ""Stokes has woven the interview material and his own informed commentary into a highly readable account of various aspects of jazz history, from New Orleans to the present, as experienced by some of its participants....These informal first-person accounts bring a special sense of reality to the subject and offer a valuable complement to the more objective works.""--Choice

'The beauty of Martin Williams's interviews was that they always read like spontaneous encounters between like-minded individuals, rather than Q & A sessions.' Brian Morton, The Times 'an enthralling book, based on dozens of interviews with jazz musicians from all parts of the United States and from all manner of backgrounds ... The book is thorough and absorbing from the first page to the last.' Peter Hepple, Stage & Television Today 'a living, breathing document of jazz history artfully knitted into a chronological sequence ... His chapter on the origins of jazz is counterbalanced by a brilliant and insightful snapshot of contemporary New Orleans, and his gently proffered socio-economic arguments are as plausible an explanation as I've seen for the neoclassicism of Marsalis and his contemporaries.' Alyn Shipton, Jazz `Stokes has encapsulated the compelling diversity of jazz in a single manageable volume. Thoroughly recommended.' Jazz Express

Author Information

W. Royal Stokes, Ph.D., has been closely observing the jazz scene since the 1940s and has been writing and lecturing about the art form for two decades. He has served as the Washington Post's jazz critic and as editor and monthly columnist of JazzTimes, and his byline has additionally appeared in down beat, Ms., Travel Holiday, the Washington Times, and many other publications. His radio show ""I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say..."" has been heard on local air waves since the early '70s. A native of Washington, D.C., he resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife Erika and sons Sutton and Neale.

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