Overview

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.

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9780195043129

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Reviews

The ultimate jazz history. --The New Republic<br> A magisterial achievement, equally engrossing for musicologists, enthusiasts or the just plain curious....Schuller has given us a masterpiece and source of pure delight. --The Washington Post Book World<br> A book of undeniable importance. No true student of the arts born of American civilization will be able to avoid opening [it] and seeking out the riches it has made available. --The New York Times Book Review<br> Unparalleled....One of the most far-reaching musical studies of jazz; his astute criticism deepens our understanding not only of the period but of jazz itself. --Library Journal<br> A touchstone of jazz literature....The most thorough and authoritative study ever undertaken of the period. --The Philadelphia Inquirer<br>

'This is jazz criticism of a quality rarely encountered and, probably, the outstanding work of its kind on the music of the swing era.' Ray Comiskey, Irish Times 'this is not a book to be digested at one sitting; instead readers will prefer to come back again and again to absorb the various monographs on soloists, big bands and small groups. There is more than enough to keep us busy until the arrival of Volume Three.' Clive Davis, The Times 'a suitably Promethean study, densely packed with musical examples and expansively judgmental on the pros and cons of a generation of players ... his insistence on getting to the core of the music, on identifying the original virtues of the jazz musician's art, is something to be prized, especially in this depth' Richard Cook, Sunday Times 'The Swing Era is a work of love first and foremost ... I can't think of any writing that could have made me happier these past few weeks.' William D. Routt, LaTrobe University, Sunday Herald (Melbourne) 'its value to jazz and big band fan is immeasurable' Peter Hepple, Stage & Television Today 'a magisterial achievement, equally engrossing for musicologists, enthusiasts or the just plain curious ... Throughout, Schuller ... speaks with serene authority.' S. Frederick Starr, The Washington Post 'the presentation of the text is excellent and the written style lucid and easy to follow' Frank Murphy, International Journal of Music Education 'the second volume of his projected trilogy, is an even more impressive achievement - the long wait has been worthwhile' Daily Telegraph 'Reading it is like listening to one of those hugely learned men with the gift of the gab, like Bronowski or A.J.P. Taylor, talking about his favourite subject. Every observation is backed by evidence, every generalisation judiciously qualified, every side-issue detailed in a footnote, but it is all done without a trace of pomposity. The real enjoyment in reading The Swing Era, as in reading Johnson's Lives of the Poets, comes from being taught more about something you love by an erudite, courteous and generous mind.' Dave Gelly, Jazz, Issue 12 'While the length of this work might arouse the suspicion of obsessive exhaustiveness, individual treatments of bands and soloists are admirably concise: it is the commitment to range of coverage that gives this book its volume.' David Ayers, University of Kent, Journal of American Studies, 27 (1993)

Vol. II of Schuller's in-depth history of jazz (after Early Jazz, 1968). Early Jazz cut off at 1933, and covered an era that Schuller characterized as an age of restless curiosity in music. The volume at hand takes jazz up to the end of WW II, a period that saw the establishment in jazz of a system of order, a sense of unity . . .resting on the foundations laid in the late 1920's. Thus, while the swing era is often viewed as standing alone as a particular expression of American culture - via the music of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, etc., all chronicled here - Schuller resists the temptation to isolate that era from both its antecedents and its heirs. An underlying theme here is the extent to which swing contained the germ of its own demise. While, as Schuller writes, the greatness of jazz lies in the fact that it never ceases to develop and change, too many proponents of swing (represented by the average dance band of the period) concerned themselves with their own self-perpetuation: It became in far too many instances a static music that never looked outside or beyond itself. Anxious only to hold onto its own order and stability, it was bound to petrify. Bursting with detail, but preachy and opinionated. For the flavor of jazz, best to turn to the literate writings of Gene Lees (Singers and the Song, 1987). Schuller, incidentally, promises a third volume, covering post-WW II modern jazz. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Prominent American composer, horn-player, and writer on music.

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