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Jazz & Blues eBooks

If you like Jazz & Blues eBooks, then you'll love these top picks.
Showing 1 - 24 of 2132 Results
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  • Chuck Berry

    An American Life

    by RJ Smith ...
    The definitive biography of Chuck Berry, legendary performer and inventor of rock and rollBest known as the groundbreaking artist behind classics like “Johnny B. Goode,” “Maybellene,” “You Never Can Tell” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” Chuck Berry was a man of wild contradictions, whose motives and motivations were often shrouded in mystery. After all, how did a teenage delinquent come to write so ... Read more

    $15.99 USD

  • Lush Life

    A Biography of Billy Strayhorn

    by David Hajdu ...
    Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967) was one of the most accomplished composers in American music, the creator of such standards as "Take the 'A' Train", yet all his life he was overshadowed by his friend and collaborator, Duke Ellington. Through scrutiny of Strayhorn's private papers and more than five hundred interviews, Hajdu revives Strayhorn as one of the most complex and tragic figures in jazz ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • Rhythm Man

    Chick Webb and the Beat that Changed America

    Series series CULTURAL BIOGRAPHIES SERIES
    The first comprehensive biography of the Swing Era's pioneering virtuoso drummer and bandleader William Henry "Chick" Webb (1905-39) was one of the first virtuoso drummers in jazz and an innovative bandleader dubbed the "Savoy King," who reigned at Harlem's world-famous Savoy Ballroom. Along with the likes of Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, and Cab Calloway, Webb helped create the popular ... Read more

    $22.99 USD

  • Ornette Coleman

    The Territory and the Adventure

    by Maria Golia ...
    With striking photographs and personal insight, a compelling biography of the great American saxophonist and free jazz innovator Ornette Coleman.Ornette Coleman’s career encompassed the glory years of jazz and the American avant-garde. Born in segregated Fort Worth, Texas, during the Great Depression, the African-American composer and musician was zeitgeist incarnate. Steeped in the Texas blues ... Read more

    $19.99 USD

  • A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers

    Will Friedwald’s illuminating, opinionated essays—provocative, funny, and personal—on the lives and careers of more than three hundred singers anatomize the work of the most important jazz and popular performers of the twentieth century. From giants like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland to lesser-known artists like Jeri Southern and Joe Mooney, they have created a ... Read more

    $24.99 USD

  • Fela: This Bitch Of a Life

    by Carlos Moore ...
    African superstar composer singer and musician as well as mystic and political activist Nigerian Fela Kuti born in 1938 was controversy personified. He was swept to international celebrity on a wave of scandal and flamboyance and when he died of AIDS in 1997 more than a million people attended his funeral. But what was he really like this man who could as easily arouse violent hostility as he ... Read more

    $8.99 USD

  • Soul on Soul

    The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams

    Series series Music in American Life
    First time in paperback and e-book!The jazz musician-composer-arranger Mary Lou Williams spent her sixty-year career working in—and stretching beyond—a dizzying range of musical styles. Her integration of classical music into her works helped expand jazz's compositional language. Her generosity made her a valued friend and mentor to the likes of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • Bobby Womack My Story 1944-2014

    by Bobby Womack ...
    The man who could make you cry when he sang' - RONNIE WOOD. Bobby Womack was born on 4 March 1944, and died on 27 June 2014, aged 70. In a career that spanned two centuries and seven decades, the soul singer, songwriter and guitarist carved a niche for himself that has rarely been equalled, and never surpassed. He is, quite simply, irreplaceable.A phenomenally gifted musician, his incredible ... Read more

    $7.99 USD

  • Charley Patton

    Expanded Edition

    by John Fahey ...
    Series series Dover Books On Music: Folk Songs
    The Father of the Delta Blues, Charley Patton (1891–1934) was born and raised around Mississippi's cotton plantations. During the 1920s, he was the first of the region's great stars, performing for packed houses throughout the South and making popular recordings in New York City. His music — ranging from blues and ballads to ragtime and gospel — is distinctive for his gravelly, high-energy singing ... Read more

    $12.95 USD

  • Choir Boy

    "An exhilarating, multi-layered new play."-The Guardian"Stirring and stylishly told . . . McCraney's crispest and most confident work."-Daily News"Greatly affecting. . . . It takes a brave writer to set his language against the plaintive beauty of the hymns and spirituals . . . but McCraney's speech holds its own, locating poetry even in casual vernacular and again demonstrating his gift for ... Read more

    $13.99 USD

  • Loft Jazz

    Improvising New York in the 1970s

    The New York loft jazz scene of the 1970s was a pivotal period for uncompromising, artist-produced work. Faced with a flagging jazz economy, a group of young avant-garde improvisers chose to eschew the commercial sphere and develop alternative venues in the abandoned factories and warehouses of Lower Manhattan. Loft Jazz provides the first book-length study of this period, tracing its history amid ... Read more

    $24.99 USD

  • Steady Rollin'

    by Bob Margolin ...
    Informed by my years as a professional Blues musician and writer for Blues Revue magazine, my eBook presents some of my best column, snapshots and the stories behind them, and (intentional) Blues fiction. It is updated with current introductions to each story or photo. ... Read more

    $7.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

  • Jazz Composition

    Theory and Practice

    by Ted Pease ...
    (Berklee Press). When you think of jazz composers, who comes to mind? Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Bob Brookmeyer. This book is about what they (and many others) do. Jazz composition has evolved into a disciplined art that often evidences great emotional depth and breadth of sophistication. Berklee College of Music legend Ted Pease ... Read more

    $35.99 USD

  • The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums

    The author of the magisterial A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers now approaches the great singers and their greatest work in an innovative and revelatory way: through considering their finest albums, which is the format in which this music was most resonantly organized and presented to its public from the 1940s until the very recent decline of the CD. It is through their albums ... Read more

    $4.99 USD

  • Pepper Adams' Joy Road

    An Annotated Discography

    by Gary Carner ...
    Series series Studies in Jazz
    Pepper Adams' Joy Road is more than a compendium of sessions and gigs done by the greatest baritone saxophone soloist in history. It's a fascinating overview of Adams' life and times, thanks to colorful interview vignettes, drawn from the author's unpublished conversations with Adams and other musicians. These candid observations from jazz greats about Adams and his colleagues reveal previously ... Read more

    $52.99 USD

  • Cubano Be, Cubano Bop

    One Hundred Years of Jazz in Cuba

    Translated by Daniel Whitesell ...
    Based on unprecedented research in Cuba, the direct testimony of scores of Cuban musicians, and the author's unique experience as a prominent jazz musician, Cubano Be, Cubano Bop is destined to take its place among the classics of jazz history. The work pays tribute not only to a distinguished lineage of Cuban jazz musicians and composers, but also to the rich musical exchanges between Cuban and ... Read more

    $17.99 USD

  • Music and Mystique in Muscle Shoals

    Series series Music in American Life
    A No Depression Most Memorable Music Book of 2022The forceful music that rolled out of Muscle Shoals in the 1960s and 1970s shaped hits by everyone from Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon. Christopher M. Reali's in-depth look at the fabled musical hotbed examines the events and factors that gave the Muscle Shoals sound such a potent cultural power. Many artists ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • Preachin' the Blues

    The Life and Times of Son House

    In June of 1964, three young, white blues fans set out from New York City in a Volkswagen, heading for the Mississippi Delta in search of a musical legend. So begins Preachin' the Blues, the biography of American blues signer and guitarist Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. (1902 - 1988). House pioneered an innovative style, incorporating strong repetitive rhythms with elements of southern gospel and ... Read more

    $17.99 USD

  • The Blues Brothers

    An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic

    The story of the epic friendship between John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the golden era of improv, and the making of a comedic film classic that helped shape our popular culture“They’re not going to catch us,” Dan Aykroyd, as Elwood Blues, tells his brother Jake, played by John Belushi. “We’re on a mission from God.” So opens the musical action comedy The Blues Brothers, which hit theaters on June ... Read more

    $20.99 USD

  • Experiencing Big Band Jazz

    A Listener's Companion

    by Jeff Sultanof ...
    Series series Listener's Companion
    The era of popular music from about 1917 onward saw an explosion of creative songwriting that converged with a new sound from reed, brass, and rhythm instruments. Jazz was born, and the musical sophistication that accompanied this original sound set the stage for the prominence of arrangers, whose role in big band orchestrations became as important as jazz musicians and composers themselves. The ... Read more

    $40.99 USD

  • But Beautiful

    A Book About Jazz

    by Geoff Dyer ...
    "May be the best book ever written about jazz."—David Thomson, Los Angeles TimesIn eight poetically charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skillfully evokes the music and the men who shaped modern jazz. Drawing on photos, anecdotes, and, most important, the way he hears the music, Dyer imaginatively reconstructs scenes from the embattled lives of some of the greats: Lester Young fading away in a hotel room ... Read more

    $11.99 USD

  • Led Zeppelin

    All the Albums, All the Songs

    by Martin Popoff ...
    This expanded edition of Led Zeppelin: All the Albums, All the Songs breaks down one of the world’s most prolific bands—track by track, album by album.Formed by the unlikely alliance of two ace London studio musicians and two bar-band bumpkins from the north, Led Zeppelin went on to create the template for the modern marauding rock ‘n’ roll band. Though Zeppelin is often described as “heavy,” any ... Read more

    $3.99 USD or Free with Kobo Plus

  • But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?

    An Oral History of the '60s Girl Groups

    Featuring over 300 hours of new interviews with 100+ subjects, an oral history of the girl groups (such as The Ronettes, The Shirelles, The Supremes, and The Vandellas) that redefined the early 1960sThe girl group sound, made famous and unforgettable by acts like The Ronettes, The Shirelles, The Supremes, and The Vandellas, took over the airwaves by capturing the mixture of innocence and rebellion ... Read more

    $15.99 USD

  • Biography of a Phantom

    A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey

    **NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' PICK OF 2023The drama of In Cold Blood meets the stylings of a Coen brothers film in this long-lost manuscript from musicologist Robert “Mack” McCormick, whose research on blues icon Robert Johnson's mysterious life and death became as much of a myth as the musician himself"This is a human and humane book, an insightful exploration of the biographer’s craft. [...] ... Read more

    $16.99 USD