The History of Jazz by Ted Gioia
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Book Reviews of The History of Jazz
Book Review: Well-written, if oversimplified in parts
Summary: 4 Stars
I greatly enjoyed this book. Ted Gioia gives us a readable and fairly comprehensible single-volume overview of the rich and varied history of Jazz. Given that Jazz means different things to different listeners, trying to sum up in a single (and not overly thick) volume the varied facets and manifestations is a difficult task, but for the most part, I think Gioia succeeds.
The first half of the book, which deals with Jazz through the Swing era, is by far the more informative and detailed. Listeners whose main exposure to jazz has been through the neoboppers and fusion artists of the last three decades will learn a great deal about artists everyone should be investigating and appreciating. Detailed sections on the early jazz pioneers and Dixieland virtuosos are informative and engaging.
If I were to find a fault with this book, it is with the second half, which deals with Modern Jazz, beginning with bebop. I have also read the NYT review, and I agree with that reviewer, who believes that certain important figures are given short shrift. For example, Gioia cites Joe Pass' _Virtuoso_ album as one of the six greatest Jazz guitar albums of all time - but he never lists the others, and I recall no mention at all of greats such as Herb Ellis or Barney Kessel. Additionally, the last three decades are largely (in my opinion) glossed over. While it may or may not be true that no great revolutions on the scale of Bop or Free Jazz have taken place, surely the Joe Lovanos, Woody Shaws, and David Murrays of the world deserve a better and more detailed treatment.
Book Review: Fills in Most Burns Blanks
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is a perfect compliment to Ken Burns Jazz in most respects. Gioia's writing is lucid and descriptive. He seamlessly weaves social analysis with musical analysis. Anecdotes about jazz personalities abound. Some feel that he gives too much attention and credit to Charlie Parker. As a Parker admirer, I'd say the more the merrier. My only regret is that way too many 80's and 90's artists are conspicuously absent. Look at the impact, for example that the Jazz Crusaders (Joe Sample and Larry Carlton) Yellowjackets (Russell Ferrante and Jimmy Haslip) Dave Grusin, Bob James and David Benoit have had fusing Post Modern and Traditional elements (a very different result than the "fusion" of the early to late 70's). Ted was either disinterested or unable to connect these nuances to the larger scope of the history. Otherwise, to round out the Ken Burns version of the Jazz story, read this and fill in most of the blanks.Book Review: Perhaps too white-oriented?
Summary: 4 Stars
I consider this an indispensable basic history of jazz, remarkable in that Gioia captures the significance of every period of jazz, and every major performer. But he is a little white-oriented. How can he be so respectful of the contribution of Glen Gray, and completely slight Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan?Book Review: Great Source for the Origins of Jazz
Summary: 4 Stars
Very interesting study of the origin and history of jazz.
Confirms our debt to Black music in America. What an
incredible contribution to our culture!
Book Review: The History of Jazz
Summary: 3 Stars
Readers looking for a history of jazz who already know the history might find this book impressive in what it covers. Readers looking for a guide to the history of jazz and jazz styles will, I think, be disappointed. At its best, it covers (not completely, of course) the personnel, songs, and albums of the jazz world from its prehistory to the 1990s, and at its worst it does the same. There is a lot here, looking at it from one viewpoint, and nowhere near enough, looking at it from another. Gioia tried to cram and arrange an encyclopedia's worth of jazz facts into a linear history, and often what he ends up offering is not much more than a list of names and titles and dates, as if the history of jazz were reducible to a collection of liner notes. It isn't quite that bad. He does offer extended discussions on some artists, three examples being Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Cecil Taylor. Such mini-biographies interspersed throughout the chapters save the book from full-stop tedium.
Readers already familiar (through hearing the music) with the myriad variations and changes in jazz over its history will be pleased, I suppose, to find descriptions of the music and its styles written in that strange idiom of music criticism which means almost nothing unless you already know what is being described. At one point Gioia sounds almost like H. P. Lovecraft as he describes Albert Ayler's "darting phrases, hieroglyphics of sound representing some hitherto unknown sublunar mode; tones Adolphe Sax never dreamed of, and Selmer never sanctioned." (353)