Riffs & Choruses: A New Jazz Anthology (Bayou) - Softcover

"Riffs & Choruses: A New Jazz Anthology is one of the most unique and entertaining jazz reference works to come along in many years! Published in 2001, this remarkable book which is compiled and edited by Andrew Clark is one of the finest collections of writings about jazz ever written....It is something the jazz audience will want in their personal home library, and a copy should be in every Public Library for reference!...[an] excellent jazz reference...The editor, Andrew Clark, and the publisher are to be congratulated for putting this in-depth collection together for publication and seeing that the jazz audience, and readers in general, have access to it. This is...one book about jazz that every listener should own! A five-star rating for this book which gives a detailed historical and accurate look at jazz. Everything you ever wanted to know about jazz...Again, a five-star rating for a book that delivers a powerful reading experience! Excellent!"—www.jazzreview.com
"The scope and diversity of the book are astonishing. It instantly finds a place as an invaluable research tool, but at the same time as a delicious field for fascinating browsing." Gene Lees, best-selling author, and editor of Jazzletter

"Riffs And Choruses doesn't have such a glaring imbalance, and now challenges Robert Gottlieb's Reading Jazz - which does - as the best anthology of jazz writing. It's an intelligent, insightful selection, though it goes for the snap-shot approach of shorter extracts from lots
of writers, leaving you wishing for more from many of them.
Thematically divided into ten Riffs and ten Choruses, the Riffs by the
editor comment on his selections. Themes range from Jazz and
Definition, Critics, Improvisation and Culture to Jazz in Literature and
in Film. An anthology like this is useful because many of the sources
are out of print. The usual critical suspects such as Amiri Baraka and
Scott DeVeaux are well-represented. And from Jelly-Roll Morton's
braggadocio to Art Pepper's self-lacerating confessional - quite a
contrast in self-esteem - there are the authentic voices of the
musicians themselves. Morton is incredible: "I, myself, happened to be
the creator [of jazz] in the year 1902...It may be because of my
contributions, that gives me authority to know what is correct of
incorrect. I guess I am 100 years ahead of my time..."

In the section on Jazz and film, Hollywood's sanitising and racist
stereotyping is devastatingly analysed by Krin Gabbard and Kenneth
Spence. The debate continues with the artistic and relative commercial
successes of the last two decades, Bertrand Tavernier's 'Round Midnight
and Clint Eastwood's Bird. In a lengthy interview, Tavernier comments
on how he dealt with the "bizarre, enigmatic way jazz musicians relate
to each other. They make Pinter's characters sound like introspective
over-explainers". He also discusses how his camera moves in the music
sequences echoed the harmonic structure of the compositions. But
Francis Davis gives both films excessively short shrift. This section makes for an especially rewarding conclusion to a valuable anthology."—ANDY HAMILTON, Wire

"The best anthology of jazz writing. It's an intelligent, insightful selection...a valuable anthology."—The Wire

"Wide-ranging and exhaustive....There is lots of good material here. To paraphrase Helen Gurley Brown, you can never be too rich or too thin, or have too many books about jazz."
-Booklist, May 1, 2001

"Riffs & Choruses: A New Jazz Anthology is one of the most unique and entertaining jazz reference works to come along in many years! Published in 2001, this remarkable book which is compiled and edited by Andrew Clark is one of the finest collections of writings about jazz ever written....It is something the jazz audience will want in their personal home library, and a copy should be in every Public Library for reference!...[an] excellent jazz reference...The editor, Andrew Clark, and the publisher are to be congratulated for putting this in-depth collection together for publication and seeing that the jazz audience, and readers in general, have access to it. This is...one book about jazz that every listener should own! A five-star rating for this book which gives a detailed historical and accurate look at jazz. Everything you ever wanted to know about jazz...Again, a five-star rating for a book that delivers a powerful reading experience! Excellent!"—www.jazzreview.com

Billed as "the most comprehensive anthology of jazz writings to date," this is certainly wide-ranging and exhaustive. Divided in 10 sections, the book presents excerpts from books and essays on jazz dating from 1913 to the present. The selections range from simple musical definitions to early criticism to writings on composition and improvisation, jazz culture, jazz legend, jazz argot, and so on. Such famous critics as Gunther Schuller, Nat Hentoff, Amiri Baraka, Gary Giddins, Barry Ulanov, Leonard Feather, and Whitney Balliett are well represented. More refreshing are the contributions of novelists and philosophers, and the musicians' autobiographical sketches. Jean-Paul Sartre ecstatically recalls a visit to a New York jazz club. Charles Mingus imagines a group of jazz critics on a bandstand, playing instruments and trying to put their money where their mouths are. There is lots of good material here. To paraphrase Helen Gurley Brown, you can never be too rich or too thin, or have too many books about jazz. Ted Leventhal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved