Jazz Matters: Sound, Place, and Time Since Bebop

by David Ake

What, where, and when is jazz? To most of us jazz means small combos, made up mostly of men, performing improvisationally in urban club venues. But jazz has been through many changes in the decades since World War II, emerging in unexpected places and incorporating a wide range of new styles. In this engrossing new book, David Ake expands on the discussion he began in Jazz Cultures, lending his engaging, thoughtful, and stimulating perspective to post-1940s jazz. Ake investigates such issues as improvisational analysis, pedagogy, American exceptionalism, and sense of place in jazz. He uses provocative case studies to illustrate how some of the values ascribed to the postwar jazz culture are reflected in and fundamentally shaped by aspects of sound, location, and time.

216 pages, ebook

First published September 7, 2010

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fine author, musician, and a teacher is jamming with profound insights right from the start of this compelling book. One I appreciate greatly is that Ake observes that what a jazz musician is playing, or BEING; BECOMING is music that occurs out of the previous material; and the aesthetics, the sound of divinity, the "presence of God" is TRANSCENDENT.

In this manuscript, he gathered several of his articles (Jazz Perspectives, Journal of Musicological Research) and University lectures into music writing I treasure and had no other chance of meeting otherwise.

If you love music, I think you'll appreciate what he has to say and how he does it.