The Making of Jazz: A Comprehensive History

by James Lincoln Collier

Explores the lives and contributions of more than one hundred major jazz musicians as well as describing the major styles and stages marking the development of jazz from ragtime and blues to electronic jazz

Genres: Music, History, Jazz, Nonfiction

543 pages, Hardcover

First published May 10, 1978

About the author

James Lincoln Collier (born June 27, 1928) is a journalist, author, and professional musician.

Collier's notable literary works include My Brother Sam Is Dead (1974), a Newbery Honor book that was also named a Notable Children's Book by the American Library Association and nominated for a National Book Award in 1975. He also wrote a children's book titled The Empty Mirror (2004), The Teddy Bear Habit (1967), about an insecure boy whose beatnik guitar teacher turns out to be a crook, and Rich and Famous (1975), sequel to The Teddy Bear Habit. His list of children's books also includes Chipper (2001), about a young boy in a gang. His writings for adults include numerous books on jazz, including biographies of Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. He has also contributed entries on jazz-related subjects to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

In addition to his writing, Collier is an accomplished jazz musician who plays the trombone professionally.

Reviews

[Marvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This exceptional book may be out of print and that is sad for it is one of the best single narratives of the history of jazz. James Lincoln Collier is an excellent writer and an thorough researcher. There are two things than stand out in this book. One is his hypothesis that all great innovations in jazz of ones of rhythmic proportions and not melodic or harmonic. The other thing I like is that he makes no excuses for the jazz giants. While acknowledging the greatness of artists of Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and Billie Holiday he also addresses their flaws and how their emotional weaknesses may have actually hindered their artistic growth. This is a book that should be on every music lover's shelves.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike most jazz histories, this book focuses on the the musical details that differentiate one style or one artist from another, with careful examples from specific records. Louis Armstrong is not just wonderful. We find that he introduced the concept of extended solos, playing away from the ground beat, and shaping a solo to tell a story rather than simply providing a variation. The inexperienced reader comes away from this book much wiser.

Being over 30 years old, the book has its limitations. Free jazz is just random noise in Collier's view, and fusion is non-jazz. Miles Davis is a musician with limited skills and a good eye for talent. He does hold out hope for a 15 year-old musician who would recognize the virtues of bop and revitalize the style. (Wynton Marsalis would have been about 18 when this was written)

[Alex Boon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book but you can't just read it. You need to read, listen, read, listen. Done this way it is an experience, and a very worthwhile one. Read alongside Ted Gioia's history for contrast and continuation. Has taken me all year to read this and I feel richer for it.

[Anthony Glass · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent companion to the Burns series (or vice versa, actually--read this first! It has wurds 'n' stuff!) I gave it four stars only for the one nitpick that, in order to amplify a musical point he would occasionally make some generalizations such as how swing players almost learned to phrase away from the beat, which may be true, but it's difficult to really grasp what he means by such statements without a lot of examples. I get it now, but somehow I can't imagine that Coleman Hawkins, the grand old man of the tenor sax who remained relevant through several cataclysmic changes in style could never grasp bebop phrasing! If nothing else, it's tanatalizing to think of Hawkins as a "harmonic" improviser and Young as a "melodic" improviser, even though I think you can hear both tendencies in them. But it's fun to listen to tenors and think "Hawk or Pres"? The jazz age was indeed an age of titans, and the book kind of leaves you feeling like jazz ran out of steam and there's nothing left. That may be true from the standpoint of innovation; but in terms of what was innovated and preserved on record, there is plenty for the rest of us to discover, study, and dig on our own terms--it's still new to the generations who have yet to discover it. That's because it has now passed to the realm of tradition--"Kansas City born, and growing / You won't believe what [these cats] are blowing!" as Steely Dan put it. Just as traditionalists of another generation played fiddle tunes and ballads, "traditionalists" in ages to come will be playing standards out of the Real Book and still feeling the rush of nailing that perfectly placed flatted fifth.

[Aleksey Trufanov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Книга рассказывает об истоках джаза, его развитии, основных стилях и наиболее значимых представителях — от самого возникновения джаза до конца 60-х годов.

Написана интересно. В ней хватает и музыкального анализа произведений и исполнителей, который (анализ), скорее всего, будет понятен только читателям, знакомомым с теорией музыки.

[Gia Jgarkava · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd rather read the book with more musical topics, than just biographies and the history, but this book is anyway quite nice. Read many facts I did not know and bit of interesting analysis and views.