Jazz: a Crash Course

by Simon Adams

a guide to the people, the terminology, and the 100 year history of one of the few truly global musical movements.

Genres: Music

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Simon Adams is a writer and editor of children’s non-fiction and reference books. He specializes in history, politics and current affairs and has written extensively on exploration, music and the arts. He is also a well established jazz critic and reviewer. Simon has also contributed to family and adult reference books and has been an editorial consultant on various history and other titles.
Simon was born in Bristol and studied history and politics at the London School of Economics and Bristol University, where he gained an MSc. He entered publishing as a publicity copywriter at Routledge and subsequently joined Dorling Kindersley, eventually becoming managing editor of the children's division. He became a full-time writer 15 years ago. Since then, he has written and contributed to more than 60 books for a wide range of publishers on subjects as varied as archaeology, the sinking of the Titanic and the history of jazz. Simon lives in London and is a keen reader and cyclist.

Reviews

[Morgan Jenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the track/album references in each section! Was fun pulling albums up on Spotify while reading. All in all a good "crash course"! Some sections were a little more complex than others and took multiple re-reads.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid little chronological history of jazz. I mean if Clifford Brown gets good coverage, that’s an amazing start…if lacking more than a paragraph on Dexter Gordon is less than ideal.