05.03.2018
Text: Ege Dikencik
The jazz has never had a common definition. According to Louis Armstrong, ‘if you have to ask what it is, you’ll never know’, according to Nina Simone ‘jazz is a white term to define black people' and her music is 'black classical music’. These examples might duplicate but the importance of the issue comes still diversity itself. It led jazz gave birth to different types, has arrived different societies and has been written differently by the authors. Thus, we also wanted to compile 9 books for jazz lovers that would suit the their library.
The Chronicle of Jazz (Mervyn Cooke)
Mervyn Cooke, a lecturer at Nottingham University, published a book about jazz history firstly in 2013, and announces important notes (not just about jazz) year-by-year, or even day-by-day. Therefore, Cooke's book can be interpreted as 'a work for portraying the stages of historical knowledge'.
Coltrane on Coltrane (Ed. Chris DeVito)
The book compiles from interviews by one of the most important musicians of the century, and shows how jazz has marked people. It contains John Coltrane, who did not have an autobiography, and the important moments and his ‘people’ in his life from the jazz master Charlie Parker (aka Bird) to Miles Davis and from Johnny Hodges to Jimmy Heath. Therefore it's not just about jazz, but an exciting and surreal reading.
Northern Sun, Southern Moon: Europe’s Reinvention of Jazz (Mike Heffley)
Like our five fingers, the changes in geography and the interactions in geography were not the same. In "Northern Sun, Southern Moon," we can see how Heffley creates an idea in our minds with his empathic music and enthusiasm about jazz. In texts the follows the reflects in Scandinavia, Holland, Italy, Eastern and West Germany and the eastern countries. The easily-understandable book offers a good starting point for those who are eager to meet.
Froth on the Daydream (Boris Vian)
Boris Vian, a brave and talented young man from the history of literature, was caught up in a heart condition as a result of illness in his early years. Perhaps for the reason, he had lived passionately (love, literature, jazz etc.). “Froth on the Daydream”, which published first in 1946, is a novel that reflects jazz atmosphere of the time miraculously and gives a peak in a fiction. As a matter of fact, Vian did not accept the fiction and said, "It is a living event, because from the beginning to the end I thougt about this" at preface. Vian’s unique sentences take away the readers to France and reminds them a tale. Movie version of the book was directed by French director Michel Gondry starring Audrey Tautou and Romain Curis.
Jazz Book (Joachim E. Berendt)
Joachim E. Berendt's "Jazz Book" which is "regarded as the most comprehensive jazz study ever written," is literally a source book! Berendt interrogates everything that he mentions at the study. The author, who thinks that they are influenced by everything because of the 'musical information bomb' that musicians are living in, tries to find out how jazz became pure by considering many genres of music at this point. In the meantime, the book was published in Turkish by Ayrıntı Publishing.
Making of Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and His Masterpiece (Eric Nisenson)
Eric Nisenson, a jazz historian who grew up in jazz capital, New York in 1950s, writes Miles Davis album "Kind of Blue”s making process. According to the writer Nisenson jazz history "splits in two after the Kind of Blue", and his book contains the idea and also photos from the process, interviews with musicians, and documents from the label.
Is Jazz Dead?: Or Has It Moved to a New Address (Stuart Nicholson)
Stuart Nicholson, who is also a musican calls to think his readers by discussing jazz period in itself and tries to make predictions about what will happen to the evolving face of jazz music. Apart from his book, Nicholson, who also wrote the biographies of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, thinks of the purists and who want to separate jazz from everything else.
A New History of Jazz (Alyn Shipton)
"A New History of Jazz" writer Alyn Shipton describes the history of jazz with describing every period of it by its features. Alyn Shipton's difference arises at this point: each writer (depending on the topic) has a milestone by. Unlike other jazz history books, Shipton's work does not interrupt at John Coltrane's death: it also deals with currents such as free-jazz, improvisation, rock-jazz. The book should be noted by alternative history readers.
This Is Our Music (Iain Anderson)
"This Is Our Music" is the name of Ornette Coleman's 1960 album, whom also found free jazz. The book is about the review of Coleman's 1950-60s 'exploration' and whose idea it was. Anderson who does not link the success of this perception management just with the significiant names such as Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane at the period that World War’s wounds were carried, offers an appetizing study especially for the ‘retro’ lovers.