My Life in E-flat

My Life in E-flat
Author: Chan Parker
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2021-11-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 164336278X

A memoir of the Jazz Age and a life profoundly influenced by it My Life in E-flat is the remarkable memoir of a woman who witnessed some of the most important movements in the history of jazz. Through her autobiography, Chan Parker provides intimate insights into the music and into life with Charlie Parker, the key figure in the development of bebop and one of the most important of all jazz musicians. Born Beverly Dolores Berg in New York City at the height of the Jazz Age, Parker's father was a producer of vaudeville shows and her mother was a dancer in Florenz Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic. Parker became part of the jazz culture as a nightclub dancer and later as the wife of jazz saxophonists Charlie Parker and then Phil Woods. In a moving and candid portrait of Charlie Parker, the author describes in harrowing detail a man of incredible talent besieged with addictions and self-destructiveness. She painfully recounts his death at the age of 35 while married to her and its effect on her life as well as on the musical world. Parker's honest portrait of one of the most gifted musicians in jazz provides unique insight into the history of the music and the difficulties faced by African American performers during the 1940s. Parker also reflects on her struggle to find her own voice and on her work with Clint Eastwood on the film biography of Charlie Parker, Bird (1988).

Life in E Flat - The Autobiography of Phil Woods

Life in E Flat - The Autobiography of Phil Woods
Author: Phil Woods
Publisher:
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2020-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780999477656

Phil Woods was an American original. One of the greatest saxophonists of all time, he was the first call for Quincy Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Oliver Nelson. His iconic improvisation on Billy Joel's hit song "Just the Way You Are" is quite likely the most played instrumental solo in the world. His popularity soared while an expat in Europe during the cultural revolution of the late sixties and early seventies. Upon his return to the States, Woods formed a band that would perform together for four decades. Grammy Awards, dozens of DownBeat Readers Poll victories, and designation as a National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master would follow. Life in E Flat is the unvarnished self-portrait of an artist who loved and lived a life of bebop. "I would have to give Phil Woods' sax solo on "Just The Way You Are" credit for making that a hit record." - Billy Joel "Life in E Flat is a gift, a compelling and entertaining memoir by one of the leading alto saxophonists in jazz for 60 years. Woods is a charismatic storyteller-literate, funny, insightful, self-aware, with a keen eye and ear for details that reveal character and wise observations about the music business and the jazz life laced with sardonic wit." - Mark Stryker, author of Jazz From Detroit ""Someone spotted me fondling the saxophone and misinterpreted my avaricious intent as musical interest..." So Phil Wood's lifelong journey began-a saga he relates with an irreverent, self-deprecating wit, from his earliest days in Western Massachusetts to recording timeless music and traveling the world with jazz legends. Time and again, he sets up a story like a punchline's coming, and often they do. What you always get is history rich in detail and long in feeling and self-honesty - the personal stumbles and the musical triumphs. Phil left us in 2015; this book he left us is a gift that shows how so much of him is still here." - Ashley Kahn, music historian and author of A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album & Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece "Growing up a New York jazz fan, Phil Woods was always a favorite. He was straight ahead, personal but in control, brimming with ideas: solid in every way. This account of the late jazz man's American journey, assembled with a loving, light touch by the always discerning critic Ted Panken, is like a Woods' gig. Full of the right information, things you thought you knew but didn't (the stories of often being the only white man in the room especially after marrying Charlie Parker's widow are instructive), heartbreaking and triumphant, Life in E-Flat is 100% solid." - Mark Jacobson, author of The Lampshade and Pale Horse Rider, former staff writer of the Village Voice and New York Magazine, and contributing editor for Rolling Stone and Esquire

Here, There and Everywhere

Here, There and Everywhere
Author: Geoff Emerick
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 658
Release: 2006-03-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 110121824X

An all-access, firsthand account of the life and music of one of history's most beloved bands--from an original mastering engineer at Abbey Road Geoff Emerick became an assistant engineer at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in 1962 at age fifteen, and was present as a new band called the Beatles recorded their first songs. He later worked with the Beatles as they recorded their singles “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the songs that would propel them to international superstardom. In 1964 he would witness the transformation of this young and playful group from Liverpool into professional, polished musicians as they put to tape classic songs such as “Eight Days A Week” and “I Feel Fine.” Then, in 1966, at age nineteen, Geoff Emerick became the Beatles’ chief engineer, the man responsible for their distinctive sound as they recorded the classic album Revolver, in which they pioneered innovative recording techniques that changed the course of rock history. Emerick would also engineer the monumental Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road albums, considered by many the greatest rock recordings of all time. In Here, There and Everywhere he reveals the creative process of the band in the studio, and describes how he achieved the sounds on their most famous songs. Emerick also brings to light the personal dynamics of the band, from the relentless (and increasingly mean-spirited) competition between Lennon and McCartney to the infighting and frustration that eventually brought a bitter end to the greatest rock band the world has ever known.

Living My Life

Living My Life
Author: Emma Goldman
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 532
Release: 1970-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780486225449

The autobiography of the early radical leader and her participation in communist, anarchist, and feminist activities

A Little Life

A Little Life
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 833
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0804172706

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons

Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons
Author: Jeremy Denk
Publisher: Picador
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2022-05-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1761261886

A uniquely illuminating memoir of the making of a musician, in which renowned pianist Jeremy Denk explores what he learned from his teachers about classical music: its forms, its power, its meaning - and what it can teach us about ourselves. In this searching and funny memoir, based on his popular New Yorker article, renowned pianist Jeremy Denk traces an implausible journey. Life is difficult enough as a precocious, temperamental, and insufferable six-year-old piano prodigy in New Jersey. But then a family meltdown forces a move to New Mexico, far from classical music’s nerve centers, and he has to please a new taskmaster while navigating cacti, and the perils of junior high school. Escaping from New Mexico at last, he meets a bewildering cast of college music teachers, ranging from boring to profound, and experiences a series of humiliations and triumphs, to find his way as one of the world’s greatest living pianists, a MacArthur 'Genius,' and a frequent performer at Carnegie Hall. There are few writers working today who are willing to eloquently explore both the joys and miseries of artistic practice. Hours of daily repetition, mystifying early advice, pressure from parents and teachers who drove him on – an ongoing battle of talent against two enemies: boredom and insecurity. As we meet various teachers, with cruel and kind streaks, Denk composes a fraught love letter to the act of teaching. He brings you behind the scenes, to look at what motivates both student and teacher, locked in a complicated and psychologically perilous relationship. In Every Good Boy Does Fine, Denk explores how classical music is relevant to 'real life,' despite its distance in time. He dives into pieces and composers that have shaped him – Bach, Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms, among others – and gives unusual lessons on melody, harmony, and rhythm. Why and how do these fundamental elements have such a visceral effect on us? He tries to sum up many of the lessons he has received, to repay the debt of all his amazing teachers; to remind us that music is our creation, and that we need to keep asking questions about its purpose.

Me

Me
Author: Elton John
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 427
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1509853332

In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life. Me is the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time. The Sunday Times bestseller with a new chapter bringing the story up to date. 'The rock memoir of the decade' – Daily Mail 'The rock star's gloriously entertaining and candid memoir is a gift to the reader' – Sunday Times ______________ Christened Reginald Dwight was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was performing his first gig in America, facing an astonished audience in his bright yellow dungarees, a star-spangled T-shirt and boots with wings. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again. His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with songwriting partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade. In Me Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend. ______________ 'Self-deprecating, funny . . . You cannot help but enjoy his company throughout, temper tantrums and all' – The Times 'Racy, pacy and crammed with scurrilous anecdotes - what more could you ask from the rocket man' – Guardian (Book of the Week) 'Chatty, gossipy, amusing and at times brutally candid' – Telegraph

My Life with Noel Coward

My Life with Noel Coward
Author: Graham Payn
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
Total Pages: 420
Release: 1996-10-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781557832474

Other men made fabulous careers out of the opportunities Noel Coward declined. But Coward's inner compass charted him on his own course to greatness. And when he couldn't find the destination on his maps, he invented Samolo, his own South Sea island complete with its own indigenous rituals and customs. And of course, we revisit Coward's worlds constantly in revivals of his classic plays, Hay Fever, Private Lives, Tonight at 8:30, Design for Living and Blithe Spirit. This is the definitive memoir of the private Noel Coward by the only man with the compassionate insight and first-hand experience to write it. Graham Payn, star of many of Coward's shows, shared the Master's professional and private life for thirty years. When Coward kept the rest of the world at bay, Payn remained at his side as confidant and friend. No one else was as privy to Coward's doubts and dreams.

Chamber Music

Chamber Music
Author: Mark A. Radice
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2012-01-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0472028111

Intended for the music student, the professional musician, and the music lover, Chamber Music: An Essential History covers repertoire from the Renaissance to the present, crossing genres to include string quartets, piano trios, clarinet quintets, and other groupings. Mark A. Radice gives a thorough overview and history of this long-established and beloved genre, typically performed by groups of a size to fit into spaces such as homes or churches and tending originally toward the string and wind instruments rather than percussion. Radice begins with chamber music's earliest expressions in the seventeenth century, discusses its most common elements in terms of instruments and compositional style, and then investigates how those elements play out across several centuries of composers- among them Mozart, Bach, Haydn, and Brahms- and national interpretations of chamber music. While Chamber Music: An Essential History is intended largely as a textbook, it will also find an audience as a companion volume for musicologists and fans of classical music, who may be interested in the background to a familiar and important genre.