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The Adventures of a Cello

by Carlos Prieto

In 1720, Antonio Stradivari crafted an exquisite work of art-a cello known as the Piatti. Over the next three centuries of its life, the Piatti cello left its birthplace of Cremona, Italy, and resided in Spain, Ireland, England, Italy, Germany, and the United States. The Piatti filled sacred spaces, such as the Santa Cueva de Cádiz, with its incomparable voice. It also spent time in more profane places, including New York City bars, where it served as a guarantee for unpaid liquor tabs. The Piatti narrowly escaped Nazi Germany in 1935 and was once even left lying in the street all night. In 1978, the Piatti became the musical soul mate of world-renowned cellist Carlos Prieto, with whom it has given concerts around the world. In this delightful book, Mr. Prieto recounts the adventurous life of his beloved "Cello Prieto," tracing its history through each of its previous owners from Stradivari in 1720 to himself. He then describes his noteworthy experiences of playing the Piatti cello, with which he has premiered some eighty compositions. In this part of their mutual story, Prieto gives a concise summary of his own remarkable career and his relationships with many illustrious personalities, including Igor Stravinsky, Dmitry Shostakovich, Pablo Casals, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, and Gabriel García Márquez. To make the story of his cello complete, Mr. Prieto also provides a brief history of violin making and a succinct review of cello music from Stradivari to the present. He highlights the work of composers from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, for whose music he has long been an advocate and principal performer. Thus, The Adventures of a Cello offers not only the first biography of a musical instrument but also an inviting overview of cello music and its preeminent composers and performers.

Adventures of a Jazz Age Lawyer: Nathan Burkan and the Making of American Popular Culture

by Gary A. Rosen

Adventures of a Jazz Age Lawyer is the lively story of legal giant Nathan Burkan, whose career encapsulated the coming of age of the institutions, archetypes, and attitudes that define American popular culture. With a client list that included Charlie Chaplin, Al Jolson, Frank Costello, Victor Herbert, Mae West, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, Arnold Rothstein, and Samuel Goldwyn, Burkan was “New York’s Spotlight Lawyer” for more than three decades. He was one of the principal authors of the epochal Copyright Act of 1909 and the guiding spirit behind the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (Ascap), which provided the first practical means for songwriters to collect royalties for public performances of their works, revolutionizing the music business and the sound of popular music. While the entertainment world adapted to the disruptive technologies of recorded sound, motion pictures, and broadcasting, Burkan’s groundbreaking work laid the legal foundation for the Great American Songbook and the Golden Age of Hollywood, and it continues to influence popular culture today.Gary A. Rosen tells stories of dramatic and uproarious courtroom confrontations, scandalous escapades of the rich and famous, and momentous clashes of powerful political, economic, and cultural forces. Out of these conflicts, the United States emerged as the world’s leading exporter of creative energy. Adventures of a Jazz Age Lawyer is an engaging look at the life of Nathan Burkan, a captivating history of entertainment and intellectual property law in the early twentieth century, and a rich source of new discoveries for anyone interested in the spirit of the Jazz Age.

The Adventures of Rap Kid: A hilarious, high-energy new series from the viral rapping social media sensation

by MC Grammar

'FUN, FRESH and THUMPING with ENERGY' - Jeff Kinney, bestselling author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid The first in a hilarious series from multi-award-winning teacher and World Book Day Ambassador, MC Grammar! Meet Z, he only speaks in rhyme. Teased all the time. But now it&’s his time to shine. Z stands for ZERO: being the amount of words that Z speaks at school. Why? Because every time he talks, it rhymes. Every. Single. Time. But, things are about to change. The Royal Rap Rumble is coming to town in search of the next rhyming rap legend. With the help of his super-cool English teacher, Mr G, his best friend, SFX, and the ultimate hip-hop makeover, RAP KID is born. But can he become the G.O.A.T and take home the golden mic? Bring on the vibes! The Adventures of Rap Kid celebrates the power of words and friendship.Perfect for fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Tom Gates and Loki.From the viral book-rapping sensation and star of SkyKids Wonder Raps and Rap Tales.

The Adventures of Slim & Howdy: A Novel

by Kix Brooks Ronnie Dunn Bill Fitzhugh

Exclusive CD! Brooks & Dunn's "Gotta Get Me One of Those" inside!Musicians by trade, Slim and Howdy have each come to a figurative crossroads in their lives. As fate would have it, they meet at these crossroads, never realizing it's a turning point in their lives. Forced by circumstances to share a truck, they take to the road in pursuit of a common goal -- to make it as musicians on the country music circuit.But it seems no matter where these two travel, trouble finds them. Whether it's turning the tables on a crooked card shark who takes everything they have, or fending off the raging boyfriend of that friendly gal from last night, the guys are constantly needing to outwit the world. And when their friend and boss Jodie Lee disappears, their resourcefulness will truly be tested. Each of the guys has his theory, but they'll need to work together to get to their friend before time runs out.

Adversity for Sale: Ya Gotta Believe

by Jeezy

To Jeezy&’s legion of fans, his name is synonymous with hustle, grit, and the integrity to go out there and achieve your dreams. In his first book, Adversity for Sale: Ya Gotta Believe, Jeezy shares never heard stories of what it took for him to beat the odds and get out of the streets, his mindset he carefully honed to get an edge, and the lessons that changed his life and business.Born into poverty and raised in a small town in the middle of South Georgia&’s so-called &“Black belt,&” Jeezy realized at an early age that nothing was going to come easy, there were no handouts headed his way, and if he ever wanted anything in life, he was going to have to get out there and get it on his own. So that&’s what he did. Now, for the first time, Jeezy retraces his steps, going back to day one to share how he turned nothing into something, stayed solid, survived the trap, and triumphed over adversity to become the successful artist, father, husband, entrepreneur, and philanthropist that he is today. Adversity for Sale isn&’t a street memoir. Like his music, these pages are filled with lessons from his deeply personal story to motivate you to go out and get after your dream.

Advertising Revolution: The Story of a Song, from Beatles Hit to Nike Slogan

by Alan Bradshaw Linda Scott

The story of "Revolution" by the Beatles, from its origin as a protest song of the 1960s, to it becoming the musical backdrop for one of the most famous, influential, and controversial adverts of all time.In 1987, Nike released their new sixty-second commercial for Air shoes—and changed the face of the advertising industry. Set to the song “Revolution” by the Beatles, the commercial was the first and only advert ever to feature an original recording of the FaUb Four. It sparked a chain of events that would transform the art of branding, the sanctity of pop music, the perception of advertisers in popular culture, and John Lennon’s place in the leftist imagination.Advertising Revolution traces the song “Revolution” from its origins in the social turmoil of the Sixties, through its controversial use in the Nike ad, to its status today as a right-wing anthem and part of Donald Trump’s campaign set list. Along the way, the book unfolds the story of how we came to think of Nike as the big bad wolf of soulless corporations, and how the Beatles got their name as the quintessential musicians of independent integrity. To what degree are each of these reputations deserved? How ruthlessly cynical was the process behind the Nike ad? And how wholesomely uncommercial was John Lennon’s writing of the song?Throughout the book, Alan Bradshaw and Linda Scott complicate our notions of commercialism and fandom, making the case for a reading of advertisements that takes into account the many overlapping intentions behind what we see onscreen. Challenging the narratives of the evil-genius ad conglomerate and the pure-intentioned artist, they argue that we can only begin to read adverts productively when we strip away the industry’s mysticism and approach advertisers and artists alike as real, flawed, differentiated human beings.

Aerosmith: The Fall and the Rise of Rock's Greatest Band

by Martin Huxley

In Aerosmith, Martin Huxley chronicles the fall and the rise of rock's greatest band. Read about the origins of mega rockstars Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford, and Joey Kramer--from the group's near break-up to their path of success that would eventually lead to them to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Aesthetic Legacy of Eduard Hanslick: Close Readings and Critical Perspectives (Routledge Research in Aesthetics)

by Lee Rothfarb, Alexander Wilfing, and Christoph Landerer

This book addresses the complex conceptual, historical, and philosophical questions posed by Eduard Hanslick’s influential aesthetic treatise, On the Musically Beautiful (1854). The contributions reveal the philosophical foundations and subtleties of his aesthetic approach.The collection features original essays written by leading scholars in philosophical aesthetics and musicology. It covers many of Hanslick’s overarching themes, such as the relationship between beauty and form, between music and emotion, and the role of imagination and performance in music, which have recently gained prominence in Hanslick scholarship. The chapters, divided into five thematic sections, will provide a better scholarly foundation for a deeper understanding of On the Musically Beautiful and its arguments.In bringing together the various approaches and accounts of the different textual, historical, conceptual, and philosophical challenges posed by Hanslick’s aesthetics, The Aesthetic Legacy of Eduard Hanslick will appeal to philosophers of music, historians of aesthetics, musicologists specializing in 19th-century studies, and music theorists working on aesthetic issues.

Aesthetic Noise: The Philosophy of Intentional Listening

by Mary G. Mazurek

Aesthetic Noise: The Philosophy of Intentional Listening considers the complex nature of noise within the framework of philosophical filtering, examining how, if noise is engaged with aesthetically, it can produce profound experiences and understandings.Applying the philosophies of Edmund Burke, Martin Heidegger, Jacque Derrida, and Julia Kristeva to works by Luigi Russolo, John Cage, Steve Reich, Alison Knowles, Annea Lockwood, Alyce Santoro, and Sunn O))), this book explores noise as an art material, and ultimately how it can become a tool for activism and expanded creative possibilities. It demonstrates that, by engaging multiple philosophies in concert, the value of aesthetic noise is amplified, thus allowing the listener to better appreciate noise and its possibilities.Providing greater insights into noise as an aesthetic material, Aesthetic Noise will be of interest to researchers and students of sound studies, philosophy, and sound art, as well as sound designers, artists, musicians, and composers.

Aesthetic Technologies of Modernity, Subjectivity, and Nature: Opera, Orchestra, Phonograph, Film

by Richard Leppert

Virginia Woolf famously claimed that, around December 1910, human character changed. Aesthetic Technologies addresses how music (especially opera), the phonograph, and film served as cultural agents facilitating the many extraordinary social, artistic, and cultural shifts that characterized the new century and much of what followed long thereafter, even to the present. Three tropes are central: the tensions and traumas--cultural, social, and personal--associated with modernity; changes in human subjectivity and its engagement and representation in music and film; and the more general societal impact of modern media, sound recording (the development of the phonograph in particular), and the critical role played by early-century opera recording. A principal focus of the book is the conflicted relationship in Western modernity to nature, particularly as nature is perceived in opposition to culture and articulated through music, film, and sound as agents of fundamental, sometimes shocking transformation. The book considers the sound/vision world of modernity filtered through the lens of aesthetic modernism and rapid technological change, and the impact of both, experienced with the prescient sense that there could be no turning back.

Aesthetics of Music: Musicological Perspectives

by Stephen Downes

Aesthetics of Music: Musicological Approaches is an anthology of fourteen essays, each addressing a single key concept or pair of terms in the aesthetics of music, collectively serving as an authoritative work on musical aesthetics that remains as close to 'the music' as possible. Each essay includes musical examples from works in the 18th, 19th, and into the 20th century. Topics have been selected from amongst widely recognised central issues in musical aesthetics, as well as those that have been somewhat neglected, to create a collection that covers a distinctive range of ideas. All essays cover historical origins, sources, and developments of the chosen idea, survey important musicological approaches, and offer new critical angles or musical case studies in interpretation.

The Aesthetics of Survival

by George Rochberg

A revised paperback edition of composer George Rochberg's landmark essays

Affective Intensities in Extreme Music Scenes

by Rosemary Overell

An ethnographic study of gender, place and belonging, Affective Intensities introduces readers to the embodied sensations, flows and experiences of being in extreme music scenes in Australia and Japan.

Africa and the Blues (American Made Music Series)

by Gerhard Kubik

In 1969 Gerhard Kubik chanced to encounter a Mozambican labor migrant, a miner in Transvaal, South Africa, tapping a cipendani, a mouth-resonated musical bow. A comparable instrument was seen in the hands of a white Appalachian musician who claimed it as part of his own cultural heritage. Through connections like these Kubik realized that the link between these two far-flung musicians is African-American music, the sound that became the blues. Such discoveries reveal a narrative of music evolution for Kubik, a cultural anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. Traveling in Africa, Brazil, Venezuela, and the United States, he spent forty years in the field gathering the material for Africa and the Blues. In this book, Kubik relentlessly traces the remote genealogies of African cultural music through eighteen African nations, especially in the Western and Central Sudanic Belt. Included is a comprehensive map of this cradle of the blues, along with 31 photographs gathered in his fieldwork. The author also adds clear musical notations and descriptions of both African and African American traditions and practices and calls into question the many assumptions about which elements of the blues were "European" in origin and about which came from Africa. Unique to this book is Kubik's insight into the ways present-day African musicians have adopted and enlivened the blues with their own traditions. With scholarly care but with an ease for the general reader, Kubik proposes an entirely new theory on blue notes and their origins. Tracing what musical traits came from Africa and what mutations and mergers occurred in the Americas, he shows that the African American tradition we call the blues is truly a musical phenomenon belonging to the African cultural world.

Africa Speaks, America Answers

by Robin D. G. Kelley

In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, pianist Randy Weston and bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik celebrated with song the revolutions spreading across Africa. In Ghana and South Africa, drummer Guy Warren and vocalist Sathima Bea Benjamin fused local musical forms with the dizzying innovations of modern jazz. These four were among hundreds of musicians in the 1950s and ’60s who forged connections between jazz and Africa that definitively reshaped both their music and the world. Each artist identified in particular ways with Africa’s struggle for liberation and made music dedicated to, or inspired by, demands for independence and self-determination. That music was the wild, boundary-breaking exultation of modern jazz. The result was an abundance of conversation, collaboration, and tension between African and African American musicians during the era of decolonization. This collective biography demonstrates how modern Africa reshaped jazz, how modern jazz helped form a new African identity, and how musical convergences and crossings altered politics and culture on both continents. In a crucial moment when freedom electrified the African diaspora, these black artists sought one another out to create new modes of expression. Documenting individuals and places, from Lagos to Chicago, from New York to Cape Town, Robin Kelley gives us a meditation on modernity: we see innovation not as an imposition from the West but rather as indigenous, multilingual, and messy, the result of innumerable exchanges across a breadth of cultures.

African: A Children's Picture Book (LyricPop #0)

by Peter Tosh

An AALBC Recommended New Book! Included in Publishers Weekly's Children's Galleys to Grab at Winter Institute! A beautiful children's picture book featuring the lyrics of Peter Tosh's global classic celebrating children of African descent. So don't care where you come from As long as you're a black man, you're an African No mind your nationality You have got the identity of an African African is a children's book featuring lyrics by Peter Tosh and illustrations by Jamaican artist Rachel Moss. The song "African" by Peter Tosh was originally released in 1977 on his second solo record, Equal Rights. He wrote the song during a time of civil unrest in Jamaica as a reminder to all black people that they were part of the same community. The album is considered one of the most influential reggae works of all time. A key song from the classic 1970s era of reggae Peter Tosh was one of the founding members of the iconic reggae group the Wailers

African American Music: An Introduction

by Mellonee Burnim Portia K. Maultsby

African American Music: An Introduction is a collection of thirty essays by leading scholars which survey major African American musical genres, both sacred and secular, from slavery to the present. It is the most comprehensive study of African American music currently available, with sixteen essays on major genres of African American music, as well as lengthy sections on the music industry, gender, and music as resistance. The work brings together, in a single volume, treatments of African American music that have existed largely independent of each other. The research is based in large part on ethnographic fieldwork, which privileges the voices of the music-makers themselves, while interpreting their narratives through a richly textured mosaic of history and culture. The book is replete with references to seminal recordings and recording artists, musical transcriptions, photographs, and illustrations that bring the music to life as expressions of human beings.

African American Music: An Introduction

by Portia K. Maultsby Mellonee V. Burnim

American Music: An Introduction, Second Edition is a collection of seventeen essays surveying major African American musical genres, both sacred and secular, from slavery to the present. With contributions by leading scholars in the field, the work brings together analyses of African American music based on ethnographic fieldwork, which privileges the voices of the music-makers themselves, woven into a richly textured mosaic of history and culture. At the same time, it incorporates musical treatments that bring clarity to the structural, melodic, and rhythmic characteristics that both distinguish and unify African American music. The second edition has been substantially revised and updated, and includes new essays on African and African American musical continuities, African-derived instrument construction and performance practice, techno, and quartet traditions. Musical transcriptions, photographs, illustrations, and a new audio CD bring the music to life.

African American Music Trails of Eastern North Carolina

by Sarah Bryan Beverly Patterson Michelle Lanier

Thelonius Monk, Billy Taylor, and Maceo Parker--famous jazz artists who have shared the unique sounds of North Carolina with the world--are but a few of the dynamic African American artists from eastern North Carolina featured in The African American Music Trails of Eastern North Carolina. This first-of-its-kind travel guide will take you on a fascinating journey to music venues, events, and museums that illuminate the lives of the musicians and reveal the deep ties between music and community. Interviews with more than 90 artists open doors to a world of music, especially jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, gospel and church music, blues, rap, marching band music, and beach music. New and historical photographs enliven the narrative, and maps and travel information help you plan your trip. Included is a CD with 17 recordings performed by some of the region's outstanding artists.

African American Musicians (Major Black Contributions from Emancipat)

by Claudette Hegel

African Americans--famous and anonymous alike--have helped shape popular musical genres ranging from jazz and blues to rock 'n' roll and rap. This book provides a vivid account of that process, beginning with the work songs and spirituals of slaves and continuing up to the present. African-American Musicians tells the stories of figures such as bluesman Robert Johnson, whose guitar playing was so extraordinary that people said he must have made a deal with the devil; jazz great Duke Ellington, considered one of America's greatest composers and bandleaders; classical singer Marian Anderson, who struck a blow for civil rights with her music; Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop"; and many, many more.

African Americans in the Jazz Age: A Decade of Struggle and Promise

by Mark Robert Schneider

The victorious end to the first World War offered hope to African Americans who had fought for freedom abroad and hoped to find it at home. In this new work, historian Mark R. Schneider analyzes the dynamic 1920s that saw the enormous migration of African Americans to Northern urban centers and the formation of important <p><p>African American religious, social and economic institutions. Yet, even with considerable efforts to promote civil rights and advancements in the arts, many African Americans in the rural south continued to live under conditions unchanged from a century before. African Americans in the Jazz Age recounts the history of this turbulent era, paying particular attention to the ways in which African Americans actively challenged Jim Crow and firmly expressed pride in their heritage. <p><p>Supplemented by primary sources, this work serves as an ideal introduction to this critical period in U.S. history and allows students to examine the issues first-hand and draw their own conclusions.

African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective (Critical and Cultural Musicology)

by Ingrid Monson

The African Diaspora presents musical case studies from various regions of the African diaspora, including Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe, that engage with broader interdisciplinary discussions about race, gender, politics, nationalism, and music.

The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective (Critical and Cultural Musicology)

by Ingrid Monson

The African Diaspora presents musical case studies from various regions of the African diaspora, including Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, North America, and Europe, that engage with broader interdisciplinary discussions about race, gender, politics, nationalism, and music. Featured here are jazz, wassoulou music, and popular and traditional musics of the Caribbean and Africa, framed with attention to the reciprocal relationships of the local and the global.

African Music: A People's Art

by Francis Bebey

Engaging and enlightening, this guide explores African music's forms, musicians, instruments, and place in the life of the people. A discography classified by country, theme, group, and instrument is also included.

African Music, Power, and Being in Colonial Zimbabwe

by Mhoze Chikowero

In this new history of music in Zimbabwe, Mhoze Chikowero deftly uses African sources to interrogate the copious colonial archive, reading it as a confessional voice along and against the grain to write a complex history of music, colonialism, and African self-liberation. Chikowero's book begins in the 1890s with missionary crusades against African performative cultures and African students being inducted into mission bands, which contextualize the music of segregated urban and mining company dance halls in the 1930s, and he builds genealogies of the Chimurenga music later popularized by guerrilla artists like Dorothy Masuku, Zexie Manatsa, Thomas Mapfumo, and others in the 1970s. Chikowero shows how Africans deployed their music and indigenous knowledge systems to fight for their freedom from British colonial domination and to assert their cultural sovereignty.

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Showing 376 through 400 of 12,710 results