NCW Libraries

"A biography of African American musician Melba Doretta Liston, a virtuoso musician who played the trombone and composed and arranged music for many of the great jazz musicians of the twentieth century. Includes afterword, discography, and sources"--

Discover the life and music of jazz luminary Ron Carter, the most recorded bassist in history. Filmed over six years, Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes invites viewers to meet the gentleman behind the bass. Best known as the rhythmic anchor in Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, Carter has since amassed more than 2,500 musical credits over a prolific six-decade career. His unmistakable melody and timbre accompany the likes of Chet Baker, Aretha...

"It's the summer of 1966, and high school freshman Kaoru Nishimi is struggling to adjust to the latest of many moves in his young life, this time to his uncle's home in the seaside town of Kyushu. It's never easy adjusting. It's never easy fitting in. But this time will be different. This time he'll meet friends who will change his life forever. And he'll discover a new passion, one that grabs his heart and rocks him to his very soul. It's music....

Jazz legend Chet Baker's tumultuous life is thrillingly re-imagined with wit, verve, and style to burn. In the 1950s, Baker was one of the most famous trumpeters in the world, renowned as both a pioneer of the West Coast jazz scene and an icon of cool.

Biography of a poor boy from New Orleans who became a jazz musician who is beloved around the world.

What begins as one woman's search for her own artistic courage unravels into a stunning look into what jazz music can teach out about our search for the truest version of ourselves. For Decades, seasoned players on the scene have spoken in whispered tones about The Blue: a mysterious meeting place for jazz history--a place where ghost from this music's storied past spring to life for those courageous enough to enter it. When Jessie Choi's mentor Jimmy...

A landmark biography that reclaims Ella Fitzgerald as a major American artist and modernist innovator. Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) possessed one of the twentieth century's most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. Becoming Ella Fitzgerald clears up long-enduring...

It is a love letter from director Bertrand Tavernier to the heyday of bebop and to the Black American musicians who found refuge in the smoky underground jazz clubs of 1950s Paris. In a miraculous, sui generis fusion of performer and character that was nominated for an Oscar, legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon plays Dale Turner, a brilliant New York jazz veteran whose music aches with beauty but whose personal life is ravaged by addiction. Searching...

Ever since she was a young girl, Lil Hardin played music with a beat. She jammed at home, at church, and even at her first job in a music store. At a time when women's only place in jazz was at the microphone, Lil earned a spot playing piano in Chicago's hottest band.

Art Pepper (1925-1982) was called the greatest alto saxophonist of the post-Charlie Parker generation. But his autobiography, Straight Life, is much more than a jazz book - it is one of the most explosive, yet one of the most lyrical, of all autobiographies. This edition is updated with an extensive afterword by Laurie Pepper covering Art Pepper's last years, and a complete and up-to-date discography by Todd Selbert.