Jazz: The First Century

by Quincy Jones

It's been called America's classical music. The infinite art. The heart and soul of all popular music. But whatever the label, jazz has played an immense cultural role worldwide, opening up vast vistas of musical creativity, generating unforgettable performances, and giving us such iconic artists as Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. The First Century marks the passage of the music's first hundred years by bringing together text and art in a rich, illustrated chronicle that opens up the vibrant world of jazz to everyone. The First Century is edited by John Edward Hasse, Curator of American Music at the Smithsonian Institution, leading a writing team of today's finest and most widely respected jazz authorities. Their compelling essays are complemented by an engrossing and sophisticated design packed with more than 300 images, including vintage photographs, sheet music covers, rare album jackets, posters, and more. From the beginning, jazz offered a new kind of musical expression perfectly suited to the innovation and rapid pace of life in the twentieth century. The First Century vividly illuminates the circumstances of the music's birth, examines the contributions of its most consequential musicians, and brings to life its many pleasures, from the emotionalism of early blues and the infectious syncopation of ragtime to the exhilaration of 1930s big-band swing and the awesome musical flights of bebop-from the understated sophistication of cool jazz and the boundless expressiveness of free improvisation to the electrifying power of fusion and the potent grooves of jazz-rap and hip-hop. In addition, seventy concise sidebars focus on important songs, key landmarks and personalities, and conventions of jazz performance and composition. They also examine the confluence of jazz with radio and television and with such art forms as film, painting, literature, poetry, classical music, and dance. Here also are hundreds of recommended recordings-selections based on opinions gathered in an international survey of historians, educators, critics, musicians, and broadcasters. For newcomers and aficionados alike, The First Century offers a wealth of enlightening information. It's an essential and comprehensive overview of the music Tony Bennett calls "Amrica's greatest contribution to the world...a celebration of life itself."

Genres: Music, Jazz

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2000

About the author

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was an American record producer, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received many accolades including 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for seven Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.
Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor before producing pop hit records for Lesley Gore in the early 1960s (including "It's My Party") and serving as an arranger and conductor for several collaborations between Frank Sinatra and the jazz artist Count Basie. Jones produced three of the most successful albums by pop star Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987). In 1985, Jones produced and conducted the charity song "We Are the World", which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia.
Jones composed numerous films scores including for The Pawnbroker (1965), In the Heat of the Night (1967), In Cold Blood (1967), The Italian Job (1969), The Wiz (1978), and The Color Purple (1985). He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for the miniseries Roots (1977). He received a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical as a producer for the revival of The Color Purple (2016).
Throughout his career he was the recipient of numerous honorary awards including the Grammy Legend Award in 1992, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1995, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2001, the National Medal of the Arts in 2011, the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2014, and the Academy Honorary Award in June 2024. He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time.

Reviews

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book Jazz: The First Century written by John Edward Hasse, is a very informative book that taught me the root origin of Jazz and how it has evolved today. The book has showed me some of the most iconic figures in jazz such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Buddy Rich. The Book also showed some of the newer artists such as Snarky Puppy, Kendrick Scott and Hiatus Kaiyote. This book shows where jazz all started and how has evolved into such a great art.
Jazz started during the time where Africans were uprooted and sold to America as slaves. Since African Americans were treated so poorly during the slave period they used the concept of jazz as a way to express themselves in such dark times. The book explains why jazz was so important to African Americans and their culture. The book explains how it is difficult to just keep the word jazz alive because it is in a constant battle with modern day pop music. Listening to jazz music is a challenge for your ear and brain, that's why not many people like jazz. Pop music is always the same; The tempo and rhythm has nothing unique about the song. I enjoyed reading this book because it showed how every jazz song has something new that is expressed and how it makes jazz such an outstanding piece of art.
The book Jazz: The First Century is an excellent book that explains how jazz started and how it is still great today. My rating for this book would be 5-5 stars because it better explains the concept of jazz than any other book I have read on this topic. I would recommend this book to people who are trying to find something new in music that gives them a challenge for their ears and mind. Jazz has evolved into such a great art and will someday be at its peak of power once more.

[Peter Campbell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the most irritating books on the subject of jazz that I have ever read. Edited by John Edward Hasse, who presumeably created the concept for the book, it contains a lot of information that is readily available elewhere and breaks no new ground. The idea was to bring together a number of respected jazz writers to contribute various chapters and sidebars on the history of the music. Well, the idea had some merit. But, Hasse's editing of the book was non-existant. Consequently, we get lots of information that is repeated by the different contributors, many serious omissions and, in one instance an attempt by Neil Tesser to redefine the parameters of what constitutes "the mainstream" of the music as universally accepted by his far more emminent peers.
All in all, a very disappointing book that newcomers to jazz would be best advised to avoid if they want to gain a clearer picture of jazz's first hundred years. Even the photographs in the book, which might have given the editor an opportunity to bring in hitherto unpublished material, are the same old stuff that have been seen in the jazz press many times before.

[Josie Quinn Chavez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodness Gracious... rather enjoyable.