Jazz Greats

The history of jazz from its beginnings to its present day.

David Perry

Recounts the history of jazz from its beginnings to the present day through the lives of 12 great jazz-men, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis
Draws on the author's interviews with jazz musicians and key witnesses, many recorded here for the first time
Sets their lives against the background of social history, particularly slavery and the rise of the Civil Rights movement

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Dubbed by Leonard Bernstein as 'the only original American art form', jazz is the epitome of spontaneous musical expression. Its development is traced here through the lives of 12 landmark jazz-legends: Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Buddy Bolden, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

The fascinating dimensions of their story lie not only in an account of musical innovation, but in the rich social history to which their work bears witness.

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David Perry is a writer, film-maker and radio producer with a special interest in jazz. He has written on jazz for the Independent and the Observer, and prepared a series of jazz portraits for BBC Radio 3.

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'As a series, Phaidon's 20th Century Composers has brought remarkable variety and a welter of information, both necessary and delightfully trivial. Intended both for the general reader and for the more enthusiatically musical...' (The Scotsman)

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