The Jazz Tradition

When it was first published in 1970, this lively and fascinating book was greeted with almost universal acclaim. The American Record Guide called it "the best one-volume of jazz we have," and the Jazz Journal praised it as "a brilliant study of the whole of jazz." Perhaps the greatest tribute was paid by Louis Armstrong himself who raved: "it held Ol' Satch spellbound." Now thoroughly revised and expanded, the new edition of The Jazz Tradition offers readers a unique history of jazz, as seen through its greatest practitioners.
An original blend of history and criticism, this book explores the work of nearly two dozen leading musicians and ensembles that have shaped the course of jazz, from King Oliver's Creole Jazz band to the present day. Couched in the same readable, non-technical language that made earlier editions so popular, The Jazz Tradition adds new chapters on some of the more recent giants of jazz, performers like pianist Bill Evans, versatile horn player and saxophonist Eric Dolphy, and the World Saxophone Quartet, and considerably expands the chapter devoted to Count Basie. In addition, a foreword by Richard Crawford introduces the new edition, and the discographies on each performer have been fully brought up to date. Written by an author The Washington Post lauded as "the most knowledgeable, open-minded, and perceptive American jazz critic today," The Jazz Tradition belongs in the library of all lovers of this distinctly American sound.

Martin Williams, who died in 1993, exerted an enormous influence on America's dialogue about jazz. He directed the Smithsonian Institute's jazz program, oversaw reissues on LP, cassette, and compact disc, and wrote a slew of books on the topic. His most lasting legacy, however, may be this compact volume, which appeared in a revised and expanded version in 1992. Williams approaches his material with a New Critical bent, analyzing specific performances--sometimes even specific phrases--in search of improvisational gold. But he brings a new clarity to everything he touches, from Jelly Roll Morton to the World Saxophone Quartet. And while Williams liked to keep his prose free of rhetorical fireworks, he's quite capable of registering the sublime. Here, for example, he sets the record straight on late-period Louis Armstrong: "Well into his 60s, Armstrong would play on some evenings in an astonishing way--astonishing not so much because of what he played as that he played it with such power, sureness, firmness, authority, such commanding presence as to be beyond category, almost (as they say of Beethoven's late quartets) to be beyond music."