Bill Kirchner, editor of The Oxford Companion to Jazz, writes:
In the fall of 2000, The Oxford Companion to Jazz
was published–864 pages long, with 60 essays by 59 distinguished musicians,
scholars, and critics. In 2001, the Jazz Journalists Association voted it “Best
Jazz Book” of the year. And it received over 50 reviews worldwide, about 90
percent of them positive. My favorite “review,” though, came from composer-arranger Johnny Mandel,
who remarked: “Putting this book together must have been like being contractor
for the Ellington band.”
I’m pleased to announce that this month, the Companion has just become
available in a new paperback edition, complete with a number of small additions
and corrections. It can be purchased in bookstores internationally as well as from a variety of Internet outlets. At, I might add, an even more reasonable price than previously: $29.95 U.S. (retail).
If you haven’t yet checked out this book (which a number of schools have used as a textbook), I hope that the following list of essays and contributors will serve as encouragement.
– “African Roots of Jazz”–Samuel A. Floyd, Jr.
– “European Roots of Jazz”–William H. Youngren
– “Ragtime Then and Now”–Max Morath
– “The Early Origins of Jazz”–Jeff Taylor
– “New York Roots: Black Broadway, James Reese Europe, Early Pianists”–Thomas L. Riis
– “The Blues in Jazz”–Bob Porter
– “Bessie Smith”–Chris Albertson
– “King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, and Sidney Bechet: M