
How to Listen to Jazz
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Narrated by:
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Peter Ganim
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By:
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Ted Gioia
About this listen
A "radiantly accomplished" music scholar presents an accessible introduction to the art of listening to jazz (Wall Street Journal).
In How to Listen to Jazz, award-winning music scholar Ted Gioia presents a lively introduction to one of America's premier art forms. He tells us what to listen for in a performance and includes a guide to today's leading jazz musicians. From Louis Armstrong's innovative sounds to the jazz-rock fusion of Miles Davis, Gioia covers the music's history and reveals the building blocks of improvisation. A true love letter to jazz by a foremost expert, How to Listen to Jazz is a must-listen for anyone who's ever wanted to understand and better appreciate America's greatest contribution to music.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
©2017 Ted Gioia (P)2017 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Overall
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Performance
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Critic reviews
"Mr. Gioia could not have done a better job. Through him, jazz might even find new devotees." (Economist)
People who viewed this also viewed...
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Written by award-winning jazz historian Ted Gioia, this comprehensive guide offers an illuminating look at more than 250 seminal jazz compositions. In this comprehensive and unique survey, here are the songs that sit at the heart of the jazz repertoire, ranging from "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Autumn in New York" to "God Bless the Child," "How High the Moon," and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." Gioia includes Broadway show tunes written by such greats as George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, and classics by such famed jazz musicians as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and John Coltrane.
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- A History of America's Music
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- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of jazz encompasses the story of American courtship and show business; the epic growth of cities, and the struggle for civil rights and simple justice that continues into the new millennium. If you haven't already, download the accompanying audio to Ken Burns' remarkable documentary!
-
-
Good content but reading not clear
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By: Geoffrey C. Ward, and others
-
Playing Changes
- Jazz for the New Century
- By: Nate Chinen
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
“Playing changes”, in jazz parlance, has long referred to an improviser’s resourceful path through a chord progression. Playing Changes boldly expands on the idea, highlighting a host of significant changes - ideological, technological, theoretical, and practical - that jazz musicians have learned to navigate since the turn of the century. Nate Chinen, who has chronicled this evolution firsthand throughout his journalistic career, vividly sets the backdrop, charting the origins of jazz historicism and the rise of an institutional framework for the music.
-
-
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By: Nate Chinen
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- The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music
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- Narrated by: Chris Abernathy
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The blues grew out of the plantations and prisons, the swampy marshes and fertile cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta. With original research and keen insights, Ted Gioia - the author of a landmark study of West Coast jazz and the critically acclaimed The History of Jazz - brings to life the stirring music of the Delta, evoking the legendary figures who shaped its sound and ethos: Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, and others.
-
-
A well-researched history of the blues
- By Joselo on 08-19-21
By: Ted Gioia
-
The History of Jazz, Second Edition
- By: Ted Gioia
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 21 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ted Gioia's History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a classic - acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the music, past and present. Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had never been told before, in a book that brilliantly portrays the legendary jazz players, the breakthrough styles, and the world in which it evolved. Here are the giants of jazz and the great moments of jazz history.
-
-
An Exciting Opportunity Missed
- By Kindle Customer on 02-02-15
By: Ted Gioia
-
Music
- A Subversive History
- By: Ted Gioia
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs. Gioia tells a 4,000-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval.
-
-
Squeezing cherry-picked facts into a simplistic narrative
- By Erik A. Ritland on 11-24-20
By: Ted Gioia
-
The Jazz Standards
- A Guide to the Repertoire
- By: Ted Gioia
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 21 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written by award-winning jazz historian Ted Gioia, this comprehensive guide offers an illuminating look at more than 250 seminal jazz compositions. In this comprehensive and unique survey, here are the songs that sit at the heart of the jazz repertoire, ranging from "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Autumn in New York" to "God Bless the Child," "How High the Moon," and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." Gioia includes Broadway show tunes written by such greats as George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, and classics by such famed jazz musicians as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and John Coltrane.
-
-
Great info, but not ideal in audio format
- By Patrick on 08-30-14
By: Ted Gioia
-
Jazz
- A History of America's Music
- By: Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns
- Narrated by: LeVar Burton
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of jazz encompasses the story of American courtship and show business; the epic growth of cities, and the struggle for civil rights and simple justice that continues into the new millennium. If you haven't already, download the accompanying audio to Ken Burns' remarkable documentary!
-
-
Good content but reading not clear
- By Ken on 02-07-03
By: Geoffrey C. Ward, and others
-
Playing Changes
- Jazz for the New Century
- By: Nate Chinen
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Playing changes”, in jazz parlance, has long referred to an improviser’s resourceful path through a chord progression. Playing Changes boldly expands on the idea, highlighting a host of significant changes - ideological, technological, theoretical, and practical - that jazz musicians have learned to navigate since the turn of the century. Nate Chinen, who has chronicled this evolution firsthand throughout his journalistic career, vividly sets the backdrop, charting the origins of jazz historicism and the rise of an institutional framework for the music.
-
-
Jazz happens
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-
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- The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music
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- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
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- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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From the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy, a sweeping and spellbinding portrait of the longtime kings of jazz—Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie—who, born within a few years of one another, overcame racist exclusion and violence to become the most popular entertainers on the planet.
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Well Organized and Themed
- By unhae campbell on 05-23-24
By: Larry Tye
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Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion
- By: Bill Messenger, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Bill Messenger
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
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Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.
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A Disappointingly Distorted, Myopic View Of Jazz
- By Parallax View on 08-18-13
By: Bill Messenger, and others
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The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles
- How Music Has Shaped Civilization
- By: Howard Goodall
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Music is an intrinsic part of everyday life, and yet the history of its development from single notes to multilayered orchestration can seem bewilderingly complex. In his dynamic tour through forty thousand years of music, from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop, Howard Goodall leads us through the story of music as it happened, idea by idea, so that each musical innovation—harmony, notation, sung theater, the orchestra, dance music, recording—strikes us with its original force.
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Great intro to musc history
- By Enthusiast on 03-06-16
By: Howard Goodall
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First Friends
- The Powerful, Unsung (and Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents
- By: Gary Ginsberg
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In the best-selling tradition of The Presidents Club and Presidential Courage, White House history as told through the stories of the best friends and closest confidants of American presidents.
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An intuitive romp through history.
- By Douglas on 07-12-21
By: Gary Ginsberg
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The Blues
- The Authentic Narrative of My Music and Culture
- By: Chris Thomas King
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 24 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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All prior histories on the blues have alleged it originated on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Not true, says author Chris Thomas King. In The Blues, King presents facts to disprove such myths. For example, as early as 1900, the sound of the blues was ubiquitous in New Orleans. The Mississippi Delta, meanwhile, was an unpopulated sportsman’s paradise - the frontier was still in the process of being cleared and drained for cultivation. Moreover, this book is the first to argue that the blues began as a cosmopolitan art form, not a rural one.
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Required Reading for Blues Lovers!
- By John Yutzy on 08-27-21
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Franklin & Washington
- The Founding Partnership
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrated by: Andrew Tell
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Today the United States is the world’s great superpower, and yet we also wrestle with the government Franklin and Washington created more than two centuries ago - the power of the executive branch, the principle of checks and balances, the electoral college - as well as the wounds of their compromise over slavery. Now, as the founding institutions appear under new stress, it is time to understand their origins through the fresh lens of Larson’s Franklin & Washington, a major addition to the literature of the founding era.
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Two together, written about at same time
- By fair & balanced on 03-28-21
By: Edward J. Larson
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When Death Becomes Life
- Notes from a Transplant Surgeon
- By: Joshua D. Mezrich
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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At the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Joshua Mezrich creates life from loss, transplanting organs from one body to another. In this intimate, profoundly moving work, he illuminates the extraordinary field of transplantation that enables this kind of miracle to happen every day.
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Memoir and history, beautifully written
- By Bonny on 01-22-19
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Thelonious Monk
- The Life and Times of an American Original
- By: Robin DG Kelley
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 25 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Thelonious Monk is the critically acclaimed, gripping saga of an artist's struggle to "make it" without compromising his musical vision. It is a story that, like its subject, reflects the tidal ebbs and flows of American history in the 20th century. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of "bebop" and establishing Monk as one of America's greatest composers.
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The definitive bio of Monk
- By ricardo on 12-27-17
By: Robin DG Kelley
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How to Astronaut
- An Insider's Guide to Leaving Planet Earth
- By: Terry Virts
- Narrated by: Terry Virts
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts offers an insider's guide to astronauting—a behind-the-scenes look at the training, the basic rules, lessons, and procedures of space travel, including how to deal with a dead body in space, what it’s like to film an IMAX movie in orbit, what exactly to do when nature calls, and much more, in 51 brief chapters.
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A Tough Review to Write
- By Todd R Fredricks on 03-27-21
By: Terry Virts
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Con/Artist
- The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger
- By: Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone, Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The art world is a much dirtier, nastier business than you might expect. Tony Tetro, one of the most renowned art forgers in history, will make you question every masterpiece you’ve ever seen in a museum, gallery, or private collection. Tetro’s “Rembrandts,” “Caravaggios,” “Miros,” and hundreds of other works now hang on walls around the globe.
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Incredibly interesting!
- By Carole Wooten on 12-07-22
By: Tony Tetro, and others
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Bite
- An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans
- By: Bill Schutt
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In Bite, zoologist Bill Schutt makes a surprising case: it is teeth that are responsible for the long-term success of vertebrates. The appearance of teeth, roughly half a billion years ago, was an adaptation that allowed animals with backbones, such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, dinosaurs and mammals—including us—to chow down in pretty much every conceivable environment.
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excellent
- By Amazon Customer on 02-09-25
By: Bill Schutt
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Jazz 101
- By: John F. Szwed
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Jazz 101 is a fascinating entry into the world of jazz, for the beginner, novice, or jazz enthusiast. Szwed takes listeners on a tour of the varied and nonlinear history of jazz, exploring how it developed from an ethnic music to become America's most popular music and then part of the avant-garde in less than 50 years.
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Great book for understanding Jazz
- By Tim on 11-02-04
By: John F. Szwed
A great book
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Excellent work
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Not really a "how to"
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Solid Introduction
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Love Jazz, now I understand why!
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Excellent!
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Loved everything about the material in this book!
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In this regard, I gained far more understanding of the concepts by watching a 23-minute YouTube video ("Jazz Rhythm - Beginners Guide: Swing 8ths, Syncopation, and Rhythmic Phrasing" by Kent Hewitt—whom I have no affiliation with other than being a viewer) than by listening to this book for several hours. This limitation is clearly due to the format of this audiobook, which is a reading of a paper book. Unfortunately, it fails to leverage the potential of the audiobook format by incorporating actual music samples into the content.
If someone wants to learn to enjoy jazz without formal music training, I would recommend watching a few good YouTube videos first.
My hope in providing this review is to encourage the author to enhance this audiobook by addressing the lack of live music samples.
Informative but Not Effective
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Excellent content, annoying reading
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