Experiencing Jazz A Listener's Companion [Hardcover]

Award-winning writer, teacher, and renowned jazz drummer Michael Stephans invites the reader on a guided tour of the jazz world in this essential survey of the genres history. This groundbreaking book reframes the ever-evolving, distinctly human, art of jazz and invites readers to relearn how to listen. Yes, listening, really listening to music is the lost art that Stephans works to preserve. He forgoes chronological order, instead approaching the subject from the standpoint of instruments and musical innovators while offering a comprehensive social, cultural, and musical history of jazz, from its birth to its present day. This survey of jazz is particular among jazz appreciation texts because it is written by a jazz musician who is currently active on the global jazz scene. With a forward by esteemed jazz writer Doug Ramsey, and preface by jazz master Dave Liebman, this text is a culmination of many prominent voices of the jazz world. At the heart of the book, readers are invited onto the bandstand to listen to personal accounts and legendary jazz stories. In an art form that enriches the lives of the listener and the musician, 'the more we listen, the more we hear.'Stephans, a prominent jazz musician, has written widely on jazz music and has written promotional material for many fine musicians. His style is straightforward and easygoing, and will help long-time listeners of jazz and those new to the genre cultivate an understanding and appreciation of jazz music. He gives readers explanations of both technical and scholarly aspects but also important points of what we should be listening for. He provides a survey in the art of listening to jazz and provides an insider's perspective to its ever-changing culture. Along the way he provides readers chapters with important historical and musical insights into the history and styles of jazz during the 1940s and 1950s, discusses the functions and forms of jazz on and off the bandstand, gives details on small groups and l“m