Books about Marsalis from Amazon.com

“In this book I hope to reach a new audience with the positive message of America’s greatest music, to show how great musicians demonstrate on the bandstand a mutual respect and trust that can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life–from individual creativity and personal relationships to conducting business and understanding what it means to be American in the most modern sense.”
–Wynton Marsalis

In this beautiful book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musician and composer Wynton Marsalis explores jazz and how an understanding of it can lead to deeper, more original ways of being, living, and relating–for individuals, communities, and nations. Marsalis shows us how to listen to jazz, and through stories about his life and the lessons he has learned from other music greats, he reveals how the central ideas in jazz can influence the way people think and even how they behave with others, changing self, family, and community for the better. At the heart of jazz is the expression of personality and individuality, coupled with an ability to listen to and improvise with others. Jazz as an art–and as a way to move people and nations to higher ground–is at the core of this unique, illuminating, and inspiring book, a master class on jazz and life by a brilliant American artist.

Advance praise for Moving to Higher Ground

“An absolute joy to read. Intimate, knowledgeable, supremely worthy of its subject. In addition to demolishing mediocre, uniformed critics, Moving to Higher Ground is a meaningful contribution to music scholarship.”
–Toni Morrison

“I think it should be in every bookstore, music store, and school in the country.”
–Tony Bennett

“Jazz, for Wynton Marsalis, is nothing less than a search for wisdom. He thinks as forcefully, and as elegantly, as he swings. When he reflects on improvisation, his subject is freedom. When he reflects on harmony, his subject is diversity and conflict and peace. When he reflects on the blues, his subject is sorrow and the mastery of it–how to be happy without being blind. There is philosophy in Marsalis’s trumpet, and in this book. Here is the lucid and probing voice of an uncommonly soulful man.”
–Leon Wieseltier, literary editor, The New Republic

“Wynton Marsalis is absolutely the person who should write this book. Here he is, as young as morning, as fresh as dew, and already called one of the jazz greats. He is not only a seer and an exemplary musician, but a poet as well. He informs us that jazz was created, among other things, to expose the hypocrisy and absurdity of racism and other ignorances in our country. Poetry was given to human beings for the same reason. This book could be called “How Love Can Change Your Life,” for there could be no jazz without love. By love, of course, I do not mean mush, or sentimentality. Love can only exist with courage, and this book could not be written without Wynton Marsalis’s courage. He has the courage to make powerful music and to love the music so, that he willingly shares its riches with the entire human family. We are indebted to him.”
–Maya Angelou


From the Hardcover edition..
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In To a Young Jazz Musician, the renowned jazz musician and Pulitzer Prize—winning composer Wynton Marsalis gives us an invaluable guide to making good music–and to leading a good life.
Writing from the road “between the bus ride, the sound check, and the gig,”

Marsalis passes on wisdom gained from experience, addressed to a young musician coming up–and to any of us at any stage of life. He writes that having humility is a way to continue to grow, to listen, and to learn; that patience is necessary for developing both technical proficiency and your own art rather than an imitation of someone else’s; and that rules are indispensable because “freedom lives in structure.”

He offers lessons learned from his years as a performer and from his great forebears Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and others; he explores the art of swing; he discusses why it is important to run toward your issues, not away; and he talks about what to do when your integrity runs up against the lack thereof in others and in our culture. He poetically expresses our need for healers: “All of it tracks back to how you heal your culture, one patient at a time, beginning with yourself.”

This is a unique book, in which a great artist offers his personal thoughts, both on jazz and on how to live a better, more original, productive, and meaningful life. To a Young Jazz Musician is sure to be treasured by readers young and old, musicians, lovers of music, and anyone interested in being mentored by one of America’s most influential, generous, and talented artists.


From the Hardcover edition..
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* A concise history of jazz * The noteworthy composers and musicians, from Jelly Roll Morton and Thelonious Monk to Miles Davis and Charles Mingus * Major performers from Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald to Nat King Cole and Duke Ellington * Classic songs and compositions * The most influential recordings of all time * A complete guide to jazz terminology and lingo * valuable resources for the Curious Listener

Plus: The 50 Influential Jazz CDs.
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This book gathers together responses to the hurricane from over thirty contributors, including community activists, sociologists, writers, and musicians Some have been displaced by the hurricane and write about what they have lost in the flooding of New Orleans. Others write from a distance, seeing patterns in the response to the hurricane that reflect a racially biased culture. Together they offer not only critical assessments of what went wrong, but also hopeful conjecture about possibilities for the future of the Gulf Coast and the United States..
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In a swinging improvisation with poster artist Paul Rogers, Wynton Marsalis celebrates the spirit of twenty-six stellar jazz performers, from Armstrong to Dizzy — and showcases the same number of poetic forms.

A is for "almighty" Louis Armstrong, whose amazing artistry unfolds in an accumulative poem shaped like the letter he stands for. As for sax master Sonny Rollins, whose "robust style radiates roundness," could there be a better tribute than a poetic rondeau? In an extraordinary feat, Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz composer Wynton Marsalis harmonizes his love and knowledge of jazz's most celebrated artists with an astounding diversity of poetic forms — from simple blues (Count Basie) to a complex pantoum (Charlie Parker), from a tender sonnet (Sarah Vaughan) to a performance poem snapping the rhythms of Art Blakey to life.

Matching Wynton Marsalis's musical cadences note for note is the bold, poster-style art of Paul Rogers, highlighted in two phenomenal foldout spreads. The art's vibrant nostalgic feel is echoed in an exquisite design, with its size simulating an old 78 LP and its endpapers die-cut to mimic a vintage record sleeve. Complete with a discography and brief biographies of the featured musicians as well as notes on the various poetic forms, this is truly an incomparable gift book — for older children learning about jazz, longtime jazz aficionados, lovers of poetry, and readers of all ages who appreciate the finest in book design..
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"I don’t know a jazz aficionado who could resist it." — "The O List," O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

The award-winning book by celebrated jazz composer Wynton Marsalis is now available with an exclusive art print by illustrator Paul Rogers.

Featured on National Public Radio’s ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

Winner of a Bologna Ragazzi Award

A Norman Sugarman Honor Book for Excellence in Children’s Biography

An International Reading Association Children’s Book Award Winner

Winner of a Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry

Four starred reviews (BOOKLIST, KIRKUS REVIEWS, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL).
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