Gary Giddins

From 1934 to 1954, Bing Crosby utterly dominated American entertainment. The number one movie star for five years in a row, he had more hit records than anyone in history. The rise of Bing Crosby was the rise of the American popular culture itself.

In this commanding biography, eminent cultural critic Gary Giddins takes us on the remarkable journey that brought a provincial young law student from Spokane to the pinnacle of the entertainment world.

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" Within days of Charlie "Bird" Parker's death at the age of thirty-four, a scrawled legend began appearing on walls around New York City: Bird Lives. Gone was one of the most outstanding jazz musicians of any era, the troubled genius who brought modernism to jazz and became a defining cultural force for musicians, writers, and artists of every stripe. Arguably the most significant musician in the country at the time of his death, Parker set the standard...

Louis Armstrong has been called the most influential jazz musician of the century. Together this auspicious pairing has resulted in Satchmo, one of the most vivid and fascinating portraits ever drawn of perhaps the greatest figure in the history of American music. Available now at a new price, this text-only edition is the authoritative introduction to Armstrong's life and art for the curious newcomer and offers fresh insight even for the serious...

Between 1955 and 1960 rhythm and blues and rock ' roll erode jazz' audiences but the music still enjoys tremendous creativity. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins and trumpeter Clifford Brown make their marks while Duke Ellington emerges stronger than ever and Miles Davis and John Coltrane make legendary albums. Louis Armstrong jeopardizes his career when he condemns the government for its failure to act on racism in Little Rock, Ark. Drummer Art Blakely and...

Jazz is born in New Orleans at the turn of the century emerging from several forms of music including ragtime, marching bands, work songs, spirituals, creole music, funeral parade music and above all, the blues. Musicians profiled here who advanced early jazz are Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Freddie Keppard, and musicians of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.

In the 1960s jazz fragments into the avant-garde and many divided schools of thought. Many jazz musicians like Dexter Gordon are forced to leave America in search of work while other use the music as a form of social protest: Max Roach, Charles Mingus, and Archie Shepp make overtly political musical statements. John Coltrane appeals to a broad audience before his untimely death. Saxophonist Stan Getz helps boost a craze for bossa nova music, but in...

Amid the hard times of the Depression new dances, the Lindy Hop and Swing, caught on at the dance halls of New York even as the jobless lined the streets and drought ruined Midwest farms. Jazz, during 1929 through 1935, lifted the nation's spirit. Record sales boomed while Armstrong became a major entertainer as singer, trumpeter, band leader, radio and film performer. Ellington's elegance, compositions, brilliant band films and recordings created...

By 1924 to 1928 jazz is everywhere in America and spreading abroad. For the first time, soloists and singers take center stage, transforming the music with their distinctive voices. This episode traces the careers of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Sidney Bechet, Bessie Smith, Earl Hines, Ethel Waters, Bix Beiderbecke, the first great white jazz artist and Benny Goodman, the son of Jewish immigrants.