The Jazz Ear by Ben Ratliff
Jazz is conducted almost wordlessly: John Coltrane rarely told his quartet what to do, and Miles Davis famously gave his group only the barest instructions before recording his masterpiece "Kind of Blue". Musicians are often loath to discuss their craft for fear of destroying its improvisational essence, rendering jazz among the most ephemeral and least transparent of the performing arts. In "The Jazz Ear", the acclaimed music critic Ben Ratliff sits down with jazz greats to discuss recordings by the musicians who most influenced them. In the process, he skillfully coaxes out a profound understanding of the men and women themselves, the context of their work, and how jazz from horn blare to drum riffs created conceptually. Expanding on his popular interviews for "The New York Times", Ratliff speaks with Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Branford Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Wayne Shorter, Joshua Redman, and others about the subtle variations in generation, training, and attitude that define their music. Playful and keenly insightful, "The Jazz Ear" is a revelatory exploration of a unique way of making and hearing music.
"THE JAZZ EAR will be a permanent part of learning how to listen inside the musicians playing" - Nat Hentoff, Jazz Times. "A small treasure. Ratcliff takes his curious, catholic ear to 15 artists and tangos with them on their own physical and psychic turf." - Time Out New York"
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780805090864 |
| ISBN 10 | 080509086X |
| Title | The Jazz Ear |
| Author | Ben Ratliff |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Times Books |
| Year published | 2009-10-27 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |