jazz - Rumorstore search

Price: $179.99 USD

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 10/20/2005 Director: Ken Burns

Accompanied by a menagerie of products, Ken Burns's expansive 10-episode paean, Jazz, completes his trilogy on American culture, following The Civil War and Baseball. Spanning more than 19 hours, Jazz is, of course, about a lot more than what many have called America's classical music--especially in episodes 1 through 7. It's here that Burns unearths precious visual images of jazz musicians and hangs historical narratives around the music with convincing authority. Time can stand still as images float past to the sound of grainy vintage jazz, and the drama of a phonograph needle being placed on Louis Armstrong's celestial "West End Blues" is nearly sublime.

The film is also potent in arguing that the history of race in the 20th-century U.S. is at jazz's heart. But a few problems arise. First is Burns's reliance on Wynton Marsalis as his chief musical commentator. Marsalis might be charming and musically expert, but he's no historian. For the film to devote three of its episodes to the 1930s, one expects a bit more historical substance. Also, Jazz condenses the period of 1961 to the present into one episode, glossing over some of the music's giant steps. Burns has said repeatedly that he didn't know much about jazz when he began this project. So perhaps Jazz, for all its glory, would better be called Jazz: What I've Learned Since I Started Listening (And I Haven't Gotten Much Past 1961). For those who are already passionate about jazz, the film will stoke debate (and some derision, together with some reluctant praise). But for everyone else, it will amaze and entertain and kindle a flame for some of the greatest music ever dreamed. --Andrew Bartlett

Publisher: Pbs Paramount

Best of Smooth Jazz

Price: $13.98 USD

Midas Records is proud to announce the first ever CD from The Weather Channel ®, "The Best of Smooth Jazz." As 2007 marks the network's 25th anniversary, it also heralds the network's entry into retail music. Music has long been a source of interest for viewers who have been writing in for years asking where they can purchase the music they enjoy during the "Local on the 8s" segment, broadcast 288 minutes each day! The 12-song collection features the Channel's most requested music by such known artists as Dave Koz, Najee, Chick Corea, Pieces of a Dream, Joyce Cooling, Jeff Lorber, Four 80 East, 3rd Force and Paprika Soul. The CD also includes 3 most-requested songs heard only on The Weather Channel by Jeanne Ricks, Ryan Farish and Mark Krumowski.

History of Music on The Weather Channel

People who keep an eye on the weather also have an ear for music, judging from the huge number of inquiries from viewers of The Weather Channel, who have been asking "where can I get that music I just heard?" That's why a CD of "Local on the 8s" music from The Weather Channel is being presented. For the very first time, fans and admirers of the music have an opportunity to have their own compilation of many favorites.

Seven years ago, The Weather Channel stepped up its efforts to select music that viewers would enjoy. The responsibility was assigned to a network producer who had what some would call a "dream job" - spending hour after hour at music stores finding songs and artists that were right for The Weather Channel audience. Soon, viewers began to take notice of the fresh and contemporary sound of the new musical selections on The Weather Channel. The on-air music was well-received. Some people said that they kept the network on all day to stay in touch with the weather as well as to enjoy the music in the background.

Four years ago, the producer further refined the music "playlist" by scheduling different types of sounds during different parts of the day. For example, during the daytime, the music is light and upbeat. Moving into the evening, the selections have a slower tempo and are more sultry. And then they become even more mellow during the late night.

This blend of the many moods of jazz is captured on our first CD of "Local on the 8s." Out of over 3,000 songs that have been played over the years during local weather on The Weather Channel, we are proud to bring you a collection of favorites on our "Smooth Jazz" release.

Publisher: Midas Records

Jazz Icons: John Coltrane Live in '60, '61 & '65

Price: $21.98 USD

Jazz Icons: John Coltrane provides an epic 95-minute overview of a true giant of 20th-century music. Three separate shows reveal Coltrane's ascending creative arc from hard bop innovator as a member of the Miles Davis Quartet in 1960 to consummate bandleader in 1961 to unrivalled jazz visionary in 1965. This DVD not only features Trane's classic quartet with Elvin Jones (drums), Jimmy Garrison (bass) and McCoy Tyner (piano), but also spotlights him onstage with other jazz legends including Stan Getz, Eric Dolphy and Oscar Peterson. Includes mind-blowing versions of his signature tunes "My Favorite Things" and "Impressions".

As Ashley Kahn points out in his informative liner notes, there aren't many visual recordings of jazz giant John Coltrane in circulation--or, possibly, in existence. In capturing the saxophonist in three different phases in his too-brief career, this installment in the inestimable Jazz Icons video series performs a valuable service. The 92-minute DVD includes a 1960 performance in Dusseldorf, Germany, featuring Coltrane on tenor with his mates from Miles Davis's rhythm section, jamming on Miles's tunes; a 1961 performance in Baden Baden, Germany, with Coltrane on soprano and tenor, and Eric Dolphy on alto sax and flute, backed by pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Reggie Workman, and super-drummer Elvin Jones; and a surpassingly intense 1965 Belgium performance by "the Classic Quartet," with Jimmy Garrison replacing Workman. The black-and-white footage, some of it from broadcast sources, is sometimes striking, sometimes too shadowy (the dated camera effects, while evincing a certain period charm, still don't help). And a rare meeting of Coltrane and tenor great Stan Getz at the end of the Dusseldorf set is compromised by the poor miking of Getz. But we'll put up with such imperfections to hear the primal force of Trane's playing cut through the years, on songs ranging from "Autumn Leaves," to "Impressions," to "My Favorite Things." Trane lives. --Lloyd Sachs

Publisher: Jazz Icons

Ken Burns's Jazz: The Story of American Music

Price: $59.98 USD

This five-CD box set soundtrack to filmmaker Ken Burns's 10-part, 19-hour documentary Jazz spans nearly a century of jazz styles, from the martial rhythms of James Reese Europe to the soul-jazz of Grover Washington Jr. It includes time-tested classics like Benny Goodman's 1938 classic, "Sing, Sing, Sing"; John Coltrane's chanting 1965 immortal track, "A Love Supreme"; Billie Holiday's blue-ember ballad, "God Bless the Child"; and Ella Fitzgerald peeling off "A-Tisket A-Tasket." Bebop is represented by Charlie Parker's orchestral bop version of "Just Friends"; Thelonious Monk's nocturnal calling card, "'Round Midnight"; and Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts" and "Groovin' High."

The jazz-instrumentalist-as-singer comes to life on Coleman Hawkins's "Body and Soul" and Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers' "Doodlin'." Clifford Brown and Max Roach's "I Get a Kick out of You" epitomizes the hard-bop era, while Miles Davis's "So What" stands as the modal masterpiece. The cool school is in session with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan dishing out "Walkin' Shoes," and the Modern Jazz Quartet's soulful elegy "Django" straddles all the above musical orbits. As for Django Reinhardt, he's featured on "Shine" with the justly famed Le Quartet du Hot Club de France.

Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" and "Potato Head Blues" and Duke Ellington's rousing rendition of Billy Strayhorn's anthem, "Take the A Train," and his moody "Solitude" show why they are the Olympian masters of this art form--and the most frequently featured artists in the series. Although Ken Burns tries bringing the music up-to-date with Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, and two jazz-hip-hop-influenced tracks--Herbie Hancock's robotic "Rockit" and the French-language "Un Aige en Danger" by MC Solaar and bass legend Ron Carter--there are significant holes here. After Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman, the avant-garde period from the late 1960s to the 1980s is lacking. And aside from the bossa nova hit "Desafinado," Latin jazz is also missing. It's a tough task summarizing jazz in five CDs, and Burns has given us a vibrant and vivid multicolored aural portrait of the music. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Publisher: Sony

Jazz Portrait - Harlem, New York, 1958 People Art Poster Print by Art Kane, 35x24

Price: $24.00 USD

Art.com is the world's largest retailer of art prints, posters, photographs, and framed artwork. With our huge selection of over 400,000 prints, you'll easily find the perfect piece for your home, office, or classroom. Our art is printed on quality paper. When you order framed artwork, the piece is built by our team of in-house professionals. Visit our Amazon store today at www.amazon.com/artdotcom to find Special Offers and search for products based on 'Artist Name' and 'Subject Categories' such as Movie, Music, Vintage, TV, Children, Travel, Kitchen, Museum Art, Animals, Floral, Motivational, and Sports. Art.com is dedicated to providing you with high quality products and service by offering you 100% satisfaction guaranteed. We ship internationally to over 80 countries. Decorate your home today with your favorite pictures that express and celebrate your distinct tastes.

Publisher: Art.com

The History of Jazz

Price: $19.95 USD

Jazz is the most colorful and varied art form in the world and it was born in one of the most colorful and varied cities, New Orleans. From the seed first planted by slave dances held in Congo Square and nurtured by early ensembles led by Buddy Belden and Joe "King" Oliver, jazz began its long winding odyssey across America and around the world, giving flower to a thousand different forms--swing, bebop, cool jazz, jazz-rock fusion--and a thousand great musicians. Now, in The History of Jazz, Ted Gioia tells the story of this music as it has 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--Jelly Roll Morton ("the world's greatest hot tune writer"), Louis Armstrong (whose O-keh recordings of the mid-1920s still stand as the most significant body of work that jazz has produced), Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, cool jazz greats such as Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young, Charlie Parker's surgical precision of attack, Miles Davis's 1955 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Ornette Coleman's experiments with atonality, Pat Metheny's visionary extension of jazz-rock fusion, the contemporary sounds of Wynton Marsalis, and the post-modernists of the Knitting Factory. Gioia provides the reader with lively portraits of these and many other great musicians, intertwined with vibrant commentary on the music they created. Gioia also evokes the many worlds of jazz, taking the reader to the swamp lands of the Mississippi Delta, the bawdy houses of New Orleans, the rent parties of Harlem, the speakeasies of Chicago during the Jazz Age, the after hours spots of corrupt Kansas city, the Cotton Club, the Savoy, and the other locales where the history of jazz was made. And as he traces the spread of this protean form, Gioia provides much insight into the social context in which the music was born. He shows for instance how the development of technology helped promote the growth of jazz--how ragtime blossomed hand-in-hand with the spread of parlor and player pianos, and how jazz rode the growing popularity of the record industry in the 1920s. We also discover how bebop grew out of the racial unrest of the 1940s and '50s, when black players, no longer content with being "entertainers," wanted to be recognized as practitioners of a serious musical form. Jazz is a chameleon art, delighting us with the ease and rapidity with which it changes colors. Now, in Ted Gioia's The History of Jazz, we have at last a book that captures all these colors on one glorious palate. Knowledgeable, vibrant, and comprehensive, it is among the small group of books that can truly be called classics of jazz literature.

Author: Ted Gioia

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Jazz Icons: Series 2 Box Set (8 DVDs)

Price: $119.99 USD

Jazz Icons: Series 2 Bonus Disc features unseen performances from four of the artists in the second series of Jazz Icons. This DVD, not sold separately, contains unique performances by John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Dave Brubeck and Sarah Vaughan only available in this boxed set.

BONUS DISC TRACK LISTING John Coltrane - Sweden 1962 - I Want To Talk About You. Dexter Gordon - Norway 1964 - I Want More. Dave Brubeck - Finland 1964 - Unisphere. Sarah Vaughan - Sweden 1967 - The Shadow Of Your Smile, What Now My Love, I Had A Ball.

Publisher: Jazz Icons