Experiencing Jazz: A Listener's Companion

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 genre's history. This groundbreaking book reframes 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." (Oct.)