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Ted Gioia
Ted Gioia can be contacted at
tedgioia@hotmail.com

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The History of Jazz
Revised and Expanded 2011 Edition
It's hard to imagine that "the cool" could ever
go out of style. After all, cool is style. Isn't it?
And it may be harder to imagine a world where
people no longer aspire to coolness. In this
intriguing cultural history, nationally acclaimed
author Ted Gioia shows why cool is not a
timeless concept and how it has begun to lose
meaning and fade into history. Gioia deftly
argues that what became iconic in the 1950s
with Miles Davis, James Dean, and others has
been manipulated, stretched, and pushed to a
breaking point—not just in our media
entertainment, and fashion industries, but also
by corporations, political leaders, and social
institutions. Tolling the death knell for the cool,
this thought-provoking book reveals how and
why a new cultural tone is emerging, one
marked by sincerity, earnestness, and a quest
for authenticity.


Listen to a podcast interview with the author here.

Order the book
here.
Also available:

Delta Blues by Ted Gioia, a notable
book of the year in The New York
Times and a "best of the year" book in
The Economist is now available in
paperback.

Read more about Delta Blues
here.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ORDER
Check out Ted's writing on books and literary matters at these web sites

Great Books Guide
Reviews of current works of literary fiction

The New Canon
Focus on the best literary fiction published since 1985

Conceptual Fiction
In-depth look at storytelling with a conceptual tilt, including classic works of science fiction,
fantasy, magical realism and alternate history.

Postmodern Mystery
Celebrating postmodern and unconventional stories of mystery and suspense

Ted's Twitter Feed
Selected Ted Gioia publications on the web:

Notes on Conceptual Fiction
The Music of the Tango
Twelve Essential Tango Recordings
Alan Lomax and the FBI
Exhuming Robert Musil: A Fresh Look at The Man Without Qualities
A History of Cool Jazz in 100 Tracks
Did Robert Johnson Sell His Soul to the Devil?
The Eight Memes of the Postmodern Mystery
A History of New Orleans Music in 100 Tracks
Review of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
A Conversation about Jazz with Ted Gioia
Jazz Vocals in the New Millennium
In Search of Dupree Bolton
Where Did Our Revolution Go?
One Dozen Memorable Works of Hispanic Fiction
Review of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice
The Alt Reality Nobel Prize
Review of Don DeLillo's Underworld
Milton Nascimento: 12 Essential Tracks
Review of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Bill Evans: 12 Essential Tracks
Early Vintage Wynton Marsalis
Robert Heinlein at One Hundred
The Fourteen Skies of Michael Chabon
Is Bird Dead?
Who is Grace Kelly?
Review of Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude
Why Lester Young Matters
Could Chet Baker Play Jazz?
Review of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
The Jazzy Side of Frank Zappa
Fritz Leiber at 100
Review of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas
Harlem Jazz: 12 Essential Tracks
Review of Mark Z. Danielweski's House of Leaves
The Postmodern Mystery: 50 Essential Works
Fringe Guitar
J.G. Ballard's Crash
Herbie Hancock: 12 Essential Tracks
Keith Jarrett: 12 Essential Tracks
Brad Mehldau: 12 Essential Tracks
Assessing Brad Mehldau at Mid-Career
Review of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian
Review of Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones
Lennie Tristano: 12 Essential Tracks
Denny Zeitlin on Mosaic
Franco: The James Brown of Africa
The King of Western Swing
The Chronicles of Narnia
Tito Puente: The Complete 78s (1949-1955)
Review of Ian McEwan's Atonement
See Ted Gioia's contribution to
A New Literary History of America,
edited by Greil Marcus and
Werner Sollors, published by
Harvard University Press
Check out Ted's new site
Postmodern Mystery
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
The Birth (and Death) of the Cool
Ted Gioia's The History of Jazz has been universally hailed as a
classic--acclaimed by jazz critics and fans around the world. Now
Gioia brings his magnificent work completely up-to-date, drawing
on the latest research and revisiting virtually every aspect of the
music, past and present. Gioia tells the story of jazz as it had
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, Louis Armstrong, Duke
Ellington at the Cotton Club, cool jazz greats such as Gerry
Mulligan, Stan Getz, and Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Dizzy
Gillespie's advocacy of modern jazz in the 1940s, 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 current day.  A
well-written, widely-researched, enjoyable read for both fans and
scholars of jazz.


Order the book here.