Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

From bebop to New Orleans, from ragtime to boogie--and every style in between--this collection of energetic poems, accompanied by bright and exhilarating paintings, celebrates different styles of the American art form, jazz.

Jazz is a uniquely American art form. This popular style of music sprang from post-slavery African-American culture, as children of slaves settled in big cities. They began to fuse their musical heritage with the influences of their new surroundings, and the result is still felt in the music we know as jazz today.

The first of two volumes tracing the life of one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century draws on interviews with family, peers, and collaborators to reveal Charlie Parker's Depression-era childhood and his early career in Kansas City and New York.

Andrew Neyman is an ambitious young jazz drummer, single-minded in his pursuit to rise to the top of his elite east coast music conservatory. Plagued by the failed writing career of his father, Andrew hungers day and night to become one of the greats. Terence Fletcher, an instructor equally known for his teaching talents as for his terrifying methods, leads the top jazz ensemble in the school. Fletcher discovers Andrew and transfers the aspiring drummer...

Introduces the famous saxophonist and his style of jazz known as bebop.

Jack and Annie must travel back in time to New Orleans in 1915 to help a teenaged Louis Armstrong fulfill his destiny and become the "King of Jazz."

This enhanced e-book includes 49 of the greatest songs Ralph Peer was involved with, from groundbreaking numbers that changed the history of recorded music to revelatory obscurities, all linked to the text so that the reader can hear the music while reading about it. This is the first biography of Ralph Peer, the adventurous-even revolutionary-A&R man and music publisher who saw the universal power locked in regional roots music and tapped it, changing...

The music, literature, and culture that came out of the Harlem Renaissance is still celebrated today--and continues to influence art around the world. This book explores the people and places that made the era so important. The Racial Justice in America: Excellence and Achievement series celebrates Black achievement and culture, while exploring racism in a comprehensive, honest, and age-appropriate way. Developed in conjunction with educator, advocate,...