Composers and songwriters Books

A Living Jazz Legend, musician and composer David Baker has made a distinctive mark on the world of music in his nearly 60-year career--as player (chiefly on trombone and cello), composer, and educator. In this richly illustrated volume, Monika Herzig...

Morley Calvert's Suite from the Monteregian Hills is cherished by brass players worldwide and performed hundreds of times annually, making Calvert perhaps the most performed Canadian composer outside the country. Yet little is known about Calvert beyond...

The manuscript Seville, Biblioteca Colombina y Capitular 5-2-25, a composite of dozens of theoretical treatises, is one of the primary witnesses to late medieval music theory. Its numerous copies of significant texts have been the focus of substantial...

Addressing the interart, intertextual, and intermedial dimensions of David Bowie's sonic and visual legacy, this book considers more than five decades of a career invested with a star's luminosity that shines well beyond the remit of pop music.The book...

Here are 40 lute fantasies from the Late Renaissance Lute compiled by Elias Mertel, (15601 - 1626), who was perhaps the best known German lutenist of his day. These pieces have been transcribed for the baritone ukulele, Renaissance guitar, low G...

An authoritative biography charting the extraordinary relationship of pop's two megastars.

The poignant memoir of forgotten Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe, and a remarkable chronicle of the early days of the world's most influential pop group.

David S. Thompson is the author and master artist for his book, The Face of Music. His book was eleven years in the making and is a collection of over 300 of his hand-drawn portraits from the twentieth century, comprising the history of music's most...

Giacomo Puccini is one of the most frequently performed and best loved of all operatic composers. In Il Trittico, Turandot, and Puccini's Late Style, Andrew Davis takes on the subject of Puccini's last two works to better understand how the composer...

As soloist, master class teacher, and pianist of the world-renowned Beaux Arts Trio, Menahem Pressler can boast of four Grammy nominations, three honorary doctorates, more than 80 recordings, and lifetime achievement awards presented by France, Germany,...

How the British rock band Radiohead subverts the idea of the concept album in order to articulate themes of alienation and anti-capitalism is the focus of Marianne Tatom Letts's analysis of Kid A and Amnesiac. These experimental albums marked a departure...

Throughout his career, Johnny Cash has been depicted-and has depicted himself-as a walking contradiction: social protestor and establishment patriot, drugged wildman and devout Christian crusader, rebel outlaw hillbilly thug and elder statesman. Leigh H...

'I've been told that I'm married to my music, and - fair enough - I have to admit it's the most successful marriage I've had in my life.'For 70 years, Chris Finnen has grooved to the music in his mind - and magically transposed it to the guitar. From...

Based on lengthy interviews with Ellington's bandmates, family and friends, Duke Ellington and His World offers a fresh look at this legendary composer, tracing his life and career in terms of the social, cultural, political and economic realities of his...

This is a complete biography of this seminal singer/pianist who has been active on the American music scene since the mid-'50s. Originally published in 1995 by Penguin Books, and universally hailed as the definitive biography, this new edition will...

"I'm not a working musician," the legendary Canadian jazz guitarist Sonny Greenwich once declared. "When I decide to play, I play to awake people spiritually. That's the only reason."For that, and for his stirring, distinctively linear style, he was...

The Perpetual Beginner is part memoir, part musical instruction manual. Relating stories of his experiences as a young musician and music student in 1980’s New York, author Dave Isaacs describes the key lessons that shaped his musical life and how...

In Queens of Afrobeat, the women of Afrobeat music-a unique blend of jazz, soul, highlife, and West African rhythms-are finally given the recognition they deserve. This extensive study takes a multifaceted view of the storied lives of the women behind...