Looks at the relationship between rock and country music, discussing the role country music played in the birth of rock, the inception of country rock in the late 1960s, and the pioneering performers of country rock.

Poised to become a classic of jazz literature, Visions of Jazz: The First Century offers seventy-nine chapters illuminating the lives of virtually all the major figures in jazz history. From Louis Armstrong's renegade-style trumpet playing to Sarah Vaughan's operatic crooning, and from the swinging elegance of Duke Ellington to the pioneering experiments of Ornette Coleman, jazz critic Gary Giddins continually astonishes the reader with his unparalleled insight. Writing with the grace and wit that have endeared his prose to Village Voice readers for decades, Giddins also widens the scope of jazz to include such crucial American musicians as Irving Berlin, Rosemary Clooney, and Frank Sinatra, all primarily pop performers who are often dismissed by fans and critics as mere derivatives of the true jazz idiom. And he devotes an entire quarter of this landmark volume to young, still-active jazz artists, boldly expanding the horizons of jazz--and charting and exploring the music's influences as no other book has done.

Documents John Cage's contributions to modern music, analyzes influences on his art, and places his life and work within the context of twentieth-century art

An update and revised guide by the host of National Public Radio's Performance Today recommends the best recordings of the three hundred most important classical works, and provides background information on each composer. Original.

This authoritative, new edition of the world's most loved songs and arias draws on original manuscripts, historical first editions and recent research by prominent musicologists to meet a high standard of accuracy and authenticity. Includes fascinating background information about the arias and their composers as well as a singable rhymed translation, a readable prose translation and a literal translation of each single Italian word.

This inexpensive, authoritative edition of Mozart's last opera featuring all the spoken dialogue will be welcomed by all Mozarteans and opera enthusiasts. Translation of German frontmatter. Dramatis personae. List of Numbers.

Exact translations and corresponding original texts of the librettos for Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschero, Aida, Otello, and Falstaff, representing major achievements of each of Verdi's significant creative periods

Based on extensive interviews, this beautifully illustrated book recounts the lives and music of ragtime pianist-composer Eubie Blake and his partner for 57 years, singer, lyricist and bandleader Noble Sissle.

Plot and counterplot lie at the heart of Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and The Marriage of Figaro, the three brilliant libretti that Lorenzo Da Ponte prepared for Mozart. They were also central to Da Ponte's own extraordinary life. His Memoirs record a fantastic variety of romantic, political, and professional intrigues, and tell of meetings with a host of remarkable men. In a life that took him from the canals of Venice to the streets of New York, Da Ponte was at different times priest, professional gambler, proprietor of a bordello, political agitator, court poet, impresario, grocery store owner, and the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia University. His Memoirs, a minor classic of Italian literature, are the picaresque and engrossing story of a man of enormous talent and unsurpassed flair who was, above all, an indefatigable survivor. "I shall speak of things . . . so singular in their oddity as in some manner to instruct, or at least entertain, without wearying." —Lorenzo da Ponte

Surveys the careers and personalities of the great pianists from Clementi and Mozart to the present day