Visions of Jazz: The First Century [Paperback] Review

Gary Giddins has performed a remarkable feat. He has covered one hundred years of jazz history in one volume. At 700 pages it is big for sure but it is well researched and very readable. At first glance it appears thatGiddins has structured and organized the book in the worst possible way byhaving one chapter on each of the seminal figures of jazz history, and insemi chronological order.
The pitfall here is that it lends itself to abook that looks like lots of note cards strung together. This structure canalso obscure the larger picture; jazz is not just the history of a bunch ofindividuals. Giddins very skillfully avoids both of these traps. Eachchapter is well researched, filled with anecdotes about the musician orgroup, and through the chapters flows the larger background of the historicmovements and issues in the development of jazz.
Giddins also approachesjazz with a refreshing "inclusiveness" and wastes precious little energy indefining what jazz is or in dismissing various movements as"unpure" or other such nonsense. In fact he makes the point rightup front that jazz owes as much to popular music for its genesis as it doesto spirituals or black folk music. In the chapter on Irving Berlin hepoints out that Tin Pan Alley was a mixture of black, Jewish and otherethnic blends of music, and in fact, Berlin was even accused of having anunderground railroad of black song writers in his back room that he wasghosting for. And this, at the time, was not meant as a compliment..
Ofcourse, jazz cannot be discussed in a vacuum and race plays an importantpart in its history. Giddins adds two bits of trivia, which I find speakvolumes in themselves about where we are and where we have come from. Onewas that Al Jolson lobbied Gershwin for the part of Porgy. He, thankfully,did not get it. Second was that Ellington's all black orchestra played inan Amos and Andy movie in the 30's and the producer had the lighter skinnedmembers of the orchestra blacked up with makeup for the scenes. I supposethis was to dispel any idea in the minds of the movie audience that theband might be integrated.
The book lacks a recommended discography, whichwould have been valuable. Giddins does comment on the recordings of hissubjects in their respective chapters so that is a big help. There is a 2CD companion set with the same title which is a nice-to-have but it islargely an afterthought and the only connecting material is the 4 inchsquare flimsy comment sheets that come with the CD which does not reallyrelate back to the book itself.
This is a essential book for any jazzlovers library.

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