Published in celebration of Holiday’s centenary, the first biography to focus on the singer’s extraordinary musical talentWhen Billie Holiday stepped into Columbia’s studios in November 1933, it marke
Musicologist, archivist, anthropologist, political activist, singer, author, DJ, photographer, talent scout, filmmaker, concert and recording producer, television host—Alan Lomax was one of the most
When eighteen-year-old Billie Holiday stepped into Columbia studios in November of 1933 to record 'Riffin' the Scotch' and 'Your Mother's Son-in-Law', it marked the beginning of what is arguably the m
The definitive biography of Alan Lomax-from John Szwed,"the best music biographer in the business" (L.A. Weekly). One of the most remarkable figures of the twentieth century, Alan Lomax was best kno
Musical genius, visionary artist, enigma -- more than ten years after his death, Miles Davis still looms large as a cultural icon. In this, the first new biography since Davis' death, John Szwed draws
“Revelatory . . . one of the most briskly revealing pieces of jazz biography that I’ve read.” —Richard Brody,The New YorkerWhen Billie Holiday first stepped into a recording studio in November 1933, i
Sun Ra, a.k.a. Herman Poole "Sonny" Blount (1914–1993), has been hailed as "one of the great big-band leaders, pianists, and surrealists of jazz" (New York Times) and as "the missing link betwe
Ranging across genres from the popular to the scholarly, this selection of John Szwed's published essays abides in the intersection of race and art, jazz and rap: crossovers inside and outside the ac
Szwed takes readers on a tour of the varied and nonlinear history of jazz, exploring how it developed from an ethnic music to become America's most popular music and then part of the avant garde in l
Three prominent folklorists wrote these essays in the 1970s about Dorrance Weir of upstate New York and his song "Take that Night Train to Selma," Joe Scott of Maine and his so
The origins, structures, membership, beliefs, rituals, finances, and sacred texts of the Church of God, the Moorish Science Temple of America, the Father Divine Peace Mission Movement, and other cults
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as the citizens of New Orleans regroup and put down roots elsewhere, many wonder what will become of one of the nation's most complex creole cultures. New Orlean