Music & Movies

Writing in a passionate and streetwise style all his own, Nat Hentoff transports us into the diverse worlds of musicians that hold one thing in common: America. In over sixty pieces Hentoff has assembled a mosaic that creates a vivid picture of the music...

Behind Jamaica's global musical reverberation lies the unlikely story of a boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns, with a brass band that helped shape the sound of some the world's most beloved musical forms. Under a strict disciplinarian regime,...

This comprehensive guide is a must-have for the legions of fans of the beloved and perennially popular music known as soul and rhythm & blues. A member of the definitive All Music Guide series, the All Music Guide to Soul offers nearly 8 500 entertaining...

Alfred's Essentials of Jazz Theory is designed for jazz enthusiasts and musicians who want to learn jazz concepts and terminology. To get the most out of this course, it is recommended that you have a good understanding of basic theory, such as the...

In his 1970 classic The Omni-Americans, Albert Murray (1916-2013) took aim at protest writers and social scientists who accentuated the "pathology" of race in American life. Against narratives of marginalization and victimhood, Murray argued that black...

Wole Soyinka and Ngugi wa Thiong'o are the pre-eminent playwrights of West and East Africa respectively and their work has been hugely influential across the continent. This volume features directors' experiences of recent productions of their plays, the...

Thelonius Monk, Billy Taylor, and Maceo Parker--famous jazz artists who have shared the unique sounds of North Carolina with the world--are but a few of the dynamic African American artists from eastern North Carolina featured in The African American...

Eight years of inspired work by a committee of more than 30 musicians and pastors, all leaders in African American worship and gospel music, have resulted in this compendium representing the common repertoire of African American churches across the...

One of the finest hip-hop albums ever made, A Tribe Called Quest's debut record (featuring stone-cold classics like Can I Kick It? and Bonita Applebum) took the idea of the boasting hip-hop male and turned it on its head. For many listeners, when this...

(Jazz Book). Helps musicians know what to do with specific chords in specific contexts. Lays out clear and objective guidelines on how to turn scales and chords into real music. Perfect for a college or high school improvisation class!

Under the editorship of the late Robert Nemiroff, with a provocative and thoughtful introduction by preeminent African-American scholar Margaret B. Wilkerson and a commentary by Spike Lee, this completely restored screenplay is the accurate and...

"...his economical writing style ... manages to pack lots of information - and opinion - into a few carefully chosen words ... Besides detail work well-grounded in scholarship...the author isn't afraid to interpolate such generalizations and speculations...