Introducing my second book :
Exploring Early Jazz: The Origins and Evolution of the New Orleans Style
Writer’s Club Press 2002
During the research for my first book The Loudest Trumpet: Buddy Bolden and the Early History of Jazz it became apparent that there was a need for a more comprehensive study of the musical environment in which jazz was born and the musicians and bands that contributed to its development.
I soon found that a considerable amount of data was potentially available about the development of early jazz in the twenty years before the first jazzrecordings were published in 1917. This was to lead to the publication of Exploring Early Jazz: The Origins and Evolution of the New Orleans Style—a chronological account of the first 30 years of early jazz—2002.
The purpose of this work was to flesh out the story of the development of New Orleans Jazz between 1897 and 1927 and show how it related to the Traditional Jazz of 2001.
· Part I describes the composition and activities of many New Orleans bands
of the first thirty years of jazz in approximate chronological sequence.
· Part II comprises interpretive and analytic material about early bands and their musical performance derived from information in the sequential account. It also depicts, and evaluates, the events that shaped the life of New Orleans jazz, in order to describe, and recreate for contemporary readers, the musical and other elements that went into its development.
Here’s part of what reviewer Dick Pointon writing for the New Orleans Magazine had to say about Exploring Early Jazz:
“Unlike many so-called 'new' histories of jazz, this book gives an in-depth coverage of the roots of the music with reference to the many musicians and groups that are overlooked by the more superficial researchers and Hardie is to be commended for his assiduity…
It also provides the ideal primer for those unfamiliar with New Orleans jazz and explains how often fact versus fable can confuse one's view of the music, even though oral histories have been of the utmost importance in documenting it.”
Exploring Early Jazz still sells and has been converted for eBook readers. It is available from most on-line booksellers including Amazon.com
For More detail go to the Website:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~darnhard/EarlyJazz1.html
