Forward Groove: Jazz and the Real World from Louis Armstrong to Gilad Atzmon (Anthony Hecht Prize 3)

A vibrant and thought-provoking survey of recorded jazz from its beginnings to the present. The author shows that a vital dimension of jazz has always been to create a better, more joyous world, from Louis Armstrong's 'Coal Cart Blues', the lyrics of Bessie Smith and the Harlem rhapsodies of Duke Ellington, to Charlie Parker's 'Now's the Time', the new sounds of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman and the commitment of Archie Shepp, and on to the contemporary Palestinian cry of Gilad Atzmon's alto saxophone.