Concise Guide to Jazz by Mark C. Gridley (review)

This book attempts to give a general overview of jazz history, from the late-nineteenth century to today. The author, Mark Gridley, designed it for a college-level music course for non-majors, as either the text for a semester-long class on the subject, or as a supplement to a general music course. Gridley is a jazz musician and educator, and this book, in its previous editions, has established itself as an important resource in jazz pedagogy.

The book’s supplemental media are many and varied. The primary audio supplement is the Jazz Classics two-compact-disc anthology of performances which are discussed and analyzed in the text. The Prentice Hall Jazz Collection compact disc contains more recorded performances, some of which are cited in the book (but not analyzed). In addition, there is the Listening to Jazz Demonstration compact disc. Narrated by Gridley, it contains examples cited throughout the book of instruments employed in jazz, as well as performance styles. These include the components of the drum set; trumpets, trombones, and the different types of mutes employed on them; the clarinet and the saxophone family; walking bass; and more complex concepts, such as chord progressions and types of piano accompaniment.

New to this edition of the book is MySearchLab^®, a Web site available from Pearson. (Buyers of the book receive access to the Web site, while the compact discs must be purchased separately.) It brings together all the music on the Jazz Classics set of discs, as well as analyses of that music from the book. Both elements are presented in a multimedia setting in which each section of the tune is highlighted as the music streams, along with analytical comments from the text. Students may prefer this method of studying the material, especially given that many of them (perhaps most) may not own compact disc players, or prefer that resources be available online rather than on discs that require either purchase or a visit to the music library. (The content of the Prentice Hall disc, however, is not on the Web site.)

MySearchLab^® also contains animated flashcards for self-testing; a quiz for each chapter, results of which can be emailed to both student and instructor; and a large video component composed of performances of significant musicians and bands, brief historical clips about key musicians, and short clips duplicating some (but not all) of the material from the Listening to Jazz Demonstration compact disc, offering the advantage of watching musicians perform it.

Gridley divides the book and online content into eleven chapters, of which the first two are preparatory but vital: “What is Jazz?” and “How to Listen to Jazz.” The first of these sets up themes that are repeated throughout the book and addresses some of the vexing challenges of writing a brief survey of jazz.

The idea of a short textbook covering all of the music, even one for non-music-majors, invariably leads an aficionado to suspect that something important will be left out. This is, in part, because so many jazz people have trouble agreeing on what the music is: Is it always supposed to swing? Must the blues always be present? Can through-composed music be jazz (a requirement that would disqualify chunks of Duke Ellington’s oeuvre)? Did Miles Davis quit making jazz in 1968? Was Keith Jarrett’s American quartet jazzier than his European quartet? And so on.

Perhaps the single most refreshing aspect of the book is the extent to which Gridley not only tackles these issues, but does so immediately, in the first few pages. He states right away that the word jazz “has a variety of meanings because it has been used to describe so many kinds of music” (p. 2...