Simply known as "The Game," the history of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry - one of the oldest and, arguably, the fierecest in college football. With a history that stretches over a century, the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is one of the oldest in college football. The two teams claim a combined 19 national championships, hundreds of All-Americans, and 10 Heisman Trophies. Each year, millions of Buckeye and Wolverine fans watch the two teams with great disdain for one another battle in late...

The autobiography of the celebrated American jazz pianist, composer, activist, educator, and Emmy Award–winning broadcaster.Legendary jazz ambassador Dr. Billy Taylor's autobiography spans more than six decades, from the heyday of jazz on 52nd Street in 1940s New York City to CBS Sunday Morning. Taylor fought not only for the recognition of jazz music as "America's classical music" but also for the recognition of black musicians as key contributors to the American m...

**Skip O’Rourke thought he had escaped his con-artist family for good . . . until they show up and threaten everything unless he works “one last con.” But can he trust them to keep their word when his family members are some of the most manipulative, backstabbing people on earth?“Taylor’s comedic crime novel entertains with its madcap, rapid-fire antics.”—Publishers Weekly“Readers who enjoy criminal-caper stories with plots so convoluted they are never sure who is ...

Now available in paperback, William C. Banfield’s acclaimed collection of interviews delves into the lives and work of forty-one Black composers. Each of the profiled artists offers a candid self-portrait that explores areas from training and compositional techniques to working in a exclusive canon that has existed for a very long time. At the same time, Banfield draws on sociology, Western concepts of art and taste, and vernacular musical forms like blues and jazz to provide a frame for t...

**Skip O’Rourke thought he had escaped his con-artist family for good . . . until they show up and threaten everything unless he works “one last con.” But can he trust them to keep their word when his family members are some of the most manipulative, backstabbing people on earth?“Taylor’s comedic crime novel entertains with its madcap, rapid-fire antics.”—Publishers Weekly“Readers who enjoy criminal-caper stories with plots so convoluted they are never sure who is ...

A guide to the all-time must-have jazz recordings by a maven of the genre.Possibly the twentieth century’s greatest musical innovation, jazz is now more popular than it has been for the past fifty years. But with the plethora of new recordings and the phenomenon in jazz of the same standards being recorded seemingly by almost every artist and band or trio, it’s very hard to know where to start or to improve a CD collection.The Essential Jazz Recordings provides a t...

"There are no definitive histories," writes Elijah Wald, in this provocative reassessment of American popular music, "because the past keeps looking different as the present changes." Earlier musical styles sound different to us today because we hear them through the musical filter of other styles that came after them, all the way through funk and hiphop. As its blasphemous title suggests, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll rejects the conventional pieties of mainstream jazz and rock ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “One of the most prolific and revered producers in music history” (Rolling Stone) recounts his moving life story and decades working alongside superstars like Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and dozens of others.“[Jones] was orchestrating the sound of America, complicating it while grasping what makes it pop. . . . His music opens one of the most-watched television events ever br...

Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits) and "a meticulous researcher, a graceful writer, and a committed contrarian" (New York Times Book Review), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure...

The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black audience of his time yet now celebrated as the greatest figure in blues history.Trying to separate myth from reality, biographer Elijah Wald studies the blues from the inside -- not only examining recordings but also the recollections of...

It's book six of Jeff Kinney's award winning, bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and life isn't getting any easier for Greg Heffley!Over the past few days we've been running low on food, and if the snow doesn't melt quick I don't know WHAT we're gonna do.Greg is in big trouble. School property is damaged, and he is the prime suspect. But the crazy thing is, he's innocent! Or at least, sort of.The authorities are closing in, but then a...

When jazz musicians get together, they often delight one another with stories about the great, or merely remarkable, players and singers they've worked with. One good story leads to another until someone says, "Somebody ought to wrie these down!" With Jazz Anecdotes, somebody finally has. Drawing on a rich verbal tradition, bassist and jazz writer Bill Crow has culled stories from a wide variety of sources, including interviews, biographies and a remarkable oral history collection...