The West A New History of an Old Idea

If you set out to create a single anthology that charted all the twists and tributaries of that uniquely American river we call jazz, you couldn't do better than this companion set to the PBS series-94 tracks on 5 CDs licensed from virtually every important label in the history of the music. Includes The Pearls Jelly Roll Morton; Charleston James P. Johnson; West End Blues Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five; The Mooche Duke Ellington; Singin' the Blues Frankie Trumbauer & His Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke; Moten Swing Benny Moten's Kansas City Orchestra; Strange Fruit Billie Holiday; Three Little Words Art Tatum; Body and Soul Coleman Hawkins; In the Mood Glenn Miller; Take Five Dave Brubeck; So What Miles Davis; Giant Steps John Coltrane; Desafinado Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd, and many more classics.

Joan Baez is a Mexican-born American citizen born in 1941 in New York. His father is a physics teacher and his mother tells a drama story at university. There were also ministers in the ascending branches of his family. She studied guitar at Boston University and gained a thorough but not virtuoso guitar knowledge. She began to take folk music more seriously around 1958. He accompanied his excellent singing voice with the playing of his acoustic guitar. Her first major performance was in 1959 at the Newport Folk Festival. Her talent was noticed by the Vanguard company and they soon found contact with each other. Shortly after the contract was signed, her first album, named after the singer, was released. On this disc is the song We Shall Overcome, which has become the anthem of left-wing youth because of what she has to say. In 1963, there was a massive demonstration in Vashington; the enthusiastic crowd sang We Shall Overcome. With her current politically charged songs, she became the number one folk protest singer in the US. In the 1960s, she worked with the country’s greatest folk musician, Bob Dylan.

The great American musical invention of the 20th century, jazz is an ever-youthful, still evolving music of beauty, sensitivity, and brilliance that has produced (and been produced by) an extraordinary progression of talented artists. JAZZ: The Smithsonian Anthology traces the turning points in its history through its legendary innovators among them Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, Parker, Gillespie, Davis, Hancock, Corea, Marsalis and notable styles, from early ragtime to
international modernism and every major movement in between.