The Sax & Brass Book - Softcover

"The Sax & Brass Book gives a wonderfully historical account of jazz and popular music from a 'horn's eye view'."--Billy Kerr, Planet Jazz "This book makes a strong argument for sax and brass sounds as an essential component of modern American music."--College & Research Libraries News.

This entertaining mix of enticing narrative and sparkling colour photography explores every twist and turn of the evolving music, brilliant musicians, and leading makers of inspiring brass and woodwind instruments of the 1920s to 1990s. This is the first illustrated history of the horns that have defined jazz since the 1920s and enhanced more recent pop and rock music with their distinctive, classy sounds. Offering superb, specially commissioned photography and inviting descriptive text, The Sax & Brass Book tells the unique 70-year story of these instruments in three sections. The first section analyses the saxophone's position in jazz. It traces this horn's roots back to Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young; through influential innovators Charlie Parker and John Coltrane; and on to current stars. The second section focuses on jazz trumpet and trombone, from Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong, to Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis. The third section features sax and brass in pop and rock music, highlighting the grinding R&B and soul sax sounds of King Curtis, Junior Walker and others, plus the "bright brass section phenomenon" typified by bands such as Blood, Sweat & Tears and Earth, Wind & Fire. And all throughout, exquisite colour pictorials enhance detailed historical profiles of master brass and woodwind manufacturers, including Buescher, Buffet, Conn, Holton, King, Leblanc, Martin, Sax, Selmer, Yanagisawa, and Yamaha. Tony Bacon is co-author of numerous volumes in the popular "Guitar Profiles" series and the author of The Ultimate Guitar Book, the definitive illustrated documentary of guitar history. A contributor to The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments and the former deputy editor of Making Music, Bacon is the co-founder of Balafon Books and served as an advisor to the BBC/Tribute TV documentary "Guitar Legends."