American Musicians II: Seventy-Two Portraits in Jazz Book

When Whitney Balliett's American Musicians first appeared in the fall of 1986, the acclaim it received was universal. Now greatly expanded with sixteen new portraits, American Musicians II remains a superb introduction to the giants of jazz, or as Balliett himself calls it, "a highly personal encyclopedia, a series of close accounts of how a beautiful music grew, flourished, and (possibly) began the long trek back to its native silences."

Breathtaking in its scope, the book features Balliett's singular portraits of jazz greats who have shaped this uniquely American tradition from its earliest days to the present, from inimitable innovators like Joe "King" Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton, to swing-era mainstays Fats Waller and Lester Young, to avant-garde pioneers such as Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman. This new edition adds essays on such major musicians as Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, George Shearing, and Paul Desmond.

In the forty years that he has written for The New Yorker, Whitney Balliett has earned the reputation as America's foremost jazz critic. Now, with the second edition of American Musicians in hand, music lovers can experience Balliett's peerless observations on the jazz scene, as he takes you into the hearts and minds of jazz's great practitioners.