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Musician Biographies: Jazz & Blues

This guide lays out the biographies of musicians and songs that best represent their work and their books!

Jazz, blues, bebop, and more

Miles by Miles Davis; Quincy Troupe
Call Number: 781.6509 DAVIS

ISBN: 0671635042

For more than forty years Miles Davis has been in the front rank of American music. Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles is one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. The subject of several biographies, now Miles speaks out himself about his extraordinary life.
Billie Holiday by John Szwed
Call Number: B HOLIDAY

ISBN: 9780670014729

Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade, critically acclaimed jazz writer and musician John Szwed presents not just a biography, but a meditation on Billie Holiday’s art and its relation to her life. Along the way, he illuminates her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, her signature songs—including Strange Fruit and God Bless the Child—and her enduring legacy as the greatest jazz singer of all time.
Queen of Bebop: the musical lives of Sarah Vaughan by Elaine M. Hayes
Call Number: B VAUGHAN

ISBN: 9780062364685

An account of the life of the influential jazz singer and civil rights advocate shares insights into her contributions as an African-American artist, drawing on inside sources to discuss her creative process and challenge misperceptions about her character.
Pops by Terry Teachout
Call Number: B ARMSTRONG

ISBN: 9780151010899

Louis Armstrong is widely known as the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century. He was a phenomenally gifted and imaginative artist, and an entertainer so irresistibly magnetic that he knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts four decades after he cut his first record. Offstage he was witty, introspective, and unexpectedly complex, a beloved colleague with an explosive temper whose larger-than-life personality was tougher and more sharp-edged than his worshiping fans ever knew.