Verve: The Sound of America - Hardcover

Richard Havers

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500517142 ISBN 13: 9780500517147

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2013

Synopsis

The entire story of jazz from its earliest days in New Orleans to the 1970s and beyond told through archival material from Verve, the genres most important label. Verve signed practically every major jazz artist of the 1950s and 1960s and is home to some of the greatest music ever recorded. Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, and Ella Fitzgerald all released records through Verve. This superb new volume presents some of the rarest records and unseen ephemera from the label that helped define the world of jazz. Hundreds of the best examples of iconic seven-inch, ten-inch, and twelve-inch records appear, along with publicity reports, news clippings, posters, telegrams, and programmes. The ultimate music guide, the book includes features on key artists and key albums as well as insightful timelines that connect Verve with wider musical history. Looking beyond the music scene, the book discusses segregation in America, the missions to take jazz to Europe and the world, the clubs, the places, and the people who made Verve great and jazz cool. Commentary from the biggest names in jazz today, including some of Verves own artists, complements the text. 1,200 illustrations in color and black and white.

About this title

Review:

[Verve's] history has just been documented by Richard Havers in the impressive Verve: The Sound of America. --The Observer

...exhaustive, weighty, and beautifully packaged history of the label ... Richard Havers does an excellent job of contextualising the story of Verve within the broader development of jazz, from its birthplace in the bordellos of New Orleans's Storyville to its place on the world stage. The assemblage of glorious archive photographs, tour posters, album sleeves and ephemera is eye-poppingly beautiful. --The Telegraph

Rare and unseen material captured for an in-depth book tracing the history of the legendary jazz label. --Music Week

A comprehensive, entertaining, colourful history of Verve Records, capturing the spirit of one of the most memorable periods of American jazz history. A beautiful book, which does Verve proud. --Janice Forsyth: Culture Studio Picks BBC Radio Scotland

[An] extraordinary compendium ... This is an exceptional book. It's enormous - it's biblical... An extraordinary project with such amazing images, not just of the wonderful record covers which are so iconic in their own right, but also material from recording sessions, all kinds of anecdotes, plane tickets and everything else ... Herbie [Hancock] delightfully wrote the introduction to this superb book ... delightful tome ... A wonderful, wonderful project indeed. --Stephen Duffy, The Jazz House, BBC Radio Scotland

I was sooooo inspired just holding the book and turning the pages that I decided to pick a couple of Verve tracks to play that I first listened to in 1958 and.......I'll never stop reading this instantly historical and beautifully written book. --Bruce Johnston, The Beach Boys

This 400-page cinder-block of a book by Richard Havers-a Universal Music Group consultant and producer-is loaded with images, album covers and profiles of artists, producers and album-cover illustrators. Every essay by Havers includes information you may not have known. For example, Sonny Stitt began by studying the piano; Lionel Hampton was discovered at the Cotton Club by Benny Goodman in 1936 when Goodman, Gene Krupa and Teddy Wilson jammed with the vibist through the night; producer Norman Granz added strings to a Charlie Parker recording session because Parker begged him relentlessly to do so. And so on. A ton of color, and all photos are dramatic and probably not familiar. --JazzWax

Richard Havers' and Herbie Hancock's Verve: The Sound of America(Thames & Hudson) turns the story of a record label into a gloriously lively history of jazz; the book's design almost makes you hear the music as you read. --Peter Conrad, The Observer

Lavish. Amongst the 1,000 plus rare, famous and unseen photographs in this lovingly assembled history...are images more profound than any other music-related output in 2013....Designed to foreground the painterly lines of Verve's peerless cover artist, David Stone Martin, (this book) is a beautiful object, bringing together high-quality reproductions of album sleeves, master tapes, telegrams, contracts, tour photos and dreamy 8 x 10's of everyone from Herbie Hancock to Blossom Dearie. --Mojo

A beautifully packaged account of the historic Jazz label, from founder Norman Granz to its many ineffably cool artists. --Metro

a skilfully presented and intelligently arranged tribute. --London Jazz News

This new book, a 400-page illustrated chronicle of Verve's history, is a mandatory purchase - not just for jazz fans but scholars of popular music. Packed with over 1,200 archive pictures (photos, drawings and LP cover art), the book is a visual feast from beginning to end with UK author Richard Havers - who was behind ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman's Blues Odysse --Record Collector

Thorough... delightful... a truly comprehensive journey...beautiful...I highly recommend it! --Julian Joseph, BBC Radio 3, Jazz Line-Up

4 stars. This book is a fitting testament to one of the most important imprints in jazz, with artists bios forming the bedrock of the label history and stunning LP artworks and photos all but capturing the sweat from the basement clubs. --Record Collector

About the Author:

Richard Havers is Jazz consultant to the Universal Music Group where he has produced box sets including Louis Armstrong : Ambassador of Jazz, as well as box sets including Impulse! Records to Ella Fitzgerald. His other books include Sinatra, Rolling With The Stones, Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey and Tony Visconti: Bowie, Bolan and the Boy from Brooklyn.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0500517142
• ISBN 13: 9780500517147
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400