Nights at the Red Steinway: Adventures in Jazz Piano, from the Wall Street Journal and Elsewhere

Author, journalist, and historian Will Friedwald is one of the leading writers on jazz music today. Nights at the Red Steinway collects key writings (from the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere) to form a deeply personal and engaging survey of jazz piano. Through Friedwald's insightful and passionate prose, we're treated to an unorthodox history of the piano in jazz, ranging from Jelly Roll Morton and the other legendary piano professors of the New Orleans red-light district, to jazz-age piano pioneers as Thomas "Fats" Waller and Earl "Fatha" Hines, as well as swing masters like Teddy Wilson and Joe Bushkin. Along the way, we also encounter masters and monsters endowed with sheer, overwhelming technique, like Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, as well as key figures in the evolution of swing into bebop and modern jazz, like Mary Lou Williams and her student, Thelonious Monk, as well as the legendary Bud Powell. There's even a special section on musicians so talented that were nicknamed after royalty: Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Nat King Cole. Irreverent when it wants to be, and serious when it counts, this is an indispensable collection for jazz fans of all stripes.