One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.

How does one pay homage to A Tribe Called Quest? The seminal rap group brought jazz into the genre, resurrecting timeless rhythms to create masterpieces such as The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders. Seventeen years after their last album, they resurrected themselves with an intense, socially conscious record, We Got It from Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service, which arrived when fans needed it most, in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Poet...

The English musician and member of the rock band The Who shares stories from his career in this New York Times–bestselling memoir.
One of rock music's most intelligent and literary performers, Pete Townshend—guitarist, songwriter, editor—tells his closest-held stories about the origins of the preeminent twentieth-century band The Who, his own career as an artist and performer, and his restless life in and out of the public...

Jacob Rees tells why he took up the French horn again at the age of 39-and-three-quarters and persevered to play in front of a packed London auditorium and perform a Mozart concerto on this notoriously treacherous instrument. He also relates the story of man's first musical instrument, and its journey from the walls of Jericho to Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, from the hunting fields of aristocratic France to the heart of Hollywood.

Explore over 50 common and uncommon instruments as showcased by a fun group of animals. Learn interesting, practical and curious things about music and making music. Discover instruments of all kinds-- from the electric guitar and steelpan to the theremin, from viola to vibraphone to ukulele. Listen through QR codes on each page to a piece of music composed to showcase every instrument by an award-winning musician-- and to a full band that brings...

Jon Savage's oral history of Joy Division is the last word on the band that ended with the suicide of Ian Curtis in Macclesfield on 18 May, 1980. It weaves together interviews conducted by the author, but never used in the making of the film Joy Division (2007) which told the story of the band in their own words, as well as those of their peers, collaborators, and contemporaries. Here are 15 or so vivid witnesses to the band's genesis, meteoric rise,...

"We see Bob Fosse's legacy everywhere--from Broadway to 'Billy Jean' to Beyonce's moves in the 'Single ladies' video. Yet in spite of Fosse's deep cultural significance, no biography has ever brought him fully to life, unveiling the man behind the bowler hat and the swaggering sex appeal. Now, ... cultural historian Sam Wasson traces Fosse's numberless reinventions of himself over a career that would spawn The Pajama game, Cabaret, Pippin, Chicago,...

Rare musical performances: Django Reinhardt with Stéphane Grapelli and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France in Jazz hot (1939), Duke Ellington and the Cotton Club Orchestra featured in Black and tan (1929), Louis Armstrong in Copenhagen, 1934, and a 1929 performance from the Utica Jubilee Singers.