Lecture
Alyn Shipton
Wednesday 7.05.2025
Alyn Shipton
The History of Jazz, Part 4: Some Key Movements in Later 20th Century Jazz
Wednesday 7.05.2025
Summary
Following the birth of modern jazz in the 1940s and ’50s, this lecture looks at the subsequent improvisational innovations of John Coltrane (1926-67), the compositional originality of Charles Mingus (1922-79), and the restless explorations of Miles Davis (1926-91), leading to the birth of jazz fusion. There is also a sideways glance at free jazz through the work of Ornette Coleman (1930-2015) and Cecil Taylor (1929-2018).
Alyn Shipton
Alyn Shipton has worked in music for many years as a writer, editor, and player. He was the publisher of the New Grove Dictionary series in the 1980s. His own books include numerous biographies, mainly of jazz musicians, including Fats Waller, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Ian Carr, and Cab Calloway. His other books include the award-winning life of singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, and a study of the relationship between visual arts and jazz. His New History of Jazz (2001, revised 2007) won awards on both sides of the Atlantic and is now well established as one of the standard works on the subject. Since 1989 he has presented and produced programs on music and history for BBC Radio. As a double bassist, he has played with many leading British jazz groups, and he currently co-leads the Buck Clayton Legacy Band.