Cookin'

The music journalist and author of Giant Steps offers a history of modern jazz evolutions pioneered by Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon and other greats.

Following his earlier volume, Giant Steps, which gives readers a comprehensive overview of Bebop and free jazz from the mid-40s to the mid-60s, Kenny Mathieson now explores the later years of the modern jazz era in greater depth. In Cookin', Mathiesonexamines the birth and development of two of the most enduring and influential jazz styles of the post-war era: hard bop and its related offshoot, soul jazz.

Hard bop was the most exciting jazz style of its day and remains at the core of the modern jazz mainstream even now. It drew on the twin poles of bebop and the blues for its foundation, spiced up with gospel, Latin and R&B influences. Mathieson looks at the founding fathers of the form, Art Blakey and Horace Silver, and goes on to trace the music through its peak decade.

This updated edition of Cookin’ includes a new chapter devoted to saxophonist and composer Jackie McLean.

“Mathieson’s descriptions of what they brought to the bandstand and the recording studio are fondly graphic, in well-chosen phrases… It is extremely readable.”—Jazz Review