Research Catalog
Rhythm man : Chick Webb and the beat that changed America
- Title
- Rhythm man : Chick Webb and the beat that changed America / Stephanie Stein Crease.
- Author
- Stein Crease, Stephanie
- Publication
- New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]
- ©2023
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person. | Book/Text | Use in library | Sc E 23-1326 | Schomburg Center - Research & Reference |
Details
- Description
- xiv, 346 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 25 cm.
- Summary
- "Rhythm Man: Chick Webb and the Beat that Changed America is the first complete biography of William Henry "Chick" Webb (1905-1939), the innovative father of modern jazz drumming and a leading bandleader of the Swing Era, whose band and music thrilled dancers and audiences across the country. Webb was born in East Baltimore and had chronic spinal tuberculosis as a child, leaving him only four feet tall with a hump on his back. He moved to Harlem in 1925, in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance and, thanks to Duke Ellington, formed a jazz dance band that expanded and became resident band at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom in the early 1930s. The Savoy, the "World's Most Famous Ballroom," was the trendsetting place for advances in jazz and the dance that evolved along with swing music, the Lindy Hop. In 1935 Webb hired unknown teenage singer Ella Fitzgerald; by 1937 they topped polls and radio charts, and in the next two years packed theaters and ballrooms across the country, breaking through racial barriers. Webb's band was in the era's most legendary band battles, with Benny Goodman and Count Basie. His life was cut short tragically, and he died in June 1939, age 34, of complications from his chronic disease, at the height of his band's national popularity." --
- Series Statement
- Oxford cultural biographies series
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- Biographies
- Biographies.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 315-321), discographical references (pages 323-328) and index.
- Contents
- Introduction -- Baltimore beginnings -- Baltimoreans in the music world -- Scuffling in Heaven -- A bandleader's beginnings -- Savoy : "The world's finest ballroom" -- Harlem Stompers -- Former Baltimore newspaper boy -- Ol' Man Depression -- On the road with Louis -- A bandleader's rise -- Showtime in the theater wars -- Spinnin' the Webb -- Sing me a swing song -- Chasin' the blues away -- Jumping the fence -- Vote for Mr. Rhythm -- Battling it out in swingtime -- The last grooves -- Have mercy -- Epilogue.
- Call Number
- Sc E 23-1326
- ISBN
- 9780190055691
- 0190055693
- 9780190055714
- 0190055715
- 9780190055721
- 0190055723
- LCCN
- 2022053532
- OCLC
- 1345512340
- Author
- Stein Crease, Stephanie, author.
- Title
- Rhythm man : Chick Webb and the beat that changed America / Stephanie Stein Crease.
- Publisher
- New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]
- Copyright Date
- ©2023
- Type of Content
- textstill image
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- Oxford cultural biographies series
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 315-321), discographical references (pages 323-328) and index.
- Local Note
- Schomburg copy with dust jacket.
- Local Subject
- Black author.
- Research Call Number
- Sc E 23-1326