Reference Sources
Online Reference Databases
Reference sources are designed to provide users with quick and authoritative background information on a given subject. They are the ideal place to familiarize yourself with a subject and its existing literature, although they should never be the culmination of your research process. The following reference sources are all available online, although log-in might be required off-campus.
- Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present Edited by Paul Finkelman and available through Oxford Reference Online, this remarkable work traces the transition from the Reconstruction Era to the age of Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and the ascendant influence of African Americans on the American cultural landscape. With coverage up to and including the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, the Encyclopedia contains approximately 1,200 fully cross-referenced entries all signed by leading scholars and experts, offering the most reliable and extensive treatment to be found on African American history in this era.
- The Encyclopedia of Popular Music Edited by Colin Larkin, this encyclopedia's 30,000 entries cover all genres and periods of popular music from 1900 to the present day, including jazz, country, folk, rap, reggae, techno, musicals, and world music. The expanded Fourth Edition includes thousands of new entries on trends, styles, record labels, venues, and music festivals. Key dates, biographies, and further reading are provided for artists covered, along with complete discographies that include record labels, release dates, and a 5-star album rating system. Included in this Oxford Digital Reference Shelf edition are online-exclusive entries that originally appeared on Oxford Music Online.
- Gale eBooks Gale eBooks is a collection of searchable subject encyclopedias and reference books from Gale Publishing and many other publishers, including nearly 500 specialized background sources in a wide variety of subjects. Choose your field of study under the "Subjects" heading to see the titles in your area. For music books, look under the subject "Arts."
- The Grove Dictionary of American Music Edited by Charles Hiroshi Garrett, The Grove Dictionary of American Music is the largest, most comprehensive reference publication on American Music. Twenty-five years ago, the four volumes of the first edition of the dictionary initiated a great expansion in American music scholarship. This second edition reflects the growth in scholarship the first edition initiated. At eight volumes, it provides greatly expanded coverage, particularly in the areas of popular music, cities and regions, musical theater, opera, concert music, and music technology, as well as the musical traditions of many ethnic and cultural groups.
- Music Online: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online provides electronic access to the award-winning print resource of the same name. It contains more than 700 articles contributed by experts on the music of the world's peoples and is over 9,000 pages long. The database, which includes all illustrations from the print edition, also includes audio examples of musical performances from around the world.
- Oxford African American Studies Center The Oxford African American Studies Center provides five major encyclopedias and content from eighteen additional reference sources from Oxford University Press. Also includes approximately 100 primary source documents with commentaries, 1,000 images with an ongoing image research program, over 200 charts, tables and graphs, maps, timelines, and learning resources for students and teachers.
- Oxford Music Online Oxford Music Online is the authoritative resource for music research with over 52,000 articles written by nearly 9,000 scholars charting the diverse history and cultures of music around the globe. It is the gateway to Grove Music Online which compiles invaluable resources like The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition (2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), The Grove Dictionary of American Music (2013), The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2002), and others. Oxford Music Online also provides access to The Oxford Dictionary of Music (2013) and The Oxford Companion to Music (2011), resources which are based in Oxford Reference Online.
- Oxford Reference Online Searchable and browsable collection of highly trusted reference books. Dictionaries and encyclopedias in Oxford Reference Online include general works, foreign-language works, and specialized subject works in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Note: Oxford Reference Online is separate from the familiar Oxford Music Online, and it has its own set of twelve music dictionaries and encyclopedias. These can be found under the Subject tab or through the search bar.
- RILM Abstracts of Music Literature Often the best place to start music research, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is a key database in the field of music. This database covers a wide range of subjects areas, including but not limited to, Composition, Music Analysis, Musicology, Dramatic Arts, Dance Studies, Music Pedagogy, Music Therapy, Performance Practice, and Popular Music Studies. Approximately 50,000 new articles are added each year.
Print Reference Books
Most reference books for jazz are located in the Music Reference section shelved in ranges 36 through 38. The recommended books below are sorted by their call numbers and include specialized dictionaries (ML102.J3), encyclopedias (also ML102.J3), bibliographies (ML128.J3), and discographies (ML 156.4.J3). Hover over the info icon to see a description of the book.
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz by
Do you want to know when Duke Ellington was king of The Cotton Club? Have you ever wondered how old Miles Davis was when he got his first trumpet? From birth dates to gig dates and from recordings to television specials, Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler have left no stone unturned in their quest for accurate, detailed information on the careers of 3.300 jazz musicians from around the world. We learn that Duke Ellington worked his magic at The Cotton Club from 1927 to 1931, and that on Miles Davis's thirteenth birthday, his father gave him his first trumpet. Jazz is fast moving, and this edition clearly and concisely maps out an often dizzying web of professional associations. We find, for instance, that when Miles Davis was a St. Louis teenager he encountered Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie for the first time. This meeting proved fateful, and by 1945 a nineteen-year-old Davis had left Juilliard to play with Parker on 52nd Street. Knowledge of these professional alliances, along with the countless others chronicled in this book, are central to tracing the development of significant jazz movements, such as the "cool jazz" that became one of Miles Davis's hallmarks. Arranged alphabetically according to last name, each entry of this book chronologically lists the highlights of every jazz musician's career. Highly accessible and vigorously researched, The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz is, quite simply, the most comprehensive jazz encyclopedia available.
Call Number: ML102.J3 F4 1999 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 1999
The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz by
The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, second edition is the largest, most comprehensive and accurate reference work on jazz ever published, putting the world of jazz at your fingertips. With articles on every aspect of the field, from jazz groups, composers and arrangers to instruments, terms, record labels and venues, the new edition is the ideal companion for scholars and enthusiasts in this rapidly growing field. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, second edition is unique:* No other title covers jazz to this extent across all forms and styles* The only way to be completely up-to-date with the full scope of writing in this field* Provides new perspectives to established areas of study--musicology, film and media, American studies, modern social history, women's studies and cultural studies, to name a few* Offers a one-stop resource to all the key names in the jazz world
Call Number: ML102.J3 N48 2002 V.1-3 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 2003
The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire by
Written by award-winning jazz historian Ted Gioia, this comprehensive guide offers an illuminating look at more than 250 seminal jazz compositions. In this comprehensive and unique survey, here are the songs that sit at the heart of the jazz repertoire, ranging from "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Autumn in New York" to "God Bless the Child," "How High the Moon," and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." Gioia includes Broadway show tunes written by such greats as George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, and classics by such famed jazz musicians as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and John Coltrane. The book offers vibrant discussions of each song, packed with information about how the song was written, who recorded it, the song's place in jazz history, and much more. Gioia includes recommendations for more than 2,000 recordings, with a list of suggested tracks for each song. Filled with colorful anecdotes and expert commentary, The Jazz Standards will appeal to a wide audience, serving as a fascinating introduction for new fans, an invaluable and long-needed handbook for jazz lovers and musicians, and an indispensable reference for students and educators.
Call Number: ML128.J3 G56 2012 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 2012
Fire Music: A Bibliography of the New Jazz, 1959-1990 by
The first bibliography devoted to a single jazz genre or era, Fire Music is concerned with the music of the jazz avant-gardists such as John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, and Sun Ra. It makes accessible the most extensive and up-to-date scholarship of the New Jazz beginning in the 1950s. Included are materials on such topics as jazz collectives and the New York loft scene, as well as jazz in specific countries and regions and a lengthy section of biographical and critical studies on more than 400 artists and ensembles from around the world. Organized by subject and artist, the over 7,100 sources are further divided by type of materials, including films, video, and audio cassettes as well as books, dissertations, and journal and newspaper articles in all major Western languages. A New Jazz Chronology places events in the jazz world in a social, political, and musical context; and a section on African-American Cultural History and the Arts provides background materials. Appendixes offer general reference sources, a directory of archives and research centers, and lists that classify artists by country and instrument. Indexes of artists, subjects, and authors complete the work.
Call Number: ML128.J3 G7 1991 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 1991
Global Jazz: A Research and Information Guide by
Global Jazz: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography that explores the global impact of jazz, detailing the evolution of the African American musical tradition as it has been absorbed, transformed, and expanded across the world's historical, political, and social landscapes. With more than 1,300 annotated entries, this vast compilation covers a broad range of subjects, people, and geographic regions as they relate to interdisciplinary research in jazz studies. The result is a vivid demonstration of how cultures from every corner of the globe have situated jazz--often regarded as America's classical music--within and beyond their own musical traditions, creating new artistic forms in the process. Global Jazz: A Research and Information Guide presents jazz as a common musical language in a global landscape of diverse artistic expression.
Call Number: ML128.J3 H46 2022Publication Date: 2022
Jazz Books in the 1990s: An Annotated Bibliography by
Jazz Books in the 1990s: An Annotated Bibliography contains over 700 entries covering adult non-fiction books on jazz published from 1990 through 1999. International in scope, the books included range from such places as Finland, Slovakia, Australia, Japan, India, and South Africa, as well as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Entries are organized by category, including biographies, history, individual instruments, essays and criticism, musicology, regional studies, discographies, and reference works. Greenberg has amassed an impressive collection of entries with each entry including the author, title, publisher, year, and number of pages, and also indicating when a book contains a bibliography, discography, footnotes, musical transcriptions, illustrations, photographs, or any other additional material. The discography entries also note whether books contain unissued material or reissues. Three indexes--by title, author, and subject--make this a valuable and comprehensive reference guide for researchers, students, and jazz aficionados alike.
Call Number: ML128.J3 H63 2010 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 2010
Jazz Scholarship and Pedagogy: A Research and Information Guide by
Presents a comprehensive and annotated bibliography to books, recordings, videos and websites in the field of jazz. Fully indexed, and part of the "Routledge Music Bibliographies" series, this third edition is useful for students, scholars or researchers of jazz.
Call Number: ML128.J3 M34 2006 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 2006
The Blackwell Guide to Recorded Jazz by
The first edition of the Guide was widely praised for identifying 150 key recordings that should form the basis of any jazz collection, backed up by a series of detailed critical commentaries unrivalled in any competing book of its kind for their depth and critical insight. This new edition broadens the scope of the Guide, looking at recent developments and styles and suggesting almost 250 discs as the core collection.
Call Number: ML156.4.J3 B66 1995 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 1995
The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD by
The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD is now firmly established as the world's leading guide to recorded jazz, a mine of fascinating information and a source of insightful - often wittily trenchant - criticism. For this completely revised seventh edition, Richard Cook and Brian Morton have reassessed each artist's entry and updated the text to incorporate thousands of additional CDs. The result is an endlessly browsable companion that will prove required reading for aficionados and jazz novices alike.
Call Number: ML156.4.J3 C67 2004 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 2004
The Blue Note Label: A Discography by
From 1939 until the late 1960s, much of the best in recorded mainstream jazz was issued on the Blue Note label, which set the standard for excellence in both music and production. The present work provides complete discographical information on every recording made or issued by Blue Note. Included is also an index of listed artists, a history of the label, and 11 pages of photographs. Although partial discographies of the Blue Note catalog have been published previously, this is the first comprehensive one to appear. One of the authors is an acknowledged authority on Blue Note and the other is a widely published discographer. Because of the importance of Blue Note in the history of jazz, this meticulously prepared book would be a worthwhile addition to any music reference section in either public or academic libraries.
Call Number: ML156.4.J3 C87 1988 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 1988
Jazz on Record: The First Sixty Years by
In this comprehensive, 860-page hardcover resource, Scott Yanow traces the history of jazz through its recordings. Most live performances from this 60-year period (1895 to 1976) are lost forever, but jazz fans can still experience a rich legacy of recorded work. Painstakingly sorting through and colorfully commenting on thousands of CDs and LPs, Yanow points out which performances are the most representative of the great 20th-century artists, and which recordings are essential to jazz fans' collections. Along the way, he takes readers on a journey through the golden ages of jazz, covering styles such as New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz, Dixieland, hard bop, soul jazz, the avant-garde, and fusion and showing how these forms diverge, develop, and continue to flourish. A must for jazz fans, scholars and serious collectors.
Call Number: ML156.4.J3 Y36 2003 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 2003
Interlibrary Loan
Users are encouraged to search for items beyond University Libraries' catalog via RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and WorldCat. Materials not available in print or online may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow up to seven days for electronic delivery and up to fourteen days for delivery of physical items.