Joachim-Ernst Berendt: The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to Fusion and Beyond. Paperback, 6th-1997 revised ed. (1992), 541 p. Order English versions of The Jazz Book from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk. Find German books by Joachim Berendt at Amazon.de.
In The Jazz Book Berendt points out that it was the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet who wrote the first serious article on jazz, the Belgian Robert Goffin wrote the first book on jazz in 1929 and the first jazz review was published by the French Charles Delaunay at the end of the 1930s. Berendt has all the arguments on his side against the thesis expressed by James Lincoln Collier in The Reception of Jazz in America – A New View (New York, 1988) that the jazz critic was born in the USA. So it is no surprise that a European, German Joachim-Ernst Berendt himself, wrote the ultimate book on jazz that should not be missing in any library. The Jazz Book tells the history of jazz, its styles, musicians, big bands, combos and other ensembles as well as its instruments. First published in 1952 as a 290-page book, it has become the most comprehensive one-volume history of jazz (650 pages in the 1999 German edition).
Joachim-Ernst Berendt (1922-2000), the author of the best selling book on jazz ever (overall sale about 1,5 million copies), also known as the “Pope of Jazz” in Germany, died in Hamburg, Germany, on Feburary 4, 2000, at the age of 77, after being hit by a car. He was walking to an event to promote his new book Nur Gehen (Only Walking), his version of experiences with nature.
Prof. h. c. Joachim-Ernst Berendt was born 1922 in Berlin/Germany. In 1945, he was one of a co-founder of the Südwestfunk, one of Germany’s big Radio and Television networks. Up to his retirement in 1987, he had led more than 10,000 broadcasts featuring the music he loved. He not only wrote The Jazz Book, but in total 33 books, translated into 16 languages, dealing mostly with music and philosophy. Berendt has produced more than 250 long-playing records for MPS, Columbia, World Pacific, Atlantic/WEA, Electrola and other labels in Germany and Japan. He founded the „Berlin Jazz Days“, directed many international festivals and concerts (at the „World Expo Osaka“, the „Olympic Games Munich“, and the „World Music Event 1982“ at New Yorks Lincoln Centre. In 1970 American-based music publication Jazz and Pop voted him Europe’s best jazz producer.
Order the 2009 hardcover edition of The Jazz Book by Joachim Ernst-Berendt from Amazon.com.
Joachim-Ernst Berendt: The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to Fusion and Beyond. Order English versions of The Jazz Book from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk. Find German books by Joachim Berendt at Amazon.de.
Andrew Wright Hurley: The Return of Jazz. Joachim-Ernst Berendt and West German Cultural Change. Paperback, 2011, 322 pages. Find the book at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de.
