Baby and his family make some jazzy music.

When Sheila Jordan dropped a nickel in the juke box of a Detroit diner in the 1940s and heard “Now’s The Time” by Charlie Parker, she was instantly hooked—and so began a seventy-year jazz journey. In 1962, she emerged as the first jazz singer to record on the prestigious Blue Note label with her debut album Portrait of Sheila. Exploding on the jazz scene, this classic work set the bar for her career as an iconic jazz vocalist and mentor to other promising female vocalists. As The New York Times then announced, “Her ballad performances are simply beyond the emotional and expressive capabilities of most other vocalists.” Jazz Child: A Portrait of Sheila Jordan, as the first complete biography about this remarkable singer’s life, reveals the challenges she confronted, from her growing up poor in a Pennsylvania coal mining town to her rise as a bebop singer in Detroit and New York City during the 1950s to her work as a recording artist and performer under the influence of and in performance with such jazz luminaries as Charlie Parker, George Russell, Lennie Tristano, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, and Thelonious Monk. Jordan’s views as a woman living the jazz life in an era of racial and gender discrimination while surrounded by those often struggling with the twin evils of alcohol and drug abuse are skillfully woven into the tapestry of the tale she tells. With Jordan’s full cooperation, author Ellen Johnson documents the fascinating career of this jazz great, who stands today as one of the most deeply respected jazz singers and educators. For jazz fans, Johnson’s biography is a testament to a vanishing generation of musicians and her indomitable spirit is an inspiration to all walks of life.

It's V-J Day, World War II is finally over, and Roscoe is quitting politics after twenty-six years as chief brainstruster of Albany's notorious Democratic machine. The suave, brilliant, unscrupulous Falstaffian wants to hang up his white double-breasted Palm Beach suit and drift into retirement. But how will he relax his hold on the lid without the political pot boiling over, scalding his beloved and her family? Armed with the politician's most powerful credo - 'Righteousness doesn't stand a chance against the imagination' - Roscoe fights his final political battles. Every step forward leads Roscoe into the past - to the early loss of his true love, to his own particular heroics in World War I, the takeover of City Hall and the methodical assassination of the gangster Jack 'Legs' Diamond. ROSCOE is a comic masterpiece from one of America's most revered novelists.

A Washington Post Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Selection One of Electric Literature’s Best Short Story Collections of the Year A highly anticipated collection of wildly imaginative short stories from “one of contemporary fiction’s true mad scientists” (Necessary Fiction). In the weird and wonderful tradition of Kelly Link and Karen Russell, Amber Sparks’s dazzling new collection bursts forth with stories that render the apocalyptic and otherworldly hauntingly familiar. In “The Cemetery for Lost Faces,” two orphans translate their grief into taxidermy, artfully arresting the passage of time. The anchoring novella, “The Unfinished World,” unfurls a surprising love story between a free and adventurous young woman and a dashing filmmaker burdened by a mysterious family. Sparks’s stories—populated with sculptors, librarians, astronauts, and warriors—form a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Mythical, bizarre, and deeply moving, The Unfinished World and Other Stories heralds the arrival of a major writer and illuminates the search for a brief encounter with the extraordinary.

Uniquely bringing together discourse analysis, critical literacy, and teacher research, this book invites teacher educators, literacy researchers, and discourse analysts to consider how discourse analysis can be used to foster critical literacy education. It is both a guide for conducting critical discourse analysis and a look at how the authors, alongside their teacher education students, used the tools of discourse analysis to inquire into, critique, and design critical literacy practices. Through an intimate look at the workings of a university teacher education course and the discourse analysis tools that teacher-researchers use to understand their classrooms, the book provides examples of both pre-service teachers and teacher educators becoming critically literate. The context-rich examples highlight the ways in which discourse analysis aids teachers’ decision making in the moment and reflections on their practice over time. Readers learn to conduct discourse analysis as they read about critical literacy practices at the university level. Designed to be interactive, each chapter features step-by-step procedures for conducting each kind of discourse analysis (narrative, critically oriented, multimodal), sample analyses, and additional readings and resources. By attending to the micro-interactions as well as processes that unfold across time, the book illustrates the power and potential of discourse analysis as a pedagogical and research tool.

In her novel Departures, Adrienne Bellamy introduced a cast of unique, unforgettable characters. Now she brings them back in Connecting— and adds a whole new crew to the mix . . . Sheila has finally gotten her nursing degree. Emily and Jared are back together . . . for now, at least. And seventeen-year old Amber is on the verge of womanhood, looking forward to the future. There are plenty of reasons for the women of this Philly neighborhood to celebrate . . . especially as they conquer new worlds by moving out to the suburbs. But life always has new surprises (and problems) in store—and even as they enjoy their reunion, these feisty ladies find they still need one another’s support to make it through. From shopping addictions to restraining orders, from the challenges of finding love in the golden years to the tricky quest to tame a passionate, mysterious Scorpio, the adventures just keep on going. And, with a few newcomers joining in—like the handsome Dr. Purdy and the secretive blond bombshell Stefana—the party is just getting started . . . No matter what the girls’ troubles are, they’re going to make it. As long as they don’t lose sight of what’s important: having a good sister to lean on . . . Praise for Departures “A candid and gritty voyage into the colorful and turbulent lives of several streetwise and unpredictable characters.” –Tracie Howard, Author of Never Kiss and Tell ADRIENNE BELLAMY was born and raised in Philadelphia. Her passion for writing began at age six when she wrote her first poem. Since then she has written everything from song lyrics to television commercials. She is the mother of two daughters. Adrienne is also the author of Lust, Lies and Two Wives, The Bitch Tried to Steal My Husband’s Body and Arrivals.

Encounter the trailblazers whose recordings expanded the boundaries of technology and brought “popular” music into America's living rooms! Popular American Recording Pioneers: 1895--1925 (winner of the 2001 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award of Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research) covers the lives and careers of over one hundred musical artists who were especially important to the recording industry in its early years. Here are the men and women who brought into American homes the hits of the day--Tin Pan Alley numbers, Broadway show tunes, ragtime, parlor ballads, early jazz, and dance music of all kinds. Popular American Recording Pioneers: 1895--1925 compiles rare information that was scattered in hundreds of record catalogs, hobbyist magazines, newspaper clippings, phonograph trade journals, and other sources. Look no further! This volume is the ultimate resource on the subject! You will increase your knowledge in these areas: the recording industry's formative years artists’personalities and musical styles popular music history history of recording technology Popular American Recording Pioneers: 1895--1925 provides a unique “who's who” approach to popular music history. It is the definitive work on the music that was popular during America's coming of age. No music historian should be without this volume.

This annotated anthology documents historical trends and basic findings regarding music in early childhood education, development, and care. The papers in this volume discuss the main research trends of musical engagement with early children, such as music in the family, employing music in child care, and musical skill and development. This collection hopes to stimulate further reflections on the implementation of music in daily practice. The volume represents many facets of research from different cultural contexts and reflects trends and projects of music in early childhood. The findings incorporate a historical perspective with regards to different topics and approaches. The book provides practitioners and researchers of music education, music development, and music psychology, an opportunity to read a selection of articles that were previously published in the journal Early Child Development and Care. Each paper concludes with an annotation note supplied by the principle author addressing how they see their article from the perspective of today.

Righteous jive for all you weedheads, moochers, b-girls, gassers, bandrats, triggermen, grifters, snowbirds, and long-gone daddies. Much of the slang popularly associated with the hippie generation of the 1960s actually dates back to before World War II, hijacked in the main from jazz and blues street expressions, mostly relating to drugs, sex, and drinking. Why talk when you can beat your chops, why eat when you can line your flue, and why snore when you can call some hogs? You’re not drunk–you’re just plumb full of stagger juice, and your skin isn’t pasty, it’s just caf? sunburn. Need a black coffee? That’s a shot of java, nix on the moo juice. Containing thousands of examples of hipster slang drawn from pulp novels, classic noir and exploitation films, blues, country, and rock ’n’ roll lyrics, and other related sources from the 1920s to the 1960s, Straight from the Fridge, Dad is the perfect guide for all hep cats and kittens. Think of it as a sort of Thirty Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary for the beret-wearing, bongo-banging set. Solid, Jackson.