Jazz in Los Angeles, from Central Avenue
to Free Jazz and Beyond: Selected Resources
Developed in support of Community Music Now! Event,
September 24, 2007
Bryant, Clora (ed). Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998. Available as an E-Book via USC Libraries; also in Leavey and
Music, ML 3508.8 L7 C46 1998.
Collette, Buddy. Jazz generations: A Life in American Music and Society. New York:
Continuum, 2000. Music, ML419.C635A3 2000.
Cox, Bette Yarbrough. Central Avenue—Its Rise and Fall, 1890-c. 1955: Including the Musical
Renaissance of Black Los Angeles. Los Angeles: BEEM Publications, 1996. Music and
Special Collections, ML3556.C75 1996.
Eckford, Wendel. The Jazz Movement in Los Angeles circa 1945-1965. Thesis (M.A.)—
California State University, Dominguez Hills, 1995. Music, ML3508.8.L7E25 1995a.
Gioia, Ted. West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945-1960. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1992. Leavey and Music, ML 3508.7 C28 G5 1992.
Gordon, Robert. Jazz West Coast: The Los Angeles Jazz Scene of the 1950s. London: Quartet
Books, 1990. Music, ML 3508.8 L7 G7 1990.
Julien, Kyle. Sounding the City: Jazz, African American Nightlife, and the Articulation of Race
in 1940s Los Angeles. Thesis (Ph. D.)—University of California, Irvine, 2000. Doheny,
F869.L85J85 2000a.
Litweiler, John. The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958. 1st ed. New York: W. Morrow, 1984.
Music and Grand, ML3561.J3L57 1984.
Lott, Tommy Lee. “The 1960s Avant-Garde Movement in Jazz.” Social Identities: Journal for
the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 7, Nr. 2 (2001): 165-177.
Mingus, Charles. Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Charles Mingus. Edited by
Nel King. New York: Knopf, 1971. Music and Grand, ML 410 M6795 A3.
Porter, Eric. What is This Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians as Artists, Critics,
and Activists. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Available as an E-Book via
USC Libraries; also in Music, ML 3508 P67 2002.
Smith, R. J. The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African American
Renaissance. New York: Public Affairs, 2006. Doheny, F 869 .L89 N4155 2006.
Developed by Sue Tyson, styson@usc.edu