With an introduction by Lawrence Gushee and a new preface by Stanley Crouch.

Jazz clarinettist, saxophonist, and bassoonist Garvin Bushell (1902 - 1991) performed with many of the twentieth-century's greatest jazz musicians - Fletcher Henderson, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Eric Dolphy, Gil Evans, and John Coltrane - during a remarkable career that spanned from 1916 to the 1980s. Although best known as a jazz soloist and sideman, Bushell also played oboe and bassoon with symphony orchestras and was a highly regarded instructor of woodwinds.

In Jazz From the Beginning, Bushell vividly recounts his musical experiences, featuring candid assessments of the legends with whom he performed, as well as eye-opening recollections of the early days of jazz and the racism that he encountered on the road. Based on a series of interviews conducted by jazz scholar Mark Tucker, these memoirs provide a colourful account of Bushell's extraordinary life and career as well as an important record of seventy years of American jazz history.

MARK TUCKER, professor of music at the College of William and Mary, is the author of Duke Ellington: the Early Years and editor of The Duke Ellington Reader. His articles and reviews have appeared in Black Music Research Journal, Popular Music and Jazz Times.

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