Jazz A-B-Z: An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits (1 BK) #10
Author: Wynton Marsalis
Illustrator: Paul Rogers

Marsalis, Wynton. ( ). Jazz a-b-z: An a to z collection of jazz portraits.

Grade Level: 7-Up

Awards: NCTE Notable Children Book in Language Arts; IRA Notable Children’s Book Award for Young Adult Nonfiction; ALA Best Books for Young Adult Nominee; Louisiana Young Reader’s Choice Award Nominee

Author’s Credibility: Wynton Marsalis is an outstanding jazz artist and composer. He is the director of the renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. In the author’s note, Marsalis said that the diversity in the styles of jazz paintings that Roger used inspired him to write the poems for the jazz players. He also received help on this book from his road manager and photographer.

Illustrator: Roger has more than twenty-five years of experience as an illustrator and artist. In this book, Roger decided to make a portrait of each musician that reflected his or her style during that period of time. He used poster-like portraits in shades of black, yellow, and white. Roger’s paintings were done in acrylic and ink.

Summary: This was a book that has an alphabet organizational design. Marsalis selected to write about twenty-six jazz players. When it wrote about, he placed them in the book in ABC order by their names. Marsalis used different forms of poetry to tell about the lives of these jazz players. The poem was designed to tell about the person and his some of his/her accomplishments.

Access Features: Contents, biographical sketches, notes on the poetic forms, author and illustrator’ notes, and acknowledgments.

Standards: Social Studies: Integrate, connect, and apply social studies in other subject areas and everyday life. (various cultures enjoy different styles of music, art, dress, food, and language.

Design: The end page was designed like the old 78 LP record cover. He used a different colored letter for each musician and related it to the musician’s style of playing. Poems range in styles from haiku to the more complex forms of alliterative. A list of each kind of poem was placed in the book with background information about that poem. Biographical sketches of each jazz player were also placed in the book.

Response: I liked the format with all the different kinds of poems and the way he begin each poem with an alphabet in a different letter style. I also liked the colored- illustrations for the time period of the singer, or player. The book gave the names of some poems that I did not know about and some were hard to understand. This book would be too hard for elementary children. I probably would not use this book except to show the illustrations.

Other Books: This Jazz Man, Karen Ehrhardt; A Blue So Blue, Francis Durmont; To a Young Jazz Musician: Letters From the Road, Wynton Marsalis