The First Book of Jazz
- New York: Franklin Watts, 1955
New York: Franklin Watts, 1955. Very Good +/Very Good. New York: Franklin Watts, 1955. First Edition; Stated Third Printing. Octavo (22cm); 66pp. Publisher’s illustrated dust jacket; boards bound in gray cloth with black stamping to front panel and spine; illustrated endsheets. Cliff Roberts’ black-and-white illustrations throughout. Dust jacket bumped at edges, spine ends, and corners; tears forming along edges; chipped with loss at front bottom corner. Dust jacket verso toned with transfer from boards. Boards bumped at spine ends and corners; spotting throughout. Binding sound. Textblock foxed; endsheets and interior pages clean. A Very Good or better copy in a Very Good jacket.
The third of five children’s books authored by Langston Hughes for the Franklin Watts First Book series, this installment abbreviates the history of the musical genre for a younger audience. Himself a lifelong jazz fan and proponent of the jazz poetry genre, Hughes regarded jazz as a uniquely and unequivocally black art form. Delightfully illustrated by Cliff Roberts, a cartoonist and animator who contributed to The New Yorker, Playboy, and Sesame Street throughout his career.
The third of five children’s books authored by Langston Hughes for the Franklin Watts First Book series, this installment abbreviates the history of the musical genre for a younger audience. Himself a lifelong jazz fan and proponent of the jazz poetry genre, Hughes regarded jazz as a uniquely and unequivocally black art form. Delightfully illustrated by Cliff Roberts, a cartoonist and animator who contributed to The New Yorker, Playboy, and Sesame Street throughout his career.