A Trumpet around the Corner

Samuel Charters (1929-2015) was an eminent historian of jazz and blues music and author of the award-winning The Roots of the Blues and numerous other titles. He was also a Grammy-winning record producer, musician, poet, and fiction writer and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1994.

What Samuel Charters offers is a valentine to his first musical love and a fresh perspective on the pioneers and their progeny who helped define the Big Easy's signature music. As arguably the foremost and most prolific scholar of blues and African American vernacular music, with a career as an author and record producer spanning fifty years, Charters has undeniably brought an epic sweep and unique command to this narrative." - Joshua Berrett, Journal of Southern History "A lifetime of work, thought, and enjoyment goes into anything Samuel Charters write about jazz or New Orleans, and that personal history shines through A Trumpet around the Corner. . . . [B]oth specialists and general readers will find much of interest in Charters's story of New Orleans jazz." - Spencer Downing, Louisiana History "[Charters] skillfully traces the history of this music from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century. . . . A Trumpet around the Corner sheds new light on the development of New Orleans jazz and is a pleasure to read." - Charles Hersch, The Journal of American History "In A Trumpet around the Corner: The Story of New Orleans Jazz, Samuel Charters returns to his first musical love with an expanded perspective, offering valuable insights on the stylistic development of New Orleans jazz pioneers (white and black) by a close analysis of extant recordings, placed in historical context. This is one of the very few studies that treats New Orleans jazz in the 1920s, an often overlooked time when the music continued to grow in its home environment." - Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Curator, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University