New York Melody

Soar through New York and discover its magic and monuments in this evocatively illustrated children’s book enriched by intricate lasercut pages. A musical note filled with wanderlust breaks away from its sheet music to roam all around New York City. It visits Carnegie Hall, the bright lights of Broadway, and a hidden jazz club. It soars between skyscrapers, flies into a bass, improvises in a trumpet, and dances a little swing with a trombone, until it finally finds its place in a guitar playing in Central Park. There, it makes all the difference, and the guitar’s melody becomes a song that enchants passersby. Beautifully crafted with He´le`ne Druvert’s intricate lasercuts, New York Melody is a wonderfully imaginative introduction to New York and its many unique rhythms for young children.

Joe Davis (1896–1978), the focus of The Melody Man, enjoyed a fifty-year career in the music industry, which covered nearly every aspect of the business. He hustled sheet music in the 1920s; copyrighted compositions by artists as diverse as Fats Waller, Carson Robison, Otis Blackwell, and Rudy Vallee; oversaw hundreds of recording sessions; and operated several record companies beginning in the 1940s. Davis also worked fearlessly to help ensure that black recording artists and song writers gained equal treatment for their work. Much more than a biography, this book is an investigation of the role played by music publishers during much of the twentieth century. Joe Davis was not a music “great,” but he was one of those individuals who enabled “greats” to emerge. A musician, manager, and publisher, his long career reveals much about the nature of the music industry and offers insight into how the industry changed from the 1920s to the 1970s. By the summer of 1924, when Davis was handling the “race talent” for Ajax records, he had already worked in the music business for most of a decade, and there were more than five decades of musical career ahead of him. The fact that his fascinating life has gone so long underappreciated is remedied by the publication of this book. Originally published in England in 1990 as Never Sell a Copyright: Joe Davis and His Role in the New York Music Scene, 1916–1978, this book was never released in the United States and only made available in a very limited print run in England. The author, noted blues scholar and folklorist Bruce Bastin, has worked with fellow music scholar Kip Lornell to completely update, condense, and improve the book for this first-ever American edition.

On some days, New York is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. This was one of the other days... Melody Malone, owner and sole employee of the Angel Detective Agency, has an unexpected caller. It’s movie star Rock Railton, and he thinks someone is out to kill him. When he mentions the ‘kiss of the Angel’, she takes the case. Angels are Melody’s business... At the press party for Railton’s latest movie, studio owner Max Kliener invites Melody to the film set of their next blockbuster. He’s obviously spotted her potential, and Melody is flattered when Kliener asks her to become a star. But the cost of fame, she’ll soon discover, is greater than anyone could possibly imagine. Will Melody be able to escape Kliener’s dastardly plan – before the Angels take Manhattan?

This is the autobiography of Marjorie Florence Lawrence, an Australian soprano, noted for her interpretations of Richard Wagner's operas. She was the first soprano to perform the immolation scene in Götterdämmerung by riding her horse into the flames as Wagner had intended. In 1941, at the height of her career, Lawrence contracted polio and lost the use of her legs. Despite this she persevered and continued her career and became known world wide. A wonderful story of determination and overcoming difficulties of disability.