(8 lectures, 45 minutes/lecture)
Taught by Bill Messenger
The Peabody Institute of Music
M.A., Johns Hopkins University
The uniquely American music and art form, jazz, is one of America's great contributions to world culture.
Now you can learn the basics of jazz and its history in a course as free-flowing and original as jazz itself.
Taught by Professor Bill Messenger of the Peabody Institute, the lectures in this course are a must for music lovers. They will have you reaching deep into your own music collection and going straight out to a music store to add to it. Professor Messenger has spent his life in music as student, teacher, and professional musician. He has studied and lectured at the famed Peabody Institute and written an acclaimed book on music activities aimed at older adults.
And as a pianist, he has: Played in ragtime ensembles, swing bands, Dixieland bands, and modern jazz groups Been a successful studio musician in the early days of rock 'n' roll
Accompanied performers as renowned as Lou Rawls and Mama Cass Elliot Opened for Bill Haley and the Comets. So it is no wonder that the course he has created is so thorough and enjoyable.
The Witches
The Grand High Witch has a fiendish plan for getting rid of all the children in England. First, her fellow hags will take over all the sweet shops. Next, they will sell poisoned sweets and chocolate which turn children into mice! Then, make way for the mouse traps...
This terrible plan is overheard by the young boy narrator of the story. Fortunately, his grandma knows something about witches. Unfortunately, before he has a chance to consult her, he is turned into a mouse himself.
Will the witches triumph? Are the children of England doomed? And what exactly is the secret behind grandma's missing finger? This award-winning tale has all the answers.
___James Burke, the BBC's chief reporter on the Apollo missions to the moon, was awarded the Royal Television Society silver medal in 1973 and the gold medal in 1974. Connections was over two years in the making, the research and filming taking the author to twnety-three countries. James Burke lives in London. ___You can make all the plans you will, plot to make a fortune in the commodities market, speculate on developing trends: all will likely come to naught, for "however carefully you plan for the future, someone else's actions will inevitably modify the way your plans turn out". So writes the English scholar and documentary producer James Burke in his sparkling book Connections, a favourite of historically minded readers ever since its first publication in 1978. Taking a hint from Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man, Burke charts the course of technological innovation from ancient times to the present, but always with a subversive eye for things happening in spite of, and not because of, their inventors' intentions. Burke gives careful attention to the role of accident in human history. In his opening pages, for instance, he writes of the invention of uniform coinage, an invention that hinged on some unknown Anatolian prospector's discovering that a fleck of gold rubbed against a piece of schist - a "touchstone" - would leave a mark indicating its quality. Just so, we owe the invention of modern printing to Johann Gutenberg's training as a goldsmith, for his knowledge of the properties of metals enabled him to develop a press whose letterforms would not easily wear down. With Gutenberg's invention, Burke notes, came a massive revolution in the European economy, for, as he writes, "the easier it is to communicate, the faster change happens". Burke's book is a splendid and educational entertainment for our fast-changing time. - Gregory McNamee - This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Holmes and Watson receive a visit from Dr. James Mortimer, who wishes to consult them before meeting Sir Henry Baskerville, the last of the Baskervilles, and heir to the Baskerville estate in Dartmoor. Dr. Mortimer tells them he is uneasy about letting him go to Baskerville Hall, owing to a supposed family curse. He narrates the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, a demonic dog that first killed Sir Hugo Baskerville several hundred years ago, and is believed to kill all Baskervilles in the region of Dartmoor
___Set in 1887 or 1888; The Sign of Four has a complex plot involving service in colonial India, a stolen treasure and a secret pact among four ex-convicts. It presents the detective's drug habit and humanizes him in a way that had not been done in the first novel, A Study in Scarlet. It also introduces Doctor Watson's future wife, Mary Morstan.
Elements Of Jazz: 
Connections by James Burke![The Hound of the Baskervilles [UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK WITH TEXT]](http://englishtips.org/uploads/old/posts/1175590414_baskervilles.jpg "The Hound of the Baskervilles [UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK WITH TEXT]")
![The Sign Of Four [UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK WITH TEXT]](http://englishtips.org/uploads/old/posts/thumbs/1175528795_0587051272lsignoffouriiposters.jpg)
