Description
Book SynopsisFrom the collages of Romare Bearden and paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat to the fiction of Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison to the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, Robert G. O’Meally explores how the worlds of African American jazz, art, and literature have informed one another.
Trade ReviewA
"Best Books of Summer 2022" Pick * Boston Globe *
A masterpiece—from the Angela Davis moment at the beginning to the incredible and inimitable readings of
Paris Blues at the end! O'Meally has given the world (with all of your unruly Black cosmopolitanism!) the definitive takes on Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, Toni Morrison and Romare Bearden of and for our generation! -- Cornel West
Embrace disturbs. Accompaniment unsettles. Musically, Robert O’Meally tells us that black visual and literary art always tell us that black music always tells us this with love. O’Meally’s generously receptive perception is attuned to collage’s rich austerities. In showing that antagonistic cooperation is our program,
Antagonistic Cooperation is a wonder! -- Fred Moten
Robert O'Meally's interdisciplinary brilliance shines throughout the pages of
Antagonistic Cooperation. Here he brings a lifetime of reading, listening, looking, learning, and leading to bear upon extraordinary works by America’s most innovative artists, among them Romare Bearden, Louis Armstrong, Toni Morrison, and Ralph Ellison. His luminous prose and clear analysis make this book itself a contribution to the body of work under consideration. An extraordinary accomplishment. -- Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of
Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and LiteratureEver lively and cautiously optimistic,
Antagonistic Cooperation is a moving revival of jazz-democracy discourse in downbeat times. O’Meally passes on a lifetime of tales and insights, vivid and learned, revealing rhymes among Black music, African American writing, and American political thought. -- William J. Maxwell, author of
F. B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover's Ghostreaders Framed African American LiteratureIn a masterful manner befitting his decades at the helm of the New Jazz Studies, Robert O’Meally in
Antagonistic Cooperation narrates the contrapuntal encounters that have provided the dynamic tension driving African American arts forward. What O’Meally makes profoundly clear is that artistic energy is uncontainable, that great artists are uncategorizable, and that conflict is not something to fear; when understood in its highest aspect, it is the key to evolution and transcendence within the polyphony and polyrhythm of human life. -- Michael E. Veal, Henry L. and Lucy G Moses Professor of Music, Yale University
Highly recommended. * Choice Reviews *
A rich and rewarding read that provides a new understanding of Black cultural expression and hope for fulfilling the broken promises of American democracy. * Journal of Jazz Studies *
Antagonistic Cooperation puts three of the most influential African American artists of the twentieth century – Louis Armstrong, Ralph Ellison and Romare Bearden – in conversation in an accessibly interdisciplinary text. * U.S. Studies Online *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
1. This Music Demanded Action: Ellison, Armstrong, and the Imperatives of Jazz
2. We Are All a Collage: Armstrong’s Operatic Blues, Bearden’s Black Odyssey, and Morrison’s
Jazz3. The “Open Corner” of Black Community and Creativity: From Romare Bearden to Duke Ellington and Toni Morrison
4. Hare and Bear: The Racial Politics of Satchmo’s Smile
5. The White Trombone and the Unruly Black Cosmopolitan Trumpet, or How
Paris Blues Came to Be Unfinished
Coda
Notes
Index
