Description
Book SynopsisExplores the relationship between jazz and literature, looking at jazz musicians and the themes literature has garnered from them by appropriating the style, tones, and innovations of jazz, and demonstrating that the poetics of jazz has both been assimilated into, and affected, the development of twentieth-century American literature.
Trade Review"David Yaffe's Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing provides a brilliant account of the music's often overlooked influence on J.D. Salinger, Philip Roth and other lights of the literary firmament"--Alex Abramovich, Playboy "This lively and provocative book exemplifies the very best of jazz writing by scholars working primarily outside the discipline of musicology."--Mervyn Cooke, Music and Letters
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1 CHAPTER 1. WHITE NEGROES AND NATIVE SONS BLACKS AND JEWS IN WORDS AND MUSIC 15 CHAPTER 2. LISTENING TO ELLISON TRANSGRESSION AND TRADITION IN ELLISON'S JAZZ WRITINGS 61 CHAPTER 3. STOMPING THE MUSE JAZZ, POETRY, AND THE PROBLEMATIC MUSE 99 CHAPTER 4. LOVE FOR SALE HUSTLING THE JAZZ MEMOIR 150 Notes 199 Bibliography 215 Index 225
