Description
Book SynopsisLooks at how jazz music has actually been heard and felt at different levels of American culture.
Trade Review"Bringing together all these pieces in one place is startling, and should jump-start the field of jazz studies by demonstrating, convincingly, that it need not be conducted as a bad imitation of 1950s musicology. Gabbard is to be commended not only for encouraging these diverse intellects to work on jazz, but also for gathering such an appealing and balanced collection. It works well as an overview of the possibilities of the field, while exploring idiosyncratic areas with great zeal."—Scott DeVeaux, University of Virginia
"If it is true that new knowledge always demands new tools, then we are surely on the way to a paradigm shift with the publication of Krin Gabbard’s two masterful anthologies of jazz. The wonderful introductions—in themselves masterpieces of preparation for a new discipline—are complemented in every way by a variety of absolutely first-rate writing. We may well be glancing with these anthologies through the telescope that will show us the future of jazz studies in the international academy. These are indispensable tools for anyone who wishes to understand sociology and philosophy of knowledge for our era."—Houston A. Baker, Jr.
"One of the strongest jazz anthologies I have seen. Its focus is original. Jazz in literature has been treated before to some extent, but not in the same fashion, and there is little elsewhere on jazz in dance or jazz and the visual arts."—Lewis Porter, author, with Michael Ullman, of
Jazz: From Its Origins to the Present Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Introduction: Writing the Other History / Krin Gabbard 1
Jazz in Literature and Film
Jammin' the Blues, or the Sight of Jazz, 1944 / Arthur Knight 11
Improvising and Mythmaking in Eudora Welty's "Powerhouse" / Leland H. Chambers 54
Fabulating Jazz / Frederick Garber 70
Signifyin(g) the Phallus:
Mo' Better Blues and Representations of the Jazz Trumpet / Krin Gabbard 104
Jazz Autobiography: Theory, Practice, Politics / Christopher Harlos 131
Excursus: Cabin in the Sky
Uptown Folk: Blackness and Entertainment in
Cabin in the Sky / James Naremore 169
Doubling, Music, and Race in
Cabin in the Sky / Adam Knee 193
Jazz and Dance
Divine Frivolity: Hollywood Representations of the Lindy Hop, 1937–1942 / Robert P. Crease 207
Keeping the Spirit Alive: The Jazz Dance Testament of Mura Dehn / Karen Backstein 229
Picturing Jazz
Jazz and the New York School / Mona Hadler 247
The Tenor's Vehicle: Reading
Way Out West / Michael Jarrett 260
Vocalese: Representing Jazz with Jazz
Purple Passages of Fiestas in Blue? Notes Toward an Aesthetic of Vocalese / Barry Keith Grant 285
Contributors 305
Index 307
