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Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Contemporary popular music > Jazz
Outside and Inside: Representations of Race and Identity in White
Jazz Autobiography is the first full-length study of key
autobiographies of white jazz musicians. White musicians from a
wide range of musical, social, and economic backgrounds looked to
black music and culture as the model on which to form their
personal identities and their identities as professional musicians.
Their accounts illustrate the triumphs and failures of jazz
interracialism. As they describe their relationships with black
musicians who are their teachers and peers, white jazz
autobiographers display the contradictory attitudes of reverence
and entitlement, and deference and insensitivity that remain part
of the white response to black culture to the present day. Outside
and Inside features insights into the development of jazz styles
and culture in the urban meccas of twentieth-century jazz in New
Orleans, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Reva Marin considers
the autobiographies of sixteen white male jazz instrumentalists,
including renowned swing-era bandleaders Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw,
and Charlie Barnet; reed instrumentalists Mezz Mezzrow, Bob Wilber,
and Bud Freeman; trumpeters Max Kaminsky and Wingy Manone;
guitarist Steve Jordan; pianists Art Hodes and Don Asher;
saxophonist Art Pepper; guitarist and bandleader Eddie Condon; and
New Orleans-style clarinetist Tom Sancton. While critical race
theory informs this work, Marin argues that viewing these texts
simply through the lens of white privilege does not do justice to
the kind of sustained relationships with black music and culture
described in the accounts of white jazz autobiographers. She both
insists upon the value of insider perspectives and holds the texts
to rigorous scrutiny, while embracing an expansive interpretation
of white involvement in black culture. Marin opens new paths for
study of race relations and racial, ethnic, and gender identity
formation in jazz studies.
This year marks the golden anniversary of the Art Ensemble of
Chicago, the flagship band of the Association for the Advancement
of Creative Musicians. Formed in 1966 and flourishing until 2010,
the Art Ensemble distinguished itself by its unique performance
practices--members played hundreds of instruments on stage, recited
poetry, performed theatrical sketches, and wore face paint, masks,
lab coats, and traditional African and Asian dress. The group,
which built a global audience and toured across six continents,
presented their work as experimental performance art, in opposition
to the jazz industry's traditionalist aesthetics. In Message to Our
Folks, Paul Steinbeck combines musical analysis and historical
inquiry to give us the definitive study of the Art Ensemble. In the
book, he proposes a new theory of group improvisation that explains
how the band members were able to improvise together in so many
different styles while also drawing on an extensive repertoire of
notated compositions. Steinbeck examines the multimedia dimensions
of the Art Ensemble's performances and the ways in which their
distinctive model of social relations kept the group performing
together for four decades. Message to Our Folks is a striking and
valuable contribution to our understanding of one of the world's
premier musical groups.
Jazz Journey: A Guide for Listening explores jazz music from its
19th Century forerunners through today. The text takes readers on
an historical audio and video tour of select jazz performances of
the last hundred years. All of the major styles of jazz-including
the predecessors of jazz, Ragtime and Blues-are covered, including
New Orleans style, Chicago style, Stride piano, Swing, Bebop, Cool,
Hard Bop, modal, Free jazz, freer jazz, and Fusion. Major
performers include Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Waller,
Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy
Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Horace Silver,
John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock, and
Keith Jarrett, among others. For easy access to the music described
in the text, the revised first edition features an online, active
learning component with links to audio and video recordings, as
well as listening guides. Jazz Journey is an ideal reading and
listening experience for jazz appreciation courses for non-majors.
It can also be used in jazz history classes for music and jazz
studies majors.
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