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Books > 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.
Should we talk of European jazz or jazz in Europe? What kinds of
networks link those who make it happen 'on the ground'? What
challenges do they have to face? Jazz is a part of the cultural
fabric of many of the European countries. Jazz in Europe:
Networking and Negotiating Identities presents jazz in Europe as a
complex arena, where the very notions of cultural identity, jazz
practices and Europe are continually being negotiated against an
ever changing social, cultural, political and economic environment.
The book gives voice to musicians, promoters, festival directors,
educators and researchers regarding the challenges they are faced
with in their everyday practices. Jazz identities in Europe result
from the negotiation between discourse and practice and in the
interstices between the formal and informal networks that support
them, as if 'Jazz' and 'Europe' were blank canvases where
diversified notions of what jazz and Europe should or could be are
projected.
Graham Collier's radical new analysis of the place of the composer
in jazz is nothing less than a complete reassessment of the
direction in which the music is developing and a powerful argument
for fresh thinking. He takes a detailed look at the music of Duke
Ellington, Charles Mingus and Gil Evans. His views about jazz
composition - jazz happens in real time, once - and about
contemporary composers are clearly and strongly expressed,
controversial and provocative. This book will appeal to lay
readers, especially those who enjoy an argument, as well as
professional musicians and teachers. Musical examples in the book
are linked to the author's website. 'I find "The Jazz Composer" to
be an insightful, intelligent, creative and artful view to the
understanding of jazz composition. It is written and developed for
all interested listeners, the novice as well as the performer, and
shows the way to the deepest artistic level' - Justin DiCioccio,
jazz educator. 'Composers - take heed! ...If you're confident in
your compositional devices - take the challenge to have your
foundations soundly rattled If you're searching for a methodology
to follow or guide you, it could well lie here...Not for the
squeamish . ..prepare to be provoked' - Mike Gibbs, jazz composer.
'Collier ...makes music that speaks directly ...strongly personal
but in no way self-dramatising ...It's reassuring to learn that
when he turns to prose, the same qualities are in place' - Brian
Morton, jazz critic.
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