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For the architects of the third reich, jazz was an especially threatening form of expression, because of its essence: spontaneity, improvisation and individuality. Jazz survived persecution and became a powerful symbol of political disobedience and resistance in wartime Germany.
Many commentators have observed that the influence of jazz and related popular musics on musical practice beyond American borders should be considered one of the most dynamic developments of the twentieth century. This collection of essays concentrates on American influences in Germany, where such unlikely "foreign" elements enjoyed a remarkable vogue for much of the past century, not only in the realm of popular culture but in the realm of the arts as well. Against the tumultuous social and political upheavals of modern Germany there evolved a fascinating musical sound track that introduced German musicians and their public to ragtime, spirituals, the blues, later dance music, and jazz with resulting opportunities for imitation and assimilation. In this volume American scholars from various academic perspectives are joined by German musician-scholars.
Today, jazz is considered high art, America’s national music, and the catalog of its recordings—its discography—is often taken for granted. But behind jazz discography is a fraught and highly colorful history of research, fanaticism, and the intense desire to know who played what, where, and when. This history gets its first full-length treatment in Bruce D. Epperson’s More Important Than the Music. Following the dedicated few who sought to keep jazz’s legacy organized, Epperson tells a fascinating story of archival pursuit in the face of negligence and deception, a tale that saw curses and threats regularly employed, with fisticuffs and lawsuits only slightly rarer. Epperson exami...
A basic tenet of literary studies is that aesthetic structures are politically significant because they represent an artist's response to the political implications of cultural codes with which the recipient of the modern work is also acquainted. This tenet provides the basis for the ideological associations attending the appearance of music in the modern German narrative. With his understanding of the arts as involved in often unacknowledged ideological forces within a culture, Marc Weiner's Undertones of Insurrection bridges the gap between the "New Musicology's" rewarding infusion of modern cultural and literary theory into the study of music, politically insightful examinations of narrat...
Uncovers a world of forgotten triumphs of musical theatre that shine a light on major social topics. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The critical role of Europe in the music, personalities, and analysis of jazz
This anthology examines how immigrants and their US-born children use media to negotiate their American identity and how audiences engage with mediated narratives about the immigrant experience (cultural adjustments, language use, and the like). Where this work diverges from other collections and monographs is the area is its intentional focus on how both first- and second-generation Americans’ complex identities and hybrid cultures interact with mediated narratives in general, alongside the extent to which these narratives reflect their experience. In a three-part structure, the collection examines representations, “zooms in” to explore the reception of these narratives through autoethnographic essays, and concludes in a section of analysis and critique of specific media.
Chronicles the history of jazz over the complete lifespan of East Germany, from 1945 to 1990, for the first time.
Praised by the Washington Post as a "tough, unblinkered critic," James Lincoln Collier is probably the most controversial writer on jazz today. His acclaimed biographies of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman continue to spark debate in jazz circles, and his iconoclastic articles on jazz over the past 30 years have attracted even more attention. With the publication of Jazz: The American Theme Song, Collier does nothing to soften his reputation for hard-hitting, incisive commentary. Questioning everything we think we know about jazz--its origins, its innovative geniuses, the importance of improvisation and spontaneous inspiration in a performance--and the jazz world, these ten...