Overview

Traditional jazz studies have tended to see jazz in purely musical terms, as a series of changes in rhythm, tonality, and harmony, or as a parade of great players. But jazz has also entered the cultural mix through its significant impact on novelists, filmmakers, dancers, painters, biographers, and photographers. Representing Jazz explores the ""other"" history of jazz created by these artists, a history that tells us as much about the meaning of the music as do the many books that narrate the lives of musicians or describe their recordings. Krin Gabbard has gathered essays by distinguished writers from a variety of fields. They provide engaging analyses of films such as Round Midnight, Bird, Mo' Better Blues, Cabin in the Sky, and Jammin' the Blues; the writings of Eudora Welty and Dorothy Baker; the careers of the great lindy hoppers of the 1930s and 1940s; Mura Dehn's extraordinary documentary on jazz dance; the jazz photography of William Claxton; painters of the New York School; the traditions of jazz autobiography; and the art of ""vocalese."" The contributors to this volume assess the influence of extramusical sources on our knowledge of jazz and suggest that the living contexts of the music must be considered if a more sophisticated jazz scholarship is ever to evolve. Transcending the familiar patterns of jazz history and criticism, Representing Jazz looks at how the music actually has been heard and felt at different levels of American culture. With its companion anthology, Jazz Among the Discourses, this volume will enrich and transform the literature of jazz studies. Its provocative essays will interest both aficionados and potential jazz fans.Contributors. Karen Backstein, Leland H. Chambers, Robert P. Crease, Krin Gabbard, Frederick Garber, Barry K. Grant, Mona Hadler, Christopher Harlos, Michael Jarrett, Adam Knee, Arthur Knight, James Naremore

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9780822315940

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Reviews

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

[A] consistent sharpness, and impressively deft adaptation of both Jazz and the discursive channels that have for decades made meaning of this temporal phenomenon. Theory . . . throttles these collections into revealing that Jazz and contemporary thought are indeed compatible and mutually illuminating. Aiding and abetting the critical listener and viewer/reader, Gabbard's selection of articles alone is worth commendation. . . . Gabbard has done a skillful service for the reader interested in collecting contemporary writings on Jazz. Likewise, those working in film studies, performance theory, and literary study will do well to peruse Representing Jazz ' s many facets and disciplinary hoppings. <br>-- Cadence

Author Information

Krin Gabbard is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

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