Short description:

Rhythm Changes: Jazz, Culture, Discourse explores the history and development of jazz, addressing the music, its makers, and its social and cultural contexts, as well as the various discourses ? especially those of academic analysis and journalistic criticism ? that have influenced its creation, interpretation, and reception.

Long description:

Rhythm Changes: Jazz, Culture, Discourse explores the history and development of jazz, addressing the music, its makers, and its social and cultural contexts, as well as the various discourses ? especially those of academic analysis and journalistic criticism ? that have influenced its creation, interpretation, and reception. Tackling diverse issues, such as race, class, nationalism, authenticity, irony, parody, gender, art, commercialism, technology, and sound recording, the book?s perspective on artistic and cultural practices suggests new ways of thinking about jazz history. It challenges many established scholarly approaches in jazz research, providing a much-needed intervention in the current academic orthodoxies of Jazz Studies.

Perhaps the most striking and distinctive aspect of the book is the extraordinary eclecticism of the wide-ranging but carefully chosen case studies and examples referenced throughout the text, from nineteenth century literature, through 1930s Broadway and film, to twentieth and twenty-first century jazz and popular music.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: The Persistence of Authenticity

1. The Challenge of the Past: Jazz, Parody, and Jazz Discourse

They Brainwash and Teach You Hate: From Parody to Protest

It Ain?t Necessarily So: From Caricature to Celebration

In a Sentimental Mood: From Ridicule to Romanticism

Notes

"Saying Something": Coltrane, Irony, and ?My Favorite Things?

"White Things," Black Things, and a Few Other Things

"Undeniable Qualities": Homage, Value-For, and Ideological Hegemony

"Myriad Subtleties," Bebop Parody, and the Question of Context

"We?re in the Money": Irony, Complexity, and Social Normativity

Notes

Way Out West: From Cowhand Sonny to Dangerous Davey

Cowboy Favorites: Jazz Meets Country Music

You Are My Sunshine: From Singing Cowboys to Gassed Soulsters

Happy Endings: George Russell Meets ?You Are My Sunshine?

Sunshine Redux: From Kiddies Songs to Kitchen Appliances

Notes

Fun With Toys: Miles, Electricity, and Acoustic Relief

A Blazing Forth of a Divine Will: Blank Slates, Claptrap, and Emphysemic Goats

Body and Soul: Sacred Space, the State of Grace, and Everyday Ecstasy

Blessed With Genius: The Flame Itself, the Man from Porlock, and the Heavenly Ostrich

Play On, Play On: Robert Bly, the Wild Man, and the Neglected Male Psyche

Touch the Soil: Elemental Instruments, Indian Country, and the Noble Savage

Notes

I Sing the Body Electric: Aesthetic Materialism, Technological Humanism, and Electrical Grandmothers

Spark of Being: Frankenstein, Electricity, and the Merging of Text and Form

Undervaluing Overdubbing: Jazz, Spontaneity, and Recording Studio Trickery

Essential and Divine: Faithful Fidelity, Analogue Authenticity, and "exactly what was played"

Preserving Spontaneity: Free Improvisation, Live Performance, and the Paradox of Sound Recording

Notes

6. Can Blue Men Sing the Whites? African American Exceptionalism, European Stereotypes, and the Jazz Studies Debate

Getting To Know You: The ?Afrological,? the ?Eurological,? and the Illogical

The Anxiety of Affluence: Race, Class, and European ?Privilege?

A Pan-European Conspiracy? Cultural Nationalism, Nativist Politics, and Foreign Competitors

The Emancipation Problem: African American Models and German Belligerents

A Delicate, Nuanced Approach? Humour, Improvisation, and Composer-Centred Music

Networks of Power: Whiteness, Erasure, and World Harmony

Postscript: Say It Loud, I?m British and I?m Proud

Notes