Hersch Jews and Jazz

Improvising Ethnic Identity
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-1-317-27038-6
Verlag: CRC Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 210 Seiten

Jews and Jazz: Improvising Jewish Identity explores the meaning of Jewish involvement in the world of American jazz. It focuses on the ways prominent jazz musicians like Stan Getz, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Lee Konitz, Dave Liebman, Michael Brecker, and Red Rodney have engaged with jazz, in order to explore and construct ethnic identities.

Throughout, the author looks at Jewish identity construction through jazz in the context of the surrounding American culture, believing that American Jews have used jazz to construct three kinds of identities: to become more American, to emphasize their minority outsider-ness, and to become more Jewish. From the beginning Jewish musicians have used jazz for all three of these purposes, but the emphasis has shifted over time. In the 1920s and 30s, when Jews were seen as foreign, Jews used jazz to make a more inclusive America, for them and for blacks, emphasizing their Americanness. Beginning in the 1940s, as Jews became more accepted into the mainstream, they used jazz to "re-minoritize" and avoid over-assimilation through identification with African Americans. Finally, starting in the 1960s as ethnic assertion became more predominant in America, Jews have used jazz to explore and advance their identities as Jews in a multicultural society.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hersch, Charles B

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musikethnologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

PART I: BECOMING AMERICAN Chapter 1: Becoming Americans (I): Jewish Tin Pan Alley Composers and Musical Integration / Chapter 2: Becoming Americans (II): Black-Jewish Integration in the World of Swing Era and Bebop Jazz

PART II: BECOMING HYBRID Chapter 3: "Every Time I Try to Play Black it Comes Out Jewish": Jewish Jazz Musicians and Racial Identity / Chapter 4: "Matzo Balls-ereenie": Ethnic Hybridity in African American Jazz Versions of Jewish Songs"

PART III: BECOMING JEWISH Chapter 5: Swingin’ Hava Nagila: "Jewish Jazz" and Jewish Identity

Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Charles Hersch is Professor of Political Science at Cleveland State University. He is also the author of Democratic Artworks: Politics and the Arts from Trilling to Dylan and Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans.