Jews and jazz : improvising ethnicity / Charles Hersch.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hersch, Charles, 1956- author.

Series:

Transnational studies in jazz

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jewish jazz musicians--United States.

Jewish jazz musicians.

Jazz musicians--United States.

Jazz musicians.

United States.

Jews--United States--Identity.

Jews.

Identity (Philosophical concept).

Jazz--History and criticism.

Jazz.

Jews--Identity.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xiii, 195 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY ; Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2017.

Summary:

Jews and Jazz: Improvising Ethnicity 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. The author looks at Jewish identity 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 status, 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 1930s, when Jews were seen as foreign, Jews used jazz to make a more inclusive America, for themselves and for blacks, establishing their American identity. 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. Transnational Studies in Jazz presents cross-disciplinary and global perspectives on the development and history of jazz and explores its many social, political, and cultural meanings. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I Becoming American 15

1 Jewish Tin Pan Alley Composers and Musical Pluralism 17

2 Black-Jewish Integration in the Jazz World from the Swing Era to the 1950s 45

3 "Listening for the Black Sound": Jews in the Jazz Music Business 72

Part II Becoming Black 89

4 "Every Time I Try to Play Black. It Conies Out Sounding Jewish": Jewish Jazz Musicians Cross the Color Line 91

5 "Matzo Balls-Ereenie": African American Jazz Versions of Jewish Songs 113

Part III Becoming Jewish 133

6 Swinging Hava Nagila: "Jewish Jazz" and Jewish Identity 135.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Hersch, Charles, 1956- author. Jews and jazz.

ISBN:

9781138195783

1138195782

9781138195790

1138195790

OCLC:

947794788