Jazz and cocktails : rethinking race and the sound of film noir / Jans B. Wager.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wager, Jans B., 1958- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jazz in motion pictures.

Film noir--History and criticism.

Film noir.

Race in motion pictures.

Sound in motion pictures.

Motion pictures and music.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

x, 163 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2017.

Summary:

Film noir showcased hard-boiled men and dangerous femmes fatales, rain-slicked city streets, pools of inky darkness cut by shards of light, and, occasionally, jazz. Jazz served as a shorthand for the seduction and risks of the mean streets in early film noir. As working jazz musicians began to compose the scores for and appear in noir films of the 1950s, black musicians found a unique way of asserting their right to participate fully in American life. Jazz and Cocktails explores the use of jazz in film noir, from its early function as a signifier of danger, sexuality, and otherness to the complex role it plays in film scores in which jazz invites the spectator into the narrative while simultaneously transcending the film and reminding viewers of the world outside the movie theater. Jans B. Wager looks at the work of jazz composers such as Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Chico Hamilton, and John Lewis as she analyzes films including Sweet Smell of Success, Elevator to the Gallows, Anatomy of a Murder, Odds Against Tomorrow, and considers the neonoir American Hustle. Wager demonstrates how the evolving role of jazz in film noir reflected cultural changes instigated by black social activism during and after World War II and altered Hollywood representations of race and music. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: nostalgia for the Lush Life

Pie eye's juke joint : jazz and its interpretations

The porters and waiters club : jazz, movies, and Ogden

Studio jazz from Harlem to Acapulco

The Blue Gardenia, Club Pigalle, and Daniel's : charting the alienation effect in film noir

From Elysium to Robards, from real to reel

A Paris bar where miles innovates

"All the very gay places" : Ellington and Strayhorn swing in northern Michigan

Cannoy's club : "All men are evil"

"Jeep's blues" and jazz today.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781477312261

1477312269

9781477312278

1477312277

OCLC:

949912261