Jazz on the Road : Don Albert's Musical LIfe / Christopher Wilkinson; ed. by Christopher Wilkinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilkinson, Christopher, 1946- Author.

Series:

Music of the African Diaspora

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (306 p.) : 17 b/w photographs, 14 line illustrations, 5 maps, 7 music examples

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [2001]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Christopher Wilkinson uncovers a fascinating and unexplored side of American musical and social history in this richly detailed account of Don Albert's musical career and the multicultural forces that influenced it. Albert was born Albert Dominque in New Orleans in 1908. Wilkinson discusses his musical education in the Creole community of New Orleans and the fusion of New Orleans jazz and the Texas blues styles in the later 1920s during his tenure with Troy Floyd's Orchestra of Gold. He documents the founding of Albert's own band in San Antonio, its tours through twenty-four states during the 1930s, its recordings, and its significant reputation within the African American community. In addition to providing a vivid account of life on the road and imparting new insight into the daily existence of working musicians, this book illustrates how the fundamental issue of race influenced Albert's life, as well as the music of the era.Albert's years as a San Antonio nightclub owner in the 1940s and 1950s saw the rise in popularity of rhythm and blues and the decline of interest in jazz. There was also increasing racial animosity, which Albert resisted by the successful legal defense of his right to operate an integrated establishment in 1951. In the two decades before his death in 1980, his performances in Dixieland jazz bands and interviews with oral historians concerning his own career were the fitting climax to a multifaceted musical life. Albert's voice and personality, his feelings and opinions about the music he loved, and the obstacles he faced in performing and promoting it, are artfully conveyed in Wilkinson's fluid, accessible, and erudite narrative. Jazz on the Road shows the importance of live performance in bringing jazz to America, and succeeds brilliantly in depicting an era, a locale, and a way of life.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

CHAPTER ONE A Musical Education in Creole New Orleans

CHAPTER TWO West to Texas, the Southwest Frontier of Jazz 1926-29

CHAPTER THREE Recording for Okeh and Brunswick 1928-29

CHAPTER FOUR Don Albert, Southwest Territory Bandleader 1929-33

CHAPTER FIVE Expanding the Territory 1933-34

CHAPTER SIX To New York City and Back 1935-36

CHAPTER SEVEN "America's Greatest Swing Band" Records for Vocalion 1936

CHAPTER EIGHT A National Band from the Southwest 1937-39

CHAPTER NINE The Band's Final Year 1940

CHAPTER TEN From Bandleader to Businessman 1940-48

CHAPTER ELEVEN The Second Keyhole, and a Fight for Social Justice 1949-60

CHAPTER TWELVE Closing the Circle 1960-80

Essay on Sources

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 09. Dez 2023)

ISBN:

0-520-92741-9

OCLC:

1414456379