Imperial Blues: Geographies of Race and Sex in Jazz Age New YorkFiona I.B.Ngô. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014.

Abstract

Imperial Blues: Geographies of Race and Sex in Jazz Age New York Fiona LB. Ngo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014.In her first book as a sole author, Professor Fiona I.B. Ngo (from the University of Illinois) tries to revisit the history of Harlem during the Golden Age of jazz and blues, mainly in the era of prohibition. She argues that, instead of considering the 1920s Harlem scene as a site for black/white dualism, historians should now reconsider this urban, cultural landscape as multiethnic, and, therefore, multicultural with jazz culture being a driving force: Not only were nightclubs filled with the sights and, sounds of distant conti- nents and tropical islands, but travelers from around the world-including the multiple outposts of the United States-made their ways through the city streets and spaces of nightlife (2). Among these other forms of international presence, the author insists on the Asian dimension (from Chinese to Egyptians) that once existed in this vintage jazz culture, with examples such as New York's own Chinatown plus some Arabic or Oriental figures as symbols of exotism (see the pages about the Black Salome, pp. 135 and sq.). As usual with such retrospective observations and its consequent theorizations, it is always difficult to state whether these phenomenon from the alternative scene were actually noticed then and considered into the balance by the observers of this era; even with the help of archives, it still remains challenging nowadays to reconsider and re-evaluate without any bias the history (and therefore the memory) of what really took place almost one century ago outside the US mainstream mass culture. Some selected examples taken from the vintage material culture of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance (like Wallace Thurman's novels or the front cover of the 1926 Opportunity Journal of Negro Life) which are discussed here still remain ambiguous regarding their circulation and effective audience (see p. 72). Wasn't it rather an influence over a long period of time and perhaps a rediscovery after some decades?Despite its title, this is not really a book about the blues as we usually know it in its rural roots, so no Bessie Smith and no Robert Johnson are to be found here. The four chapters focus respectively on One: racialized masculinities (62) and the inherent violence in New York City during the 1920s, Two: queer modernities and bodies in trends like primitivism and the orientalist fantasy, Three: Orienting subjectivities, and Four: the dreaming of Araby made in the US (in the era of Rudolf Valentino's film The Sheik). …