Jazz Fans Research Articles

The Shitposting of Jazz to Come: Virtual Communities, Internetworks, and the Dank Jazz Meme

ABSTRACT This article is a virtual ethnography of an online community of jazz fans and musicians that engage in the consumption and dissemination of internet memes about jazz. It argues that internet memes are not, or are not merely, trivial funny images shared online – that memes matter in the social study of jazz. I explore the position of memes in the contemporary jazz milieu, finding them to play an active role in a variety of community functions including evaluating authenticity, enculturating members, and interacting with familiar and unfamiliar individuals on- and offline. They are a window into the discursive practices of jazz communities, a credible pathway of jazz pedagogy, and possess genuine artistic credentials, bringing them within the remit of jazz practice itself. Jazz memes are what I call internetworks, an ontological and aesthetic term that projects them into the future of jazz and positions them firmly within its social gestalt. For ordinary jazz enthusiasts, memeing is a meaningful activity.

Jazzing: New York City's Unseen Scene

Jazzing: New York City's Unseen Scene

Upright Men Seeking Upright Man: Pithecanthropus Erectus, Tokyo, Japan

Upright Men Seeking Upright Man: Pithecanthropus Erectus, Tokyo, Japan

Archival Silence in the Collections of Dietrich Schulz-Köhn

Archival Silence in the Collections of Dietrich Schulz-Köhn

Jazzing through the luminiferous ether

In the 1920s radio broadcasting was a new and exciting medium. It contained a multitudeof possibilities in entertainment and education, and the wonder of new technologythat connected people around the world. This article investigates the experiencesof New Zealand jazz fans and musicians 'listening in' to overseas broadcasts in the1920s and 1930s. I consider situations of the jazz listening-in experience, which couldbe isolated or social depending on whether the fan had a headset or amplifier andspeakers setup. Listening-in could also be a pure listening experience or include dancingand socializing. Finally I will examine how this activity affected fans and musicians'experience and perception of jazz, and how that impacted jazz as it was produced inNew Zealand.

From Blue Horizon to Saydisc: Independent Record Labels in the British Blues Revival

After World War II, British jazz fans and critics looking to better understand the genre stimulated a demand for blues records; this market expanded further as first Trad jazz, then skiffle and British R&B launched a British blues revival. Major labels like Decca and Pye offered major US urban blues and soul artists, but the specialty market, dominated by connoisseurs interested in a wider variety of artists and eras, was underserved by the major labels. Thus, committed blues lovers took matters into their own hands. This paper will survey the turbulent independent blues record scene in Britain from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, an ever-changing kaleidoscope of labels with colorful names, shadowy origins, lofty goals, and often surprising founders. Dozens of British musicians, critics, and collectors founded labels, licensing (or bootlegging) materials for reissue, importing 45s from the United States and reselling them in Britain, or recording new material for exclusive release. Many of these small concerns, reissuing rarities and recordings by artists outside the commercial mainstream, were labors of love rather than serious commercial enterprises. Their limited-edition discs were marketed directly to their target audience, and label owners rarely did more than break even. Most only issued a handful of recordings, though in the process they revived the stalled careers of US blues singers, provided much-needed income and support to older artists, and introduced Britain to a wider variety of blues.

An investigation of empathy in male and female fans of aggressive music

Concerns have been raised that persistent exposure to violent media can lead to negative outcomes such as reduced empathy for the plight of others. The present study investigated whether fans of aggressive heavy or death metal music show reduced empathic reactions to aggression, relative to fans of non-aggressive music. 108 participants who self-identified as fans of heavy or death metal, classical or jazz music ( n=36 per group) were presented with vignettes that described a primary character’s reaction (the ‘aggressor’) in response to a secondary character’s irritating action (the ‘instigator’). The aggressor’s reaction was either non-aggressive, mildly aggressive or strongly aggressive. After each vignette, participants provided ratings of state empathic concern (other-oriented empathy) and personal distress (self-oriented distress). They also completed measures of trait empathy, passion for music and its psychosocial functions. Fans of heavy or death metal exhibited lower trait empathic concern compared with classical and jazz fans. However, only male heavy or death metal fans exhibited lower state empathic concern than male classical and jazz fans. Finally, social bonding was a stronger motivation for heavy or death metal fans to listen to music than for classical fans. Results are discussed in light of research and public concern regarding the effects of long-term exposure to media violence.

Jazz Culture in the North: A Comparative Study of Regional Jazz Communities in Cairns and Mackay, North Queensland

Jazz Culture in the North: A Comparative Study of Regional Jazz Communities in Cairns and Mackay, North Queensland

Rio das Ostras, cidade do jazz. Contribuição da música para o bem-estar e desenvolvimento local alcançados neste território

A partir não só de levantamento de matérias veiculadas na mídia tradicional e de dados socioeconômicos do território, mas também de observações de campo, conversas informais e entrevistas semiestruturadas (realizadas com lideranças, moradores, autoridades, produtores e fãs de jazz), buscou-se neste artigo avaliar o papel da música (ao lado dos royalties do petróleo) nos patamares de desenvolvimento alcançados pela cidade de Rio das Ostras (na região norte fluminense). Em outras palavras, busca-se repensar a relevância do conhecido Festival de Jazz & Blues de Rio das Ostras nos processos de ressignificação desta urbe, isto é, a capacidade deste evento musical em contribuir para a: integração social do território (ampliando as sinergias entre os atores e instituições desta região), geração de novos empregos e melhoria significativa da qualidade de vida e bem-estar da população local.

Listen to This: Miles Davis and Bitches Brew by Victor Svorinich

Reviewed by: Listen to This: Miles Davis and Bitches Brew by Victor Svorinich Mark C. Gridley Listen to This: Miles Davis and Bitches Brew. By Victor Svorinich. (American Made Music Series.) Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015. [xiv, 202 p. ISBN 9781628461947 (hardcover), $55; ISBN 9781496807823 (paperback), $25.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Miles Davis fans and scholars should rejoice. We now have a book that completes the set of works that account for the most [End Page 510] important albums in Miles Davis’s career: Listen to This: Miles Davis and Bitches Brew, an excellent new volume that details the essence of the Bitches Brew album, written by Kean University professor Victor Svorinich. It complements two books about the events that went into the creation of the 1959 Kind of Blue, one by Ashley Kahn (Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece [New York: Da Capo, 2000]) and another by Eric Nisenson (The Making of Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000]). It also complements Frank Tirro’s wonderful analysis of the Davis Nonet sessions of 1948–50, dubbed “The Birth of the Cool” recordings (The Birth of the Cool of Miles Davis and His Associates (CMS Sourcebooks in American Music, no. 5) [Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2009]), Keith Waters’s book The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965–68 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), and Paul Tingen’s Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967–1991 (New York: Billboard Books, 2001). Svorinich, taking numerous elements into account, eases readers into an understanding of how the finished versions of the music came about. His prodigious labors also help us perceive why the work is so important historically and aesthetically. The author conveys an appreciative knowledge and comprehension of the philosophy behind the sound of this music and is aided by his work as a musician and composer, in addition to being a fan. Miles Davis is often considered to have been the most significant bandleader in jazz after Duke Ellington. Like Ellington, he was a savvy talent scout. Davis brought together great innovators at early stages in their careers. Several Davis-led recordings are revered by jazz musicians and have become staples in the record collections of jazz fans all over the world. Three separate sets of his recording sessions are generally rated among the most important in modern jazz: Birth of the Cool, Kind of Blue, and Bitches Brew. Unlike much of Ellington’s work, however, these Davis recording sessions contributed products so dissimilar that outsiders are often surprised that they came from the same bandleader. This is especially true when contrasting the music on Bitches Brew, from 1969, with the music on Kind of Blue, recorded ten years before. Even more dramatic is the difference between the music on Bitches Brew and the music from the Birth of the Cool sessions, which preceded the former by twenty years. Of enormous value in this new book is the author’s edit-by-edit account of what actually occurred during and after each recording session. This is immensely revealing because extensive editing pervaded the Bitches Brew session tapes. Svorinich reports that “Most of the pieces on Bitches Brew are not brief. ‘Pharaoh’s Dance’ (20:04) and the title track (26:58) take up the first two sides. Most of these tracks, however, were recorded in small clumps and assembled later during post-production” (p. 46). Svorinich includes a sample of the careful thinking that went into editing when he reproduces a set of explicit instructions written by Davis and sent to producer Teo Macero (p. 106). In one such message the bandleader actually requests the repetition of a certain portion of one passage. He also orders Macero to combine passages from two different takes. Because of Svorinich’s detailed research, readers learn exactly what moments were stitched together, when, and by whom. This is important, in part, because these methods differed substantially from the method that Davis used in most of his previous bands’ recording sessions. In those cases he instructed the producer and engineer to record everything that happened in...

The Evolution of Mann: Herbie Mann and the Flute in Jazz by Cary Ginell (review)

The Evolution of Mann: Herbie Mann and the Flute in Jazz. By Cary Ginell. (The Hal Leonard Jazz Biography Series.) Milwaukee, Ml; Hal Leonard, 2014 [xvi, 199 p. ISBN 9781458419811. $18.99.] Illustrations, bibliographic references, discography, index. The eminent jazz journalist Cary Ginell has prepared another exceedingly well-researched biography of a jazz musician. Like his wonderful book on Cannonball Adderley, Walk Tall (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2013), this new biography of flutist Herbie Mann treats us to an album-by-album chronicle of the musician's life. As in his Adderley work, Ginell tells us about crucial musical events that led up to each album and what occurred at each recording session. He draws upon pointed interviews that he conducted with Mann, Mann's friends and relatives, and several musicians who played with Mann. With Ginell's help, we gain an appreciation for Mann's extensive musical explorations that stemmed from the flutist's remarkable curiosity and openness. For the many jazz fans who know only such Mann hits as Comin' Home Baby and Memphis Underground, this book will prove to be a breakthrough because it also describes how the flutist developed almost entirely new repertoires every few years and how each of them embraced a different ethnic tradition. For instance, Mann created original amalgams of jazz with Brazilian music (before Stan Getz became known for it), Middle Eastern music, African music, Cuban music, Japanese art music, soul music, rhythm and blues, reggae, and Hungarian folk music. Unknown to most jazz fans is the fact that his disco piece Hi-Jack sold millions and was the biggest hit of Mann's career. The author also provides us with a brief history of jazz flutists, mostly connected with Afro-Cuban bands, and he links Mann's longstanding interest in Latin American music to hearing a 1947 recording of Jungle Fantasy by the Puerto Rican flutist Esy Morales. For each exploration, Ginell tells us about Mann's travels to the music's original source, and how in many cases the flutist engaged the top practitioners of those styles to play with him. This ultimately means that listeners have been blessed by Mann's tendency to become restless. 'Every time a style of music am playing gets a little too perfect, ... and by perfect, mean something that is a little too tidy, something that is in a box instead of on a meadow. With me, this happens about every two years or so. When it happens, change' (p. 131). This tendency tied in nicely with his aptitude as a talent scout. For example, Mann albums marked some of the earliest appearances of such luminaries as pianist Chick Corea, bassist Miroslav Vitous, vibraphonist Roy Ayers, and guitarist Sonny Sharrock. The book is loaded with little-known facts that should delight Mann's fans. For instance, readers will learn that at one time he wrote music for television shows and that eventually he composed original music for many of his own albums as well as for one by the prominent Afro-Cuban bandleader Francisco Machito Grillo. Another little-known fact is quite significant: Mann was the first prominent jazz musician to think of himself as a flutist who doubled on tenor saxophone instead of a saxophonist who doubled on flute. Additionally, Mann told Ginell that when he was devising a jazz improvisation style: There was no style for flutists playing jazz. You couldn't listen to the Charlie Parker or the Lester Young or the Dizzy Gillespie of flute playing. So 1 said to myself, Why not listen to trumpet players? So listened to Miles and Dizzy and Art Farmer and Clifford Brown, and that's what based my style on. It was more percussive. It wasn't like the prevailing notion of the flute. Nobody plays jazz on the saxophone like classical saxophone, and nobody plays jazz on the bass like classical bass. The same goes for piano and trumpet. So said I can't base it on William Kincaid, so I'm just going to develop my own style. …

Softly, with Feeling: Joe Wilder and the Breaking of Barriers in American Music by Edward Berger (review)

Reviewed by: Softly, with Feeling: Joe Wilder and the Breaking of Barriers in American Music by Edward Berger Jonathon Bakan Softly, with Feeling: Joe Wilder and the Breaking of Barriers in American Music. By Edward Berger, with a foreword by Wynton Marsalis. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014. [xviii, 378 p. ISBN 9781439911273 (hardcover); ISBN 9781439911297 (e-book), $35.] Illustrations, bibliographic references, discography, index. Edward Berger, a senior jazz researcher and former Associate Director of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, has written a timely biography of the groundbreaking African American musician, Joe Wilder. Wilder, who died at the age of ninety-two in May 2014, had a long and highly successful career as a journeyman musician (he only infrequently recorded under his own [End Page 139] name), working as a trumpet player, first in several prominent big bands of the late swing era, then later in various Broadway theatrical productions, studio work in television and radio, and, late in his career, symphonic work. Wilder played a significant historic role as one of the very first African American musicians to break through the color barrier in these latter fields. As a jazz player, he also recorded a number of historically-influential recordings, serving both as leader and sideman. As Berger notes, “Wilder’s singular tone and phrasing is unmistakable, whether the context is jazz, commercial, or classical” (p. 213). While he was highly regarded among his peers, widespread popular recognition nonetheless eluded Wilder for most of his career. As Berger notes, by the late 1950s, “Wilder was well respected by musicians, critics, and serious jazz fans alike, but his name recognition among the general public was hardly on par with other … jazz artists of the day” (p. 150). In spite of his low public profile, Wilder could regularly be heard in Broadway pit orchestras (he worked on some seventeen Broadway productions between 1950 and 1989 [p. 86]) as well as on radio and television broadcasts, numerous jingles, and recordings of all sorts. He was featured on sixty-five albums between 1957 and 1959 alone (p. 150), and on more than seventy-five albums in the following decade (p. 217). His 1959 album The Pretty Sound “became something of a cult classic among trumpet players of several generations” (pp. 153–54). Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, who wrote the forward to Berger’s book, and with whom Wilder worked and toured in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, recalled, “When I got to New York in the 1980s, I found out about Joe [Wilder]. Everywhere I went [musicians] would talk about him. … They told me, ‘you need to know about Joe Wilder, who he is, and what he did’” (p. xi). Wilder was a pioneering African American professional musician who, like many of his generation, found opportunities for success in the swing-era dance music industry, even as many other professions effectively barred black participation. Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, Wilder was among just a handful of African American musicians to find success working in the pit orchestras of major Broadway productions and in various types of studio work. He was also significant for being among the first of a very small number of African American musicians who were able to break institutional race barriers and find steady work in network television and radio orchestras. Wilder played a similar race-barrier-breaking role in the field of classical music, performing with chamber and symphonic orchestras and serving as principal trumpet in the groundbreaking, racially- and genderintegrated Symphony of the New World. Berger’s thoroughly researched biography is based on interviews with Wilder and other musicians (conducted by the author and others) as well as material culled from journals, newspapers, and other archival sources. Berger also provides a discography of Wilder’s recordings and a detailed chart listing his work in Broadway shows. In this regard, Softly, with Feeling provides a valuable resource for jazz and American music researchers, supplying a wealth of important detail, not only on the individual career path of this highly accomplished yet largely unrecognized musician, but also on the day-to-day professional challenges more generally faced by African American musicians in the twentieth century. Berger presents Wilder’s biography...

Duke Ellington as Pianist: A Study of Styles by Matthew J. Cooper, and: Why Jazz Happened by Marc Myers (review)

as Pianist: A Study of Styles. By Matthew J. Cooper. (Monographs and Bibliographies in American Music, no. 24.) Missoula, MT: College Music Society, 2013. [xvi, 127p. ISBN 9781881913610 (paperback), $45.] Music examples, appendices, bibliography, index. Why Jazz Happened. By Marc Myers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. [x, 267 p. ISBN 9780520268784 (hardcover); ISBN 9780520953987 (e-book), $34.95.] Bibliographic references, index. (1899-1974) is known to many Americans as the leader of a swing-era dance band as well as a writer of pop tunes. Some musicians and jazz fans also know him as a major composer--arranger. In fact, there are musicologists and journalists who consider to be America's greatest composer, which puts him in a league with Charles Ives and Aaron Copland. Though many jazz fans think of as a pianist too, few scholars have examined how unique and original his approach to the keyboard really was. Dr. Matthew J. Cooper of Eastern Oregon University wrote that Ellington surely stands as one of the great jazz pianists, and his work is worthy of greater recognition than it has been accorded in the past (p. 102). Responding to this need, he wrote as Pianist. A Study of Styles. It is a very welcome contribution because it not only touts the importance of the pianist, but it also explicates the unique techniques that made him original. This book may prove to be essential study for jazz pianists and jazz theory teachers, not just fans. Cooper is wonderfully conversant with a wide variety of commentaries that prove pivotal to our understanding of Ellington's piano styles. service that the author provides by doing this is commendable, particularly because he shares useful excerpts from writings that may be unknown to scholars and fans. For instance, observations by pianist Dick Katz, pianist-historian Mark Tucker, and composer-historian Gunther Schuller are particularly informative. Quotes from written remarks by himself are penetrating. Cooper is such a tenacious researcher that he even tracked down several strands of counter-evidence for an arcane discussion about whether ever made a piano roll. To help us understand the meat of Ellington's piano style, the author has undertaken the huge task of transcribing and analyzing solos from sources that range all the way from 1928 to 1972. For instance, he selected the obscure 1929 recording Lazy Duke to extract the pianist's work in accompanying a clarinet solo; used parallel triads in f cross rhythm. To refute the contention of some critics that not particularly good as a pianist, Cooper provides transcriptions of the 1932 recording Lots o' Fingers (at 288 beats per minute). Then, for chapter 5: The Later Years and the Atypical Style, Cooper takes quite seriously the odd matching of with avant-garde bassist Charles Mingus and bebop drummer Max Roach that led to the puzzling music on their Money Jungle album of 1962. (Coincidentally, the contemporary drummer-bandleader Terri Lyne Carrington is now using some of this strange music for her group's repertory.) Though we have long known that admired the work of James P. Johnson, the father of stride piano, we may not have known many specifics. We learn from Cooper that Part of Johnson's influence on the younger his exciting use of rhythmic displacement. Johnson never confined himself to a monotonous pattern of 'oom-pah' bass notes and chords; instead, he found graceful and imaginative ways to vary the left-hand accompaniment. In doing so, he created a range of surprising accents and regulated the rise and fall of tension masterfully within each of his phrases (p. 24). Among the historically-significant contributions that made as a pianist, the author alerts us to the fact that was among the first pianists to embrace the technique now known as 'comping. …

The John Coltrane Reference by Chris DeVito, et al. (review)

The John Coltrane Reference. By Chris DeVito, Yasuhiro Fujioka, Wolf Schmaler, and David Wild. Edited by Lewis Porter. New York: Routledge, 2013. [xxii, 821 p. ISBN 9780415634632. $64.95.] Photographs, chronology, appendices, bibliography, discography, indexes.This is the first paperback edition of an indispensable, almost day-by-day ac- count of the professional life of the great saxophonist-composer-bandleader John Coltrane (originally published in hardcover in 2008). It describes almost every perfor- mance known to its compilers in which the saxophonist was bandleader or sideman. The book's compilers have made valiant at- tempts to clear up misunderstandings and confusion regarding dates, venues, and per- sonnel for Coltrane performances that had been reported elsewhere. The authors present much evidence from investigations they conducted to track down and verify little-known gigs and recordings that were rumored to exist. Gigs that were reported in newspapers and magazines, and some that were reported by fellow musicians or recalled by jazz fans (who were inter- viewed), are also included, as are gigs that were publicized but cancelled.The John Coltrane Reference supplants other Coltrane discographies and the Coltrane sections of general jazz discographies, as well as those found in biographies of Coltrane. The book provides detailed infor- mation on every one of Coltrane's record- ing sessions, from 1946 to 1967, and it lists the various formats on which each record- ing was issued. It even includes the results of sessions that were never released, such as radio broadcasts that were recorded by pro- fessionals and amateurs and issued as bootlegs, as well as recordings made for commercial firms but not released. The prodigious research represented here on more than thirty years' worth of gigs and obscure recordings constitutes a huge achievement for which the authors are to be commended.The compilers reproduce newspaper and magazine accounts that sample journalistic response to the music and include the at- tendant publicity for Coltrane's gigs. They also convey the attitudes of jazz fans and musicians by including the texts of inter- views and correspondence about the gigs they attended. Numerous playbills, posters, contracts, and album covers are repro- duced, as well as forty-two glossy black-and- white photos that will delight jazz buffs. Three of them captured Coltrane smiling, which was extremely rare.Previously-published interviews with Coltrane's fellow Philadelphian, Benny Golson, telling readers about Coltrane's early playing in that city, are also included. One heart-wrenching story recounts an in- cident from 1944 in which young saxo- phonists Golson and Coltrane were cheated by a leader who replaced them without telling them. …

Creative Resilience & Aging: Louis Armstrong, Race, & Growing Old in the ‘60s

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) was among the century's most beloved musicians and public personalities, serving as “Ambassador Satch” on a never-ending tour that took him to virtually every corner of the world. Yet for all his fame, too few understand the depths of his artistry, an astoundingly innovative and influential performer as both trumpeter and vocalist. Even jazz fans who admire his 1920s recordings with the Hot Fives and Sevens often dismiss his later work. The truth is that Louis continued to mature as an artist throughout his later decades, working in an ever-widening variety of contexts and reaching places never attained by the younger Louis.

Willis Conover's International Jazz Diplomacy through Fandom: The Friends of Music USA Newsletter (1964–1969)

Willis Conover's Friends of Music USA (FOMUSA) Newsletter functioned as a record of overseas jazz reception and as a document that cohered a global network of fans. From 1964–1969, the newsletter gave a voice to Conover's jazz fans throughout the world, as it contained their correspondence in the form of excerpted letters. Consequently, the newsletter today comprises a social document of jazz reception by an international audience in the midst of the avant-garde jazz movement of the late 1960s. My research has shown that, while Conover intended his musical selection process in his broadcasts to remain both personally and musically unbiased, the newsletter, distributed to subscribing Friends chapters, contained decidedly partisan sentiments voiced through listener correspondence. The opinions and assertions contained in the newsletter served to shape the attitudes and the reception of jazz by a vast, international audience of fans and musicians overseas. Lastly, I present the FOMUSA Newsletter as a document inspired by Conover's prior experience as a fan and author of science fiction and fantasy literature by placing it in the context of fanzines, an integral component in the phenomenon of fandom.

Music, Movies, Meanings and Markets: Cinemajazzamatazz by Morris B. Holbrook (review)

Music, Movies, Meanings and Markets: Cinemajazzamatazz. By Morris B. Holbrook. (Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research, 14.) New York: Routledge, 2011. [xxiv, 382 p. ISBN 9780415893138. $125.] Bibliography.The eminent consumer psychologist-jazz pianist Morris Holbrook has given us a wonderful new book that not only informs and entertains, but also philosophizes and criticizes the several roles of jazz in the movies. This book should be in every library. It is a multipurpose work that will appeal to a number of different audiences:*readers seeking a reference work that catalogs most of the movies that have either had jazz musicians as the subject or had jazz as an important on-screen presence;*readers interested in the back stories of jazz movies;*jazz historians and media scholars investigating trends in the image of jazz that has been portrayed by cinema and television;*philosophically minded readers intrigued by the tension between art and commerce;*jazz fans who may enjoy learning the personal pleasures and gripes of a fellow jazz fan who is particularly insightful and articulate;*film makers and journalists who are fascinated by discrepancies between the intents of script writers and movie directors, and their works' effects on viewers;*American literature students examining how themes such as the American Dream of Horatio Alger are used in biopics;*readers seeking a compact explication for the psychology of background music;*jazz buffs who like movies;*movie buffs who like jazz.As jazz fans well know, most movies about musicians have been weak. In fact, most attempts to portray jazz musicians have been disastrous, even in the hands of such esteemed directors as Martin Scorsese (New York, New York), Robert Altman (Kansas City), and Clint Eastwood (Bird ). Holly - wood ordinarily takes a few dramatic moments in a musician's life, such as tragedies and romances, and then revolves most of the movie about those incidents, instead of addressing more representative aspects of the artist's creativity. Moreover, the scripts that Hollywood selects are usually laughable. It is a shame that young musicians, especially those who may become jazz players, learn about the world of jazz by such accounts.These facts raise important questions. If we are usually disappointed by jazz movies, why bother seeing any films about musicians? More importantly, why would anyone write an entire book about them? The answer to the first question is that jazz fans thirst for any taste they can get of the music and any tidbits of insight into its players and the world they inhabit. They are compelled to see every new movie about jazz and every film reputed to have any jazz in it. They clutch at every opportunity because jazz is rarely presented on television or cinema.Holbrook's book offers multiple answers to the second question. First, the bad ones warrant being criticized. In fact, his book offers criticisms of the disasters with insightful commentaries that are often hilarious. Some are so entertaining that that they could have been published in The New Yorker or Vanity Fair. Second, Holbrook actually enjoys a few of the movies that are about jazz. For example, he appreciates, on a number of levels, the remake of High Society that features Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong, finding that it offers a casual introduction to jazz in the context of a romance. Third, he finds legitimacy in some movie accounts of jazz lives. For instance, The Benny Goodman Story is mostly true, and it has good footage of the historic musicians. The film The Five Pennies honors Red Nichols, a neglected trumpeter-bandleader of the 1920s, and his combo. Paris Blues clearly portrays the philosophical tension between art and commerce.Among the wide assortment of offerings contained in Holbrook's book is a fortypage chapter that provides an elaborate background for the song My Funny Valentine. …

Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty (review)

Reviewed by: Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty Lars Helgert Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty. By Gunther Schuller. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2011. [xvi, 664 p. ISBN 9781580463423. $49.95.] Music examples, photographs, notes, index. Gunther Schuller's professional life has featured intimate involvement in a number of musical fields. As a performer (on horn) he has played with major orchestras and with important jazz artists. As a composer he is well known for writing works that combine aspects of classical music and jazz, although such works are only a part of his output. As an educator he has served as president of the New England Conservatory. He has also been active as a conductor, arranger, writer, editor, record producer, and advocate. This first volume of Schuller's memoirs covers the period from his birth in 1925 until approximately 1960. It begins with an introductory essay by Joan Shelley Rubin, "The Musician as Mediator," and a brief preface by the author. In the first two chapters, entitled "Childhood" and "Boyhood," Schuller discusses his early years before the beginning of his professional performing career as a teenager. The main focus of chapter 3, "Youth," is his time performing with the Cincinnati Symphony from 1943-45. An "Interlude" is followed by Chapter 4, "Encountering Jazz," which covers his early interest in jazz in terms of recordings and attendance at live performances. Chapter 5, "First Years at the Metropolitan Opera," highlights the initial portion of his fifteen-year tenure (1945-59) with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Chapters 6 and 7 are concerned with "Plumbing the Depths of New York's Cultural Scene" and "Collecting Friends and Mentors" respectively. Chapter 8, "Great Years at the Met," describes Schuller's career as a classical musician, in both live and recorded performance, in the 1950s. Chapter 9, "The Third Stream," focuses on Schuller's professional interaction with several important jazz musicians. Chapter 10, "Re-encountering Europe," features discussion of selected Schuller compositions and accounts of his trips to Europe in the 1950s, including his presence at the Darmstadt and Donaueschingen festivals and his impressions of the music scene in Europe. The book concludes with fifty-seven pages of endnotes and an index. The endnotes are nearly always extensions of the narrative proper and only rarely involve secondary citations. Schuller's main source for this book is his memory, with some references to his diary. He does assume musical literacy on the part of his readers, but this will not overwhelm general readers. Since the volume ends around 1960, there is very little material on Schuller as a conductor, writer, or educator. There are numerous strengths to Schuller's autobiography. His description of his career as a professional classical performer in the upper echelons of New York's music scene gives the reader an interesting look at the life of a professional musician during the mid-century decades, providing valuable primary source material for scholars of twentieth-century American music. Also of importance to historians of classical music are Schuller's first-hand experiences of the concert culture in New York during the period in question. The descriptions of these experiences dispel myths in the standard historical narrative, add color to the biographies of other musical figures (including major conductors, composers, and performers), and enrich the reader's general knowledge of music history. Of significance to jazz scholars and jazz fans are Schuller's accounts of his interaction and professional collaboration with Miles Davis, John Lewis, Gil Evans, and other major jazz figures. These accounts are a contribution to the musical and social history of jazz. There is less material on Schuller as a composer than many readers would expect, but he nonetheless provides valuable insights into his work. Finally, Schuller is clearly an enthusiastic music fan in addition to being a professional musician, and this perspective will appeal to many different types of readers. Volume 1 of Schuller's autobiography is thus a fascinating look at the mid-twentieth-century American music scene from several different perspectives. I found the book's main weaknesses to be its excessive length and the frequent inclusion of details...

Gothic Riffs: Secularizing the Uncanny in the European Imaginary, 1780-1820. Diane Long Hoeveler.

Previous articleNext article No AccessGothic Riffs: Secularizing the Uncanny in the European Imaginary, 1780-1820. Diane Long Hoeveler.Frederick BurwickFrederick Burwick Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Wordsworth Circle Volume 43, Number 4Autumn 2012 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/TWC24065363 Views: 7Total views on this site © 2012 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965–68 (review)

The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965–68 (review)