A Right to Sing the Blues

A Right to Sing the Blues PDF Author: Jeffrey Melnick
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674040902
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
All too often an incident or accident, such as the eruption in Crown Heights with its legacy of bitterness and recrimination, thrusts Black-Jewish relations into the news. A volley of discussion follows, but little in the way of progress or enlightenment results--and this is how things will remain until we radically revise the way we think about the complex interactions between African Americans and Jews. A Right to Sing the Blues offers just such a revision. Black-Jewish relations, Jeffrey Melnick argues, has mostly been a way for American Jews to talk about their ambivalent racial status, a narrative collectively constructed at critical moments, when particular conflicts demand an explanation. Remarkably flexible, this narrative can organize diffuse materials into a coherent story that has a powerful hold on our imagination. Melnick elaborates this idea through an in-depth look at Jewish songwriters, composers, and perfomers who made Black music in the first few decades of this century. He shows how Jews such as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Al Jolson, and others were able to portray their natural affinity for producing Black music as a product of their Jewishness while simultaneously depicting Jewishness as a stable white identity. Melnick also contends that this cultural activity competed directly with Harlem Renaissance attempts to define Blackness. Moving beyond the narrow focus of advocacy group politics, this book complicates and enriches our understanding of the cultural terrain shared by African Americans and Jews.

A Right to Sing the Blues

A Right to Sing the Blues PDF Author: Jeffrey Melnick
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674040902
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
All too often an incident or accident, such as the eruption in Crown Heights with its legacy of bitterness and recrimination, thrusts Black-Jewish relations into the news. A volley of discussion follows, but little in the way of progress or enlightenment results--and this is how things will remain until we radically revise the way we think about the complex interactions between African Americans and Jews. A Right to Sing the Blues offers just such a revision. Black-Jewish relations, Jeffrey Melnick argues, has mostly been a way for American Jews to talk about their ambivalent racial status, a narrative collectively constructed at critical moments, when particular conflicts demand an explanation. Remarkably flexible, this narrative can organize diffuse materials into a coherent story that has a powerful hold on our imagination. Melnick elaborates this idea through an in-depth look at Jewish songwriters, composers, and perfomers who made Black music in the first few decades of this century. He shows how Jews such as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Al Jolson, and others were able to portray their natural affinity for producing Black music as a product of their Jewishness while simultaneously depicting Jewishness as a stable white identity. Melnick also contends that this cultural activity competed directly with Harlem Renaissance attempts to define Blackness. Moving beyond the narrow focus of advocacy group politics, this book complicates and enriches our understanding of the cultural terrain shared by African Americans and Jews.

Swing Along

Swing Along PDF Author: Marva Carter
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195108914
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Composer, conductor and violinist Will Marion Cook was a key figure in the development of American music from the 1890s to the 1920s. In this biography, Marva Griffin Carter writes about Cook's music, career and personality, drawing on both his unfinished autobiography and his wife Abbie's memoir.

Ragtime rediscoveries

Ragtime rediscoveries PDF Author: Trebor Jay Tichenor
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 9780486237763
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Features 64 works from the golden age of rag, most long unavailable, including rare works by James Scott, Cy Seymour, E.J. Stark, Bob Hoffman, Harry L. Cook, Max Hoffmann, and 51 other composers, among them several women. Original cover, too.

Ragtime

Ragtime PDF Author: Edward A. Berlin
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520052192
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Ragtime, the jaunty, toe-tapping music that captivated American society from the 1890s through World War I, forms the roots of America s popular musical expression. But the understanding of ragtime and its era has been clouded by a history of murky impressions, half-truths, and inventive fictions.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Short Fiction

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Short Fiction PDF Author: Jade Broughton Adams
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474424694
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
By exploring Fitzgerald's fascination with the intertwined spheres of dance, music, theatre and film, this book demonstrates how Fitzgerald innovatively imported practices from other popular cultural media into his short stories, showing how jazz age culture served as more than mere period detail in his work.

Cornstars: Rube Music in Swing Time

Cornstars: Rube Music in Swing Time PDF Author: Jack Norton
Publisher: Norton Family Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 773

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Book Description
New Orleans has jazz. Nashville has country. The Delta has the blues. Garnavillo, Iowa - population 745 - has corn…and we ain’t talking veggies! That’s right - thanks to the homegrown and farm-shucked comedic jazz of a few heartland boys, a new musical genre called Corn plowed its way up the charts and across the globe in the late 1930s. From the obscure tractor-dotted landscape of the Midwest to Hollywood, Manhattan, Europe, and all points in between, this is the comedic tale of stolen creative genius, betrayal, quirky passions, rags-to-riches luck - and perhaps even murder - which will knock your socks off. You may have never heard of Freddie Fisher’s Schnickelfritz Band and Stan Fritts and the Korn Kobblers, but the cornball jazz and novelty swing of these two groups would go on to have a profound influence on the landscape of American pop culture. Artists as diverse as Frank Zappa, Harry Nilsson, The Beatles, Tiny Tim, Captain Beefheart, OutKast and Weird Al Yankovic all claim themselves as fans of Fisher and Fritts…now you can find out why. “Cornstars - Rube Music in Swing Time: The Rise and Fall of Freddie Fisher and his Schnickelfritz Band…Stan Fritts and his Korn Kobblers…and the Hillbilly, Cornball, Novelty Jazz Music of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s” is a sweeping overview of American musical entertainment set in the later days of minstrelsy through the early days of television. Emmy Award winning author Jack Norton crafts a painstakingly detailed account told on vaudeville stages, over the airwaves of early radio stations, in the grooves of brittle old 78 rpm records and on the silver screens of Hollywood’s golden era. A treasure trove of Americana. They were bands with names like: Schnickelfritz, The Korn Kobblers, Spike Jones and his City Slickers, The Hoosier Hot Shots, Ezra Buzzington’s Rube Band, The Five Harmaniacs, Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers, The Kidoodlers, The Sweet Violet Boys, Pappy Trester and his Screwballs, The Cackle Sisters, Fiddle Bow Bill and his Dew Valley Acorns, The Crazy Tooters, Darrell Fischer and the Minnesota Log Jammers, The Zobo Band, The Nebraska Sandhill Billies and Mrs. O’Leary’s Famous Musical Cow. Their sound was usually centered around the “whiz-bang”, an intricate musical washboard, along with traditional Dixieland jazz band instrumentation augmented by highly visual, Rube Goldberg-like comedic creations such as: the tootaboot, the horse collar, the squeezarina, the horncycle, the oralhorn, the piperubhorn, the skoocherphone, the greasybell, the tuberina and the blow-chicken. Yes, the blow-chicken was the name of a real instrument used by these jazzmen in the 1930s and 1940s. And today these bands, instruments and the music they made are largely forgotten. Refreshingly, Norton’s spotlight focuses on two musicians: Freddie Fisher, an eccentric jazz clarinetist and impresario from Garnavillio, Iowa and his bandmate Stan Fritts, a gifted trombonist that gave up a career of farming corn in rural Lyons, Nebraska - so he could make musical corn on stages coast to coast, first in territorial jazz bands and eventually with his own band at the Metropolitan Opera House. Without realizing it, the author uncovered a true story of the American dream. From their humble beginnings playing rural barn dances in Winona, Minnesota to recording over 200 sides for Decca Records and earning a film contract with Warner Brothers Studios, readers will recognize a real-life Horatio Alger tale if there ever was one. Iconic legends of entertainment appear throughout this work including: Rudy Vallee, Jack Dempsey, The Warner Brothers, Max Fleischer, Jack Benny, Laurel and Hardy, Bing Crosby, Guy Lombardo, Captain Kangaroo, Busby Berkeley, Lawrence Welk and many other past stars and celebrities. Amidst the comedic cornball chaos of Fisher and Fritts emerged two spectacular musical groups: The Schnickelfritz Band and the Korn Kobblers. Norton details their meteoric rise and unprecedented fall, thanks to knowledge gleamed from the musicians’ personal scrapbooks, rare first-hand accounts from band members, friends and fans, and nearly two and half decades worth of personal research in dusty libraries and historic archives around the world. In the end, Norton’s book is over 180,000 words and includes more than 950 rare, never-before-scene photos which illuminate this illustrated edition. Chapters: 1. Freddie Fisher’s Idea of Jazz 2. Photo Gallery 3. Highway 61, Revisited 4. Stan the Man 5. Freddie the Little Rascal 6. Some Zobo Punks 7. The Birth of the Whiz Bang 8. Ezra Buzzington, Rube Superstar 9. The Five Harmaniacs 10. Laughing Songs and Kidoodlers 11. Schnickelfritz at the Sugar Loaf 12. Fisher and Fritts 13. Midway Gardens and Decca Records 14. Gold Diggers in Minnesota and Iowa 15. A Talking Picture for Warner Brothers 16. The Fall of 1939 17. Schnickel Splits, Korn Kobblers are Born 18. Corn Invades Tin Pan Alley 19. Sweet Violets…and Boys 20. Fisher’s Happy Hours 21. Corn on the Road 22. Marketing Madness 23. Korn Kobblers in the Big Apple 24. Fisher Flounders Out West 25. Darrell the Minnesota Log Jammer, Part 1 26. The Famous Musical Cow 27. Darrell the Minnesota Log Jammer, Part 2 28. Willie the Weeper, or Darrell the Minnesota Log Jammer, Part 3 29. Those Crazy Tooters 30. Cloned Cornstars 31. Kobb’s Korner: TV and Talking Pictures 32. A Captain Named Stubby 33. More Cloned Cornstars 34. The Nebraska Sandhill Billies 35. Stan’s Simple New Life 36. Fisher the Fixer in Aspen 37. Doowackadoodlers, Corn Redux 38. The Last Goodbye 39. Pappy’s Screwball Symphony 40. The End Times 41. Cornstars - Film, Soundtrack Album and Podcast 42. Recommended Books 43. Recommended Films 44. A Note on the Discographies 45. Discography - Freddie Fisher (The Schnickelfritz Band) 46. Discography - Stanley Fritts (The Korn Kobblers) 47. Discography - The Doowackadoodlers 48. Discography - Darrell Fischer 49. Discography - The Crazy Tooters 50. Discography - Roy King and the Komi Kings 51. Discography - The Kidoodlers 52. Discography - Sweet Violet Boys 53. Discography - Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers 54. Discography - Ezra Buzzington 55. Discography - The Five Harmaniacs 56. Discography - Maple City Four 57. Appendix 1 - References 58. Appendix 2 - Magazine Interview with Jack Norton 59. Appendix 3 - Schnickelfritz Lives Again 60. Appendix 4 - Schnickelfest Program Notes 61. Appendix 5 - Corn Comedy 62. Afterword: Can You Do Me a Favor? 63. About the Author 64. Disclaimer 65. Dedication 66. Copyright

Dictionary Catalog of the Music Collection

Dictionary Catalog of the Music Collection PDF Author: New York Public Library. Reference Department
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 788

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Book Description


Joseph F. Lamb

Joseph F. Lamb PDF Author: Carol J. Binkowski
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786490799
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Joseph F. Lamb (1887-1960) composed with enthusiasm and was influenced by a variety of sources, all kinds of music, cultures, traditions and the everyday. Although he is considered one of classic ragtime's "big three"--along with Scott Joplin and James Scott--he did not fit the usual profile. He was musically self-taught, held a corporate job, and composed in his spare time, yet wrote piano rags Joplin enthusiastically championed and returned to composing and well-deserved recognition long after the end of the ragtime era. This biography focuses on his music and his world, and is drawn from family and research sources. It includes a foreword by two of Lamb's children.

The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald PDF Author: Michael Nowlin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108871410
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This second edition of The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald offers both new and familiar readers an authoritative guide to the full scope of Fitzgerald's literary legacy. Gathering the critical insights of leading Fitzgerald specialists, it includes newly commissioned essays on The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald's judgment of his peers, and Fitzgerald's screenwriting and Hollywood years, alongside updated and revised versions of four of the best essays from the first edition on such topics as youth, maturity, and sexuality; the short stories and autobiographical essays; and Americans in Europe. It also includes an essay on Fitzgerald's critical and cultural reputation in the first decades of the 21st century, and an up-to-date bibliography of the best Fitzgerald scholarship and criticism for further reading.

Circulating Jim Crow

Circulating Jim Crow PDF Author: Adam McKible
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231559496
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
In the early twentieth century, the Saturday Evening Post was perhaps the most popular and influential magazine in the United States, establishing literary reputations and shaping American culture. In the popular imagination, it is best remembered for Norman Rockwell’s covers, which nostalgically depicted a wholesome and idyllic American way of life. But beneath those covers lurked a more troubling reality. Under the direction of its longtime editor, George Horace Lorimer, the magazine helped justify racism and white supremacy. It published works by white authors that made heavy use of paternalistic tropes and demeaning humor, portraying Jim Crow segregation and violence as simple common sense. Circulating Jim Crow demonstrates how the Post used stereotypical dialect fiction to promulgate white supremacist ideology and dismiss Black achievements, citizenship, and humanity. Adam McKible tells the story of Lorimer’s rise to prominence and examines the white authors who provided the editor and his readers with the caricatures they craved. He also explores how Black writers of the Harlem Renaissance pushed back against the Post and its commodified racism. McKible places the erstwhile household names who wrote for the magazine in conversation with figures such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ann Petry, W. E. B. Du Bois, and William Faulkner. Revealing the role of the Saturday Evening Post in normalizing racism for millions of readers, this book also offers a new understanding of how Black writers challenged Jim Crow ideology.