Rhythm Changes

"Rhythm Changes: Jazz, Culture, Discourse addresses the development of jazz, the music, its makers, and its socio-cultural contexts, as well as the various discourses - especially those of academic analysis and journalistic criticism - that have influenced the creation, interpretation, and reception of jazz. Tackling diverse issues, such as race, class, nationalism, art, authenticity, irony, parody, romanticism, commercialism, technology, recording, and musical form and style, the book's viewpoint on artistic and cultural practices suggests new ways of thinking about jazz history. It challenges many established scholarly approaches in jazz research, providing a much-needed intervention in the current academic orthodoxies of Jazz Studies. Perhaps the most striking and distinctive aspect of the book is the extraordinary eclecticism of the wide-ranging but carefully chosen case studies and examples referenced throughout the text, from nineteenth century literature, through 1930s Broadway and film, to twentieth and twenty- first century jazz and popular music"--