Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
During the early decades of the twentieth century symphonic jazz involved an expansive family of music that emulated, paralleled, and intersected the jazz tradition. Though now largely forgotten, symphonic jazz was both a popular music--arranging tradition and a repertory of hybrid concert works, both of which reveled in the mildly irreverent interbreeding of white and black and high and low music. While the roots of symphonic jazz can be traced to certain black ragtime orchestras of the teens, the idiom came to maturation in the music of 1920s white dance bands. Through a close examination of the music of Duke Ellington and James P. Johnson, Ellington Uptown uncovers compositions that have usually fallen in the cracks between concert music, jazz, and popular music. It also places the concert works of these two iconic figures in context through an investigation both of related compositions by black and white peers and of symphonic jazz--style arrangements from a diverse number of early sound films, Broadway musicals, Harlem nightclub floor shows, and select interwar radio programs. Both Ellington and Johnson were part of a close-knit community of several generations of Harlem musicians. Older figures like Will Marion Cook, Will Vodery, W.C. Handy, and James Reese Europe were the generation of black musicians that initially broke New York entertainment's racial barriers in the first two decades of the century. By the 1920s, Cook, Vodery, and Handy had become mentors to Harlem's younger musicians. This generational connection is a key for understanding Johnson's and Ellington's ambitions to use the success of Harlem's white-oriented entertainment trade as a springboard for establishing a black concert music tradition based on Harlem jazz and popular music.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Showing 1 featured edition. View all 1 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1
"Ellington uptown": Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and the birth of concert jazz
2009, University of Michigan Press
in English
0472116053 9780472116058
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Table of Contents
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?History
- Created September 27, 2008
- 8 revisions
Wikipedia citation
×CloseCopy and paste this code into your Wikipedia page. Need help?
November 30, 2023 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
May 11, 2023 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
December 26, 2022 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
December 20, 2020 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
September 27, 2008 | Created by ImportBot | Imported from Library of Congress MARC record |