Preface Introduction: Whose Jazz, Whose Cinema? 1: The Ethnic Oedipus: The Jazz Singer and Its Remakes 2: Black and Tan Fantasies: The Jazz Biopic 3: Jazz Becomes Art 4: Signifyin(g) the Phallus: Representations of the Jazz Trumpet 5: Duke's Place: Visualizing a Jazz Composer 6: "Actor and Musician": Louis Armstrong and His Films 7: Nat King Cole, Hoagy Carmichael, and the Fate of the Jazz Actor Conclusion: New York, New York and Short Cuts Notes Bibliography Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

From its beginning, jazz has presented a contradictory social world: jazz musicians have worked diligently to erase old boundaries, but they have just as resolutely constructed new ones. David Ake's vibrant and original book considers the diverse musics and related identities that jazz communities have shaped over the course of the twentieth century, exploring the many ways in which jazz musicians and audiences experience and understand themselves, their music, their communities, and the world at large. Writing as a professional pianist and composer, the author looks at evolving meanings, values, and ideals--as well as the sounds--that musicians, audiences, and critics carry to and from the various activities they call jazz. Among the compelling topics he discusses is the "visuality" of music: the relationship between performance demeanor and musical meaning. Focusing on pianists Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, Ake investigates the ways in which musicians' postures and attitudes influence perceptions of them as profound and serious artists. In another essay, Ake examines the musical values and ideals promulgated by college jazz education programs through a consideration of saxophonist John Coltrane. He also discusses the concept of the jazz "standard" in the 1990s and the differing sense of tradition implied in recent recordings by Wynton Marsalis and Bill Frisell. Jazz Cultures shows how jazz history has not consisted simply of a smoothly evolving series of musical styles, but rather an array of individuals and communities engaging with disparate--and oftentimes conflicting--actions, ideals, and attitudes.

At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the U.S. State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, from Iraq to India, from the Congo to the Soviet Union, in order to win the hearts and minds of the Third World and to counter perceptions of American racism. Penny Von Eschen escorts us across the globe, backstage and onstage, as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and other jazz luminaries spread their music and their ideas further than the State Department anticipated. Both in concert and after hours, through political statements and romantic liaisons, these musicians broke through the government's official narrative and gave their audiences an unprecedented vision of the black American experience. In the process, new collaborations developed between Americans and the formerly colonized peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East--collaborations that fostered greater racial pride and solidarity. Though intended as a color-blind promotion of democracy, this unique Cold War strategy unintentionally demonstrated the essential role of African Americans in U.S. national culture. Through the tales of these tours, Von Eschen captures the fascinating interplay between the efforts of the State Department and the progressive agendas of the artists themselves, as all struggled to redefine a more inclusive and integrated American nation on the world stage.

'Jazz on the River' describes how musical entrepreneurs gave the music of New Orleans to mainstream America in the 1920s, by quite literally sending their musicians upstream, aboard riverboats that plied the Mississippi waterways every summer.

“A worthy successor to Every Step a Struggle . . . the contributions to American cinema of these determined and courageous rebels will never be forgotten.” —Denise Youngblood, author ofCinematic Cold War While Every Step a Struggle recalled the performers who fought to give black artists a voice and a presence in film and on stage, this new ground-breaking book focuses on the personalities who replaced the pioneers and refused to abide by Jim Crow traditions. Presented against a detailed background of the revolutionary post-World War II era up to the mid-1970s, the individual views of Mae Mercer, Brock Peters, Jim Brown, Ivan Dixon, James Whitmore, William Marshall and Ruby Dee in heretofore unpublished conversations from the past reveal just how tumultuous and extraordinary the technological, political, and social changes were for the artists and the film industry. Using extensive documentation, hundreds of films, and fascinating private recollections, Dr. Manchel puts a human face both on popular culture and race relations. “Using the method of oral history and the mature thinking of a senior scholar, Exits and Entrances enhances our understanding of the difficult slog to create a truthful, ‘round’ image of African-Americans in U.S. commercial films. This collection is a gold mine of information for future research and should be in all libraries which value film research.” —Peter C. Rollins, Emeritus Editor-in-Chief of Film & History

Hailed for its dramatic expressionist visuals, film noir is one of the most prominent genres in Hollywood cinema. Yet, despite the "boom" in sound studies, the role of sonic effects and source music in classic American noir has not received the attention it deserves. Siren City engagingly illustrates how sound tracks in 1940s film noir are often just as compelling as the genre's vaunted graphics. Focusing on a wide range of celebrated and less well known films and offering an introductory discussion of film sound, Robert Miklitsch mobilizes the notion of audiovisuality to investigate period sound technologies such as the radio and jukebox, phonograph and Dictaphone, popular American music such as "hot" black jazz, and "big numbers" featuring iconic performers such as Lauren Bacall, Veronica Lake, and Rita Hayworth. Siren City resonates with the sounds and source music of classic American noir-gunshots and sirens, swing riffs and canaries. Along with the proverbial private eye and femme fatale, these audiovisuals are central to the noir aesthetic and one important reason the genre reverberates with audiences around the world.

Watching Jazz: Encounters with Jazz Performance on Screen is the first systematic study of jazz on screen media. Where earlier studies have focused almost entirely on the role and portrayal of jazz in Hollywood film, the present book engages with a plethora of technologies and media from early film and soundies through television to recent developments in digital technologies and online media. Likewise, the authors discuss jazz in the widest sense, ranging from Duke Ellington and Jimmy Dorsey through the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus to Pat Metheny. Much of this rich and fascinating material has never been studied in depth before, and what emerges most clearly are the manifold connections between the music and the media on which it was and is being recorded. Its long association with film and television has left its trace in jazz, just as online and social media are subtly shaping it now. Vice versa, visual media have always benefited from focusing on music and this significantly affected their development. The book follows these interrelations, showing how jazz was presented and represented on screen and what this tells us about the music, the people who made it and their audiences. The result is a new approach to jazz and the media, which will be required reading for students of both fields.