In Tunes of the Twenties author Robert Rawlins discusses each of the 250 songs included in his previous publication The Real Dixieland Book, taking readers backstage to share the intriguing stories associated with their publication and subsequent history. Anyone who holds a fascination for the era of prohibition, flappers, and speakeasies will enjoy reading about the music that went along with it.
F. Scott Fitzgerald named it, Louis Armstrong launched it, Paul Whiteman and Fletcher Henderson orchestrated it, and now Arnold Shaw chronicles this fabulous era in The Jazz Age. Spicing his account with lively anecdotes and inside stories, he describes the astonishing outpouring of significant musical innovations that emerged during the "Roaring Twenties"--including blues, jazz, band music, torch ballads, operettas and musicals--and sets them against the background of the Prohibition world of the Flapper.
A visual history like no other, this award-winning book brings you the golden age of New York jazz. Designed, illustrated, and edited by Robert Nippoldt with texts by Hans-J rgen Schaal, the collection features Nippoldt's superb illustrations of jazz scenes and protagonists alongside vivid facts and amusing anecdotes to create one stunning portrait of the sound that changed America.
Born of African rhythms, the spiritual "call and response," and other American musical traditions, jazz was by the 1920s the dominant influence on this country's popular music. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston) and the "Lost Generation" (Malcolm Cowley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein), along with many other Americans celebrated it--both as an expression of black culture and as a symbol of rebellion against American society. But an equal number railed against it. Whites were shocked by its raw emotion and sexuality, and blacks considered it "devil's music" and criticized it for casting a negative light on the black community. In this illuminating work, Kathy Ogren places this controversy in the social and cultural context of 1920s America and sheds new light on jazz's impact on the nation as she traces its dissemination from the honky-tonks of New Orleans, New York, and Chicago, to the clubs and cabarets of such places as Kansas City and Los Angeles, and further to the airwaves. Ogren argues that certain characteristics of jazz, notably the participatory nature of the music, its unusual rhythms and emphasis, gave it a special resonance for a society undergoing rapid change. Those who resisted the changes criticized the new music; those who accepted them embraced jazz. In the words of conductor Leopold Stowkowski, "Jazz [had] come to stay because it [was] an expression of the times, of the breathless, energetic, superactive times in which we [were] living, it [was] useless to fight against it." Numerous other factors contributed to the growth of jazz as a popular music during the 1920s. The closing of the Storyville section of New Orleans in 1917 was a signal to many jazz greats to move north and west in search of new homes for their music. Ogren follows them to such places as Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, and, using the musicians' own words as often as possible, tells of their experiences in the clubs and cabarets. Prohibition, ushered in by the Volstead Act of 1919, sent people out in droves to gang-controlled speak-easies, many of which provided jazz entertainment. And the 1920s economic boom, which made music readily available through radio and the phonograph record, created an even larger audience for the new music. But Ogren maintains that jazz itself, through its syncopated beat, improvisation, and blue tonalities, spoke to millions. Based on print media, secondary sources, biographies and autobiographies, and making extensive use of oral histories, The Jazz Revolution offers provocative insights into both early jazz and American culture.
The 1920s were not called the Jazz Age for nothing. Celebrated by writers from Langston Hughes to Gertrude Stein, jazz was the dominant influence on American popular music, despite resistance from whites who distrusted its vibrant expression of black culture and by those opposed to the overt sexuality and raw emotion of the 'devil's music'. As Kathy Ogren shows, the breathless pace and syncopated rhythms were as much a part of twenties America as Prohibition and the economic boom, which enabled millions throughout the states to enjoy the latest sounds on radios and phonographs.
Play Jazztime presents a selection of world-famous hits from the Roaring Twenties and Thirties arranged for alto sax and piano. Relive the age of Gatsby with the great tunes included, from the seductive melodies of Gershwin to the archetypal 1920s hit "Charleston." Features 8 songs in all: Charleston * Do It Again * He Loves and She Loves * I Got Rhythm * I'm Getting Sentimental over You * Pennies from Heaven * Someone to Watch Over Me * Swanee.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
The jazz decade saw the emergence of many of the great figures who defined the music for the world: Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Earl Hines, Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Waller, Jack Teagarden, Fletcher Henderson—these giants set the standards for blues singing, big band arrangements, and solo improvisation that are the foundations for jazz. Richard Hadlock has chapters on each, with a discography and descriptions of all the players who made the '20s swing.
In a career that spanned 60 years, Paul Whiteman changed the landscape of American music, beginning with his million-selling recordings in the early 1920s of “Whispering,” “Japanese Sandman,” and “Three O’Clock in the Morning.” Whiteman would then introduce “symphonic jazz,” a powerful blend of the classical and jazz idioms that represented a whole new approach to modern American music, influencing generations of bandleaders and composers. While some hold that at the close of the Roaring Twenties Whiteman’s musical hegemony quickly waned, Don Rayno illustrates in this second volume of Paul Whiteman: Pioneer in American Music how much of a dominant figure Whiteman remained. A major figure on the American music scene for decades to come, he would continue to lead critically-acclaimed orchestras, filling theaters and concert halls alike and diligently seeking out and nurturing musical talent on the largest scale of any orchestra leader in the 20th century. In this second volume of Rayno’s magisterial treatment of the life and music of this remarkable maestro, Whiteman’s career during the second half of his life is explored in the fullest detail, as Whiteman conquers the worlds of theater and vaudeville, the concert hall, radio, motion pictures, and television, winning accolades in all of them. Through hundreds of interviews, extensive documentation, and exhaustive research of over nearly three decades, a portrait emerges of one of American music’s most important musical figures during the last century. Rayno paints a stunning portrait of Whiteman’s considerable accomplishments and far-reaching influence.
This book recreates an exciting and productive period in which creative artists felt they were witnessing the birth of a new age. Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, George Gershwin, Roy Harris, and Virgil Thomson all began their careers then, as did many of their less widely recognized compatriots. While the literature and painting of the 1920's have been amply chronicled, music has not received such treatment. Carol Oja's book sets the growth of American musical composition against parallel developments in American culture, provides a guide for the understanding of the music, and explores how the notion of the concert tradition, as inherited from Western Europe, was challenged and revitalized through contact with American popular song, jazz, and non-Western musics.
