The Jazz Revolution: Twenties America and the Meaning of Jazz
As considered here, the "meaning of jazz" is the way jazz symbolized the economic and social changes the United States underwent in the 1920s. For blacks, jazz was a cohesive cultural force influential in the development of the Harlem Renaissance; for whites, it was a catalyst for the loosening of residual Victorian constraints. Yet many blacks and whites feared the perceived moral relaxation that accompanied the performance and appreciation of jazz. Sociological rather than musical, this study advances its thesis through the accretion of quotations from social histories, interviews, and biographies, all properly cited in several hundred endnotes. Derived from a Ph.D. thesis, it reads like one. The substantial bibliographic essay following the text succinctly surveys and evaluates the author's sources.- William S. Brockman, Drew Univ. Lib., Madison, N.J.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.