Jammin' at the margins : jazz and the American cinema / Krin Gabbard.

Author/creator Gabbard, Krin
Format Book
Publication InfoChicago : University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Descriptionxi, 350 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Subjects
Motion pictures and music.
Jazz--History and criticism.
Musical films--History.

Variant title Jamming at the margins
Contents Introduction: Whose jazz, whose cinema? -- The ethnic Oedipus: the jazz singer and its remakes -- Black and tan fantasies: the jazz biopic -- Jazz becomes art -- Signifyin(g) the phallus: representations of the jazz trumpet -- Duke's place: visualizing a jazz composer -- "Actor and musician": Louis Armstrong and his films -- Nat King Cole, Hoagy Carmichael, and the fate of the jazz actor -- Conclusion: New York, New York and Short cuts.
Abstract American cinema has long been fascinated by jazz and jazz musicians. Yet most jazz films aren't really about jazz. Rather, as this book shows, they create images of racial and sexual identity, many of which have become inseparable from popular notions of the music itself. This book scrutinizes these films, exploring the fundamental obsessions that American culture has brought to jazz in the cinema. The author's close look at jazz film biographies, from The Jazz Singer to Bird, reveals Hollywood's reluctance to acknowledge black subjectivity. Black and even white jazz artists have become vehicles for familiar Hollywood conceptions of race, gender, and sexuality. Even Scorsese's New York, New York and Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues have failed to disentangle themselves from entrenched stereotypes and conventions. The author also examines Hollywood's confrontation with jazz as an elite art form, and the role of the jazz trumpet as a crucial signifier of masculinity. Finally, he considers the acting careers of Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, and Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington's extraordinary work in films from 1929 until the late 1960s, and the forgotten career of Kay Kyser, star of nine Hollywood films and leader of a popular swing band.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 315-328) and index.
LCCN 95025337
ISBN0226277887 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN0226277895 (paper : alk. paper)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Closed Stacks - Ask at Circulation Desk ML2075 .G33 1996 ✔ Available Place Hold