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Jazz Narrative in Novels and Film

Author:

University of Kansas

American Studies/English

Fall 2006

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

How you'll be graded: On the basis of: a (probably take-home) final exam (34%); a 2000-word, documented research paper on a topic you select and I approve, due by beginning of class on 28 November (34%); a combined grade based on the quality of your participation in class, and the quality of your response papers (frequently assigned in class, and due via the class Blackboard site by noon the following Tuesday) on the books and films screened (33%).

Jazz Autobiography

Author:

Kevin Whitehead

University of Kansas

American Studies/English

Fall 2007

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

How you'll be graded: On two 1250-1500-word term papers, due week 8 & week 16 (35% of your final grade each), eight one-page typed response papers (20%) as explained below, and class participation (10%). We aim to stimulate lively classroom discussion.

Possible paper topics will be discussed in class; check with me to approve a topic before your start writing.

There will be regular quizzes, but no mid-term exam. A final exam is possible.

Jazz, Roots to 1956

Author:

Kevin Whitehead

University of Kansas

American Studies

Fall 2006

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Exploring Jazz Guitar

Author:

John Smedley

Bates College

1999

REQUIRED LISTENING

Tape 1, Side A

"Chain Gang Blues" Sam Moore, octocorda. New York, July 1921.

"Four Hands are Better Than Two" Lonnie Johnson (guitar), Jack Erby (piano). St. Louis, 30th April, 1927.

"Add a Little Wiggle" Eddie Lang (guitar), Frank Signorelli (piano). New York, 29th March, 1928.

"Paducah" Lonnie Johnson (guitar), with the Chocolate Dandies. New York, 13th October, 1928.

Musical Literacy and Jazz Musicians in the 1910s and 1920s

Author:

David Chevan

Chevan documents the musical literacy of early jazz musicians in order to debunk romantic notions of "primitivism" in jazz. Even as jazz first emerged as a distinct musical form, its leading musicians had to read music as well as improvise. Reading music was essential to understand the variety of styles they absorbed and incorporated and to function in any professional situation they found themselves in.

Mainstreaming Monk: The Ellington Album

Author:

Mark Tucker

Monk and Ellington were kindred spirits: both were profoundly influential composers and wonderfully idiosyncratic pianists. Tucker explores and evaluates Monk's recording of nine Ellington compositions from 1958. Detecting some diffidence in Monk's attitude toward the project, he suggests that the recording may have been designed to position Monk as part of an emerging jazz "mainstream," or middle way between extremes, which was a commercial and critical trend so powerful it swept along even an iconoclast like Monk.

URL:

BMRJ Web site

Discontinuity in the Music of Django Reinhardt

Author:

Ben Givan

Analysis of jazz solos has often focused on formal coherence. Proponents of this approach have often tried to establish a parallel to the formal rigor of classical music-and thus to uphold jazz' status as an art form (for example, see Sonny Rollins and the Challenge of Thematic Improvisation). Givan argues that close analysis can be instead be used to highlight not continuity in a jazz solo but discontinuity, which has its own creative and symbolic possibilities.

The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton (Liner Notes)

Author:

Mike Heffley

In 1974, Anthony Braxton was considered a radical among radicals. This was true not least for his distinctive embrace of post-war European avant-garde composition, then assumed to be particularly uncongenial to the average listener's taste.

Latin Jazz: The Other Jazz

Author:

Christopher Washburne

Washburne asks why Latin jazz has been overlooked in histories of jazz and lists of canonical works, explores what it has to teach us about jazz on the whole, and provides an invaluable survey of this influential music and its culture. He argues that the persistent and varied influence of Latin jazz is inconvenient for standard unilinear accounts of jazz' history, but that it ought to be included in the name of diversity and the central role that principle plays in the creation and renewal of jazz.

The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Jazz

Author:

Lawrence Gushee

Gushee asks whether New Orleans deserves its central place in the story of jazz' origins. He argues that, although ragtime was being "faked" throughout the country by the beginning of the 20th century, it was New Orleans' version that had the most influence on Chicago jazz and early swing that followed in the 1920s. Drawing on a thorough and imaginative command of primary sources, Gushee focuses on New Orleans musicians' distinctive manner of accompanying contemporary dance music to make his point.

URL:

BMRJ Web site

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