Swiss Jazz
Drawing from contemporary journalism, reviews, program notes, memoirs, interviews, and other sources, Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History brings to life the controversies and critical issues that have accompanied each moment of jazz history. Highlighting the significance of jazz as a complex and consequential social exercise as well as an art form, this book presents a multitude of ways in which humans have understood and cared with regards to jazz. It records a history not of style changes but of values, meanings, and sensibilities.
Featuring sixty-two thought-provoking chapters, this distinctive volume gives voice to a wide range of perspectives, stressing dissimilar reactions to and uses of jazz, both within and throughout communities. It offers contributions from well-known figures including Jelly Roll Morton, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, Wynton Marsalis, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis; from famous writers such as Langston Hughes, Norman Mailer, and Ralph Ellison; and from critics including Leonard Feather and Gunther Schuller. Walser has chosen writings that capture the ardent reactions of people who have loved, hated, supported, and argued when it comes to jazz.
Organized chronologically, Keeping Time covers almost 100 years of jazz history. Filled with perceptive writing, it aims to increase historical awareness, to provoke critical thinking, and to give hope or courage to lively classroom discussion as students relive the tangled and conflicted story of jazz. It enables readers to see that jazz is not just when it comes to names, dates, and chords, but rather in regards to issues and ideas, cultural activities, and experiences that have affected people deeply in a outstanding potpourri of ways. Concise headnotes provide historical context for each selection and point out issues for thinking and discussion. An magnificent text for a potpourri of jazz courses, Keeping Time may serve as supplementary reading in general music, American Studies, African American studies, history, and sociology courses, and will also appeal to anybody fascinated in jazz.
From Library JournalThese two compilations take very dissimilar approaches to understanding jazz. Keeping Time is a somewhat established documentary history, using newspaper and magazine articles, interviews, and excerpts from autobiographies and secondary accounts. After explaining the early years of the music, Walser, chair of musicology at UCLA, provides arousing and attention holding material dealing with the jazz age in the 1920s, swing in the Thirties, and bebop in the Forties. The book is less convincing on the hard-bop 1950s, provides very little data on the avant-garde in the next decade, and largely ignores Seventies fusion. It ends with an magnificent outline of the Wynton Marsalis-led return to traditionalism in the 1980s and a more general, less satisfying examination of jazz today. The Jazz Cadence of America attempts to show the reciprocal effects of jazz and American culture on each other. After dealing with definitions of "jazz," O'Meally (American literature, Columbia; Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday, LJ 11/1/91) traces the place of jazz in American society; the influence of the music on painting, architecture, photography, film, and dance; jazz history from dissimilar perspectives; and the affect of jazz on literature. Some subsections provide arousing and attention holding perceptivities into the kinship of jazz to the other arts, exceptionally painting and literature. However, the book seldom shows the connection among jazz and American society or the effect of other distinct elements of American culture on jazz. Despite apparent flaws, The Jazz Cadence offers an modern approach to understanding jazz within a more prominent social context. Complementing each other with little overlap, these two compilations are commended as classroom texts.?David P. Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review"An impressive achievement. The introductions to the excerpts alone provide a arousing and attention holding mini-history of jazz that ranges through a wider assortment of topics than a heap of full-scale histories."--Gary Tomlinson, Professor of Music, University of Pennsylvania
"What a terrific collection. I hadn't realized how desperately I necessitated it until I started to read it. I used it in a jazz intro survey class and found it invaluable, as did the students."-- James McCalla, Professor of Music, Bowdoin College
"Excellent and now and again provocative readings in jazz history; an indispensable addition to the curriculum." --Brian Torff, Fairfield University
"My students love this book. It puts them in touch with the time amount of time like no other book I've seen. It's an magnificent discussion starter for jazz history and American music classes."--Reed Gratz, University of La Verne, CA
"A arousing and attention holding look at how critics, writers and musicians wrote regarding jazz from it is earliest years through the `90s."--Newark Star-Ledger
"Walser provides arousing and attention holding material dealing with the jazz age in the 1920's, swing in the Thirties, and bebop in the Forties."--David P. Szatmary,Library Journal
"An informative collection of crucial source material. From quotations to essential essays, [it] will help the study of jazz history."--Brian Fitzpatrick, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
"Very informed, well written reading."--Bill Stanford Pincheon, Washington State University
"Superb collection. As a jazz historian who has worked his way through quantities of interesting documents, I be grateful for the care and range that Walser demonstrates."--David W. Stone, Michigan State University Review"represents on paper the kaleidoscope richness of jazz history" July 1999 "elegant and well-crafted peices" Jazzwise, july 1999 "challenging collection of writings" Jazzwise, July 1999 |
Most helpful client reviews 7 of 7 humans found the following review helpful.
 An Excellent Supplement
By A
An splendid supplement to narrative or recorded jazz histories. Organized chronologically, the collection of readings is rather easy to read and offers a assortment of viewpoints (musicians, interviews, critical essays, reviews, etc.) that spotlight major complex mental states and trends in jazz history. Walser begins each article with a brief but splendid introduction that locates each reading throughout history and elucidates the necessary critical questions that the reading poses, all without ever sounding preachy. (I only give 4 stars merely because it's a collection of older writings; for what it is, it's great.) 2 of 2 humans found the following review helpful.
 well-written and easy to read
By Farhad Bahrami
We applied this book in our graduate seminar on jazz. It was so interesting that even before class started I had finished reading the book. Many topics are discussed (roots of jazz, definitions of jazz, hip vs square, future of jazz), some indispensable historical articles are reprinted, a good deal of major musicians are interviewed and quoted, and each writing is preceded by a clear comprehensible statement by the author of the issues discussed. The selction of topics, the breadth of noesis given, and the flow of the book, are what make it great. 3 of 3 humans found the following review helpful.
A great book for the true jazz lover
By Martin Terrones
While a student in Professor Walser's Jazz class at UCLA, I was one of assorted students lucky sufficient to have read each chapter before it made it to press. Every chapter was like a time machine, transporting us back in time to an era where racism and sexism took a toll on a good deal of musicians while only strengthening the resolve of others. This book was, at the time, one of the best readings I had done in a long time. In reading direct quotes from the greats of music, you couldn't support but feel a bit inspired. "Keeping in Time" is a gem and must be assigned reading to anybody studying jazz or just wanting to learn more when it comes to the some performers who played or sang that one song you liked differently. Professor Walser surely knows his subject matter well. And in my case, he surely excelled in the one thing he likes to do: teach. See all 3 client reviews... |
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