| Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies Contributor(s): Rustin, Nichole T. (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0822343207 ISBN-13: 9780822343202 Publisher: Duke University Press OUR PRICE: $31.30 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2008 Annotation: ""Big Ears" is a breath of fresh air in contemporary jazz studies. Whereas the field has exploded during the last several years, this is the first volume specifically devoted to new work on gender and jazz. The essays here are wide-ranging in form, content, and method. They pay admirable attention to jazz across media (in film, concerts, recordings) and in international, not just U.S., contexts."--Gayle Wald, author of "Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe" |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Music | Genres & Styles - Jazz - Music | History & Criticism - General - Social Science | Gender Studies |
| Dewey: 781.650 |
| LCCN: 2008028462 |
| Series: Refiguring American Music |
| Physical Information: 1.01" H x 6.08" W x 8.94" (1.39 lbs) 472 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In jazz circles, players and listeners with "big ears" hear and engage complexity in the moment, as it unfolds. Taking gender as part of the intricate, unpredictable action in jazz culture, this interdisciplinary collection explores the terrain opened up by listening, with big ears, for gender in jazz. Essays range from a reflection on the female boogie-woogie pianists who played at Caf Society in New York during the 1930s and 1940s to interpretations of how the jazzman is represented in Dorothy Baker's novel Young Man with a Horn (1938) and Michael Curtiz's film adaptation (1950). Taken together, the essays enrich the field of jazz studies by showing how gender dynamics have shaped the production, reception, and criticism of jazz culture. Scholars of music, ethnomusicology, American studies, literature, anthropology, and cultural studies approach the question of gender in jazz from multiple perspectives. One contributor scrutinizes the tendency of jazz historiography to treat singing as subordinate to the predominantly male domain of instrumental music, while another reflects on her doubly inappropriate position as a female trumpet player and a white jazz musician and scholar. Other essays explore the composer George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept as a critique of mid-twentieth-century discourses of embodiment, madness, and black masculinity; performances of "female hysteria" by Les Diaboliques, a feminist improvising trio; and the BBC radio broadcasts of Ivy Benson and Her Ladies' Dance Orchestra during the Second World War. By incorporating gender analysis into jazz studies, Big Ears transforms ideas of who counts as a subject of study and even of what counts as jazz. Contributors: Christina Baade, Jayna Brown, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Monica Hairston, Kristin McGee, Tracy McMullen, Ingrid Monson, Lara Pellegrinelli, Eric Porter, Nichole T. Rustin, Ursel Schlicht, Julie Dawn Smith, Jeffrey Taylor, Sherrie Tucker, Jo o H. Costa Vargas |