Jazzmen
Editors | Harcourt, Brace & Company |
---|---|
Publication date | 1939 |
Media type |
Jazzmen is a book on the history of jazz. It was edited by
Background
"In the spring of 1939, the jazz writer Charles Edward Smith spent several weeks in New Orleans, as part of the research he and other writers were doing for the book Jazzmen. He found the inspiration for his writing not only by talking with the veteran musicians who could take him back to the old days, but also by hanging out in the clubs that still were open".[2]
Authors and contents
"Nine writers contributed chapters to the book – Charles Edward Smith, Frederic Ramsey Jr., William Russell, Stephen W. Smith, E. Sims Campbell, Edward J. Nichols, Wilder Hobson, Otis Ferguson, and Roger Pryor Dodge".[1] The book was edited by Charles Edward Smith and Ramsey.[1]
The topics of the chapters included:
Publication
Jazzmen was published by
Influence
One purpose of Jazzmen was to trace the origins of jazz, which was done in part by trying to find information about cornetist Buddy Bolden.[5] Much of the account of Bolden's life that is presented in the book was later shown to be inaccurate.[3]
According to writer Samuel Charters:
The story that emerged in the book's pages would not have achieved such immediate acceptance if it didn't fill a need for a myth. For its editors and writers it was an act of faith to create a story that would lend the beginnings of jazz in New Orleans a closer indebtedness to black musical sources.[1]
The book also helped renew interest in an early form of jazz:
what followed over the next half century was a flood of recordings of what came to be known as the music of the New Orleans Revival. Within a few months of its publication there was interest in finding and perhaps recording some of the musicians Charlie Smith described in his final chapters about what he'd heard in the Mardi Gras bars and dance halls.[1]
One of the musicians recorded was Bunk Johnson, who had been contacted by the authors in search of details about Bolden.[5] Johnson, who had stopped playing years earlier and was living in poverty, had a career revival as a result.[6]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Charters 2008, chapter 20.
- ^ Charters 2008, chapter 18.
- ^ a b Sandke 2010, chapter 3.
- ^ Sandke 2010, chapter 1.
- ^ a b Gelly 2014, p. 54.
- ^ Gelly 2014, pp. 54–55.
Bibliography
- Charters, Samuel (2008). Trumpet Around the Corner: The Story of New Orleans Jazz. University Press of Mississippi.
- Gelly, Dave (2014). An Unholy Row. Equinox.
- Sandke, Randall (2010). Where the Dark and the Light Folks Meet. Scarecrow Press.