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274th out of 276 books
—
303 voters
Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story between the Great Wars
During the years between the world wars, a small but dynamic community of African American jazz musicians left the United States and settled in Paris, creating a vibrant expatriate musical scene and introducing jazz to the French. While the Harlem Renaissance was taking off across the Atlantic, entertainers in Montmartre, the epicenter of the Parisian scene, contributed en...more
Hardcover, 210 pages
Published
September 4th 2001
by University of California Press
(first published August 5th 2001)
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While I didn't concentrate as well as I could have (I was in a car and my husband was listening to baseball), I still learned a lot from this book. There was a thriving Harlem-style jazz scene in Montmartre, filled with black Americans escaping Jim Crow. They were so welcomed that the KKK sent people over to try to enforce the American color line in Paris! Most racist incidents in Paris seemed to be started by white Americans, and tolerated by hoteliers because Paris depended so much on tourist...more
Oct 14, 2009
J.
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Shelves:
arts,
history,
music,
europe,
france,
between-the-wars,
non-fiction,
city-of-light,
zazou,
jazz
Short but factually-loaded history of the explosive years between the wars when Harlem Jazz bloomed in the boîtes of Montmartre. Thoroughly researched but drifts into personnel lists, itineraries and schedules a little too often.
A longer book might have delved more into the evocation of place and time, which are sketched here, but kept to a documentary minimum. Of particular interest is the zazou movement, which was a wildly radical group of musicians and jazz music fans who spared no effort ke...more
A longer book might have delved more into the evocation of place and time, which are sketched here, but kept to a documentary minimum. Of particular interest is the zazou movement, which was a wildly radical group of musicians and jazz music fans who spared no effort ke...more
Nicely factual story about jazz and Paris, especially between the two world wars. Unfortunately, the author jumps around in time and also fails to evoke the feeling of the music and the place. A good start for this important story but a more lyrical writing style would have helped a lot.
Too much scattered thinking. Not enough personal stories, all they did was talk about places and shows that opened and closed. Not a very streamlined story.
May 20, 2013
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