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Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History
Drawing from contemporary journalism, reviews, program notes, memoirs, interviews, and other sources, Keeping Readings in Jazz History brings to life the controversies and critical issues that have accompanied every moment of jazz history. Highlighting the significance of jazz as a
complex and consequential social practice as well as an art form, this book presents a multitude of ways in which people have understood and cared about jazz. It records a history not of style changes but of values, meanings, and sensibilities.
Featuring sixty-two thought-provoking chapters, this unique volume gives voice to a wide range of perspectives, stressing different reactions to and uses of jazz, both within and across 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 renowned writers such as Langston Hughes, Norman Mailer, and Ralph Ellison; and from critics including Leonard Feather and Gunther Schuller. Walser has selected writings that capture the passionate reactions of
people who have loved, hated, supported, and argued about jazz.
Organized chronologically, Keeping Time covers nearly 100 years of jazz history. Filled with insightful writing, it aims to increase historical awareness, to provoke critical thinking, and to encourage lively classroom discussion as students relive the tangled and conflicted story of jazz. It
enables readers to see that jazz is not just about names, dates, and chords, but rather about issues and ideas, cultural activities, and experiences that have affected people deeply in a great variety of ways. Concise headnotes provide historical context for each selection and point out issues for
thinking and discussion. An excellent text for a variety of jazz courses, Keeping Time can serve as supplementary reading in popular music, American Studies, African American studies, history, and sociology courses, and will also appeal to anyone interested in jazz.
complex and consequential social practice as well as an art form, this book presents a multitude of ways in which people have understood and cared about jazz. It records a history not of style changes but of values, meanings, and sensibilities.
Featuring sixty-two thought-provoking chapters, this unique volume gives voice to a wide range of perspectives, stressing different reactions to and uses of jazz, both within and across 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 renowned writers such as Langston Hughes, Norman Mailer, and Ralph Ellison; and from critics including Leonard Feather and Gunther Schuller. Walser has selected writings that capture the passionate reactions of
people who have loved, hated, supported, and argued about jazz.
Organized chronologically, Keeping Time covers nearly 100 years of jazz history. Filled with insightful writing, it aims to increase historical awareness, to provoke critical thinking, and to encourage lively classroom discussion as students relive the tangled and conflicted story of jazz. It
enables readers to see that jazz is not just about names, dates, and chords, but rather about issues and ideas, cultural activities, and experiences that have affected people deeply in a great variety of ways. Concise headnotes provide historical context for each selection and point out issues for
thinking and discussion. An excellent text for a variety of jazz courses, Keeping Time can serve as supplementary reading in popular music, American Studies, African American studies, history, and sociology courses, and will also appeal to anyone interested in jazz.
464 pages, Paperback
First published November 19, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 29, 2023
I'm finally done with this absolute brick of a book. Genius laying-out of essays from some of the greatest minds in jazz and music criticism from the 1910s to the 2010s. Dry, academic, slow as hell, but a powerful sense of being COMPLETE, all-encompassing.
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April 10, 2009I read it a few years ago but I'm reading it again. Forgot how good it was. A must for any musician.
"Music is...a lost thing finding itself. It's like a man with no place of his own. He wanders the world and he's a stranger wherever he is; he's a stranger right in the place where he was born. But then something happens to him and he finds a place, his place. He stands in front of it and he crosses the door, going inside. That's where the music was that day--taking him through the door. He was coming home."
"Music is...a lost thing finding itself. It's like a man with no place of his own. He wanders the world and he's a stranger wherever he is; he's a stranger right in the place where he was born. But then something happens to him and he finds a place, his place. He stands in front of it and he crosses the door, going inside. That's where the music was that day--taking him through the door. He was coming home."
March 2, 2015
Now in its second edition, Walser's collection remains an incredibly useful miscellany for understanding the ragged range of responses to jazz over the past one hundred years.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews