The Jazz Cadence of American Culture (Paper) - Robert G Omeally

Taking to heart Ralph Ellison's remark that much in American life is "jazz-shaped" this text offers a range of statements about the influence of this art form. Robert G. O'Meally has gathered a collection of essays, speeches, and interviews on the impact of jazz on other arts, on politics, and on the rhythm of everyday life. Focusing mainly on American artisitic expression from 1920 to 1970, O'Meally confronts a long era of political and artistic turbulence and change in which American art forms influenced one another in unexpected ways.;Organized thematically, these pieces include an essay considering poet and novelist James Weldon Johnson as a cultural critic. From Stanley Crouch to August Wilson to Jacqui Malone, the plurality of voices gathered here reflects the variety of expression within jazz.;The book includes an opening section which sketches the overall place of jazz in America. Alan P. Merriam and Fradley H. Garner unpack the word "jazz" and its register and Albert Murray considers improvisation in music and life. In an interdisciplinary approach, exploring jazz and the visual arts, dance, sports, history, memory and literature, Ann Douglas writes on jazz's influence on