Jazz country : Ralph Ellison in America / Horace A. Porter.

Author/creator Porter, Horace A., 1950-
Format Book
Publication InfoIowa City : University of Iowa Press, ©2001.
Description168 pages ; 25 cm
Subjects
Ellison, Ralph--Knowledge. --Jazz.
Jazz in literature.

Contents Chronology: Ralph Ellison, 1914-1994 -- Jazz States: Ralph Waldo Ellison's Major Chords -- Jazz Essays. -- Ellison on Charlie Christian, Jimmy Rushing, Mahalia Jackson, and Lester Young. -- The solo voice of Charlie Christian's guitar -- Reducing the chaos of living to form the affirmative voices of Jimmy Rushing and Mahalia Jackson -- Charlie Christian and the influence of Lester Young -- Soul brothers Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman jazz, race, and cultural exchange -- Jazz Icons. -- Ellison on Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker. -- American masters Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong -- Mocking entertainers Ellison on Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker -- Jazz Trio. -- Ralph Ellison, Romare Bearden, and Albert Murray. -- Renaissance men Ralph Ellison, Romare Bearden, and Albert Murray -- The novelist and the painter shared visions of jazz and art -- Shared assumptions Albert Murray Riffs on the marvelous, the terrible, and the heroic in African American culture -- Jazz Underground. -- Invisible Man as Jazz Text. -- Invisibility blues -- Notes underground -- Harlem Riot jazz aesthetics -- Jazz in Progress. -- Juneteenth, Ellison's Second Novel. -- The long wait Ellison and poetic closure -- A jazzman burns his white cadillac -- A jazzman's duet and solo -- Jazz Preaching. -- Reverend Hickman and the Battered Silver Trombone. -- The performed word -- Dry bones in the valley -- Improvisation Ellison Riffs on T.S. Eliot and Rev. C.L. Franklin -- Ellison, Ellington, and Transcendence -- Jazz Trumpet No End. -- Ellison's Riffs with Irving Howe and Other Critics. -- Ralph Ellison the Yecke -- Ralph Ellison and Irving Howe -- Ralph Ellison the grand aesthetician -- Ralph Ellison the elitist? -- Ralph Waldo Ellison jazz artist and metaphysical rebel.
Abstract Horace Porter is the chair of African American World Studies and professor of English at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Stealing Fire: The Art and Protest of James Baldwin and one of the editors of Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition. The first book to reassess Ralph Ellison after his death and the posthumous publication of Juneteenth, his second novel, Jazz Country: Ralph Ellison in America explores Ellison's writings and views on American culture through the lens of jazz music. Horace Porter's groundbreaking study addresses Ellison's jazz background, including his essays and comments about jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker. Porter further examines the influences of Ellington and Armstrong as sources of the writer's personal and artistic inspiration and highlights the significance of Ellison's camaraderie with two African American friends and fellow jazz fans?the writer Albert Murray and the painter Romare Bearden. Most notably, Jazz Country demonstrates how Ellison appropriated jazz techniques in his two novels, Invisible Man and Juneteenth. Using jazz as the key metaphor, Porter refocuses old interpretations of Ellison by placing jazz in the foreground and by emphasizing, especially as revealed in his essays, the power of Ellison's thought and cultural perception. The self-proclaimed ?custodian of American culture,? Ellison offers a vision of ?jazz-shaped? America?a world of improvisation, individualism, and infinite possibility.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 149-158) and index.
LCCN 2001027538
ISBN0877457778 (cloth : alk. paper)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Closed Stacks - Ask at Circulation Desk ML80.E45 P67 2001 ✔ Available Place Hold