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Thriving on a Riff

Jazz and Blues Influences in African American Literature and Film

David Murray editor Graham Lock editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Published:29th Jan '09

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Thriving on a Riff cover

From the Harlem Renaissance to the present, African American writers have drawn on the rich heritage of jazz and blues, transforming musical forms into the written word. In this companion volume to The Hearing Eye, distinguished contributors ranging from Bertram Ashe to Steven C. Tracy explore the musical influence on such writers as Sterling Brown, J.J. Phillips, Paul Beatty, and Nathaniel Mackey. Here, too, are Graham Lock's engaging interviews with contemporary poets Michael S. Harper and Jayne Cortez, along with studies of the performing self, in Krin Gabbard's account of Miles Davis and John Gennari's investigation of fictional and factual versions of Charlie Parker. The book also looks at African Americans in and on film, from blackface minstrelsy to the efforts of Duke Ellington and John Lewis to rescue jazz from its stereotyping in Hollywood film scores as a signal for sleaze and criminality. Concluding with a proposal by Michael Jarrett for a new model of artistic influence, Thriving on a Riff makes the case for the seminal cross-cultural role of jazz and blues.

highly readable * Roger Thomas, Jazz UK *
The book is balanced, consistently well and persuasively written and opulently presented. It also has a genuinely useful website ... the best aspect of the book is its subtle awareness of the effect of jazz and the way it shaped the spinning of words and images to make African American culture distinctive * Trevor Herbert, Times Higher Education *

ISBN: 9780195337099

Dimensions: 203mm x 251mm x 20mm

Weight: 1151g

320 pages