Jazz in American Culture

It is quite some time since I found a scholarly tract on jazz both so invigoratingly instructive and enjoyable to read...like all really good writers Townsend has the ability to render complex and even daunting material readily accessible, thanks to a lucid style further strengthened by an instinctive eye for sharp detail and apposite quotation. A detailed account of the history and theory of jazz music that is broad and deep but still greatly accessible. ! Townsend's discussion of jazz's influences on writers such as Scott Fitzgerald and Jack Kerouac are enlightening and accessible. Townsend challenges the curious reader to go beyond a traditional understanding of what music is and does and look at it in a broader social context. Townsend's writings on jazz are presented in a different way. He looks at how jazz went beyond music and infiltrated culture. His essays show how jazz is represented in other art forms, including film and literary text such as the fiction of Ralph Ellison, Jack Kerouac and Toni Morrison, along with the poetry of Langston Hughes.Townsend also introduces the work of jazz-influenced painters such as Stuart Davis and Jackson Pollock and discusses the significance of photography in jazz. An outstanding book! Readable, knowledgeable and insightful. I read it from cover to cover once I started it. -- Dr Tim Wall, University of Central England It is quite some time since I found a scholarly tract on jazz both so invigoratingly instructive and enjoyable to read...like all really good writers Townsend has the ability to render complex and even daunting material readily accessible, thanks to a lucid style further strengthened by an instinctive eye for sharp detail and apposite quotation. A detailed account of the history and theory of jazz music that is broad and deep but still greatly accessible. ! Townsend's discussion of jazz's influences on writers such as Scott Fitzgerald and Jack Kerouac are enlightening and accessible. Townsend challenges the curious reader to go beyond a traditional understanding of what music is and does and look at it in a broader social context. Townsend's writings on jazz are presented in a different way. He looks at how jazz went beyond music and infiltrated culture. His essays show how jazz is represented in other art forms, including film and literary text such as the fiction of Ralph Ellison, Jack Kerouac and Toni Morrison, along with the poetry of Langston Hughes.Townsend also introduces the work of jazz-influenced painters such as Stuart Davis and Jackson Pollock and discusses the significance of photography in jazz. An outstanding book! Readable, knowledgeable and insightful. I read it from cover to cover once I started it.