mp3 Archive Collection

Our Language (1924-1929)

Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit, 1920-60

List Price: $24.95 Price: $18.96 You Save: $5.99 (24%)

When most people think of Detroit and music, they think of the Motown sound. But what many people forget is that Detroit has a remarkable jazz history, which became a major influence in what came to be known as the Motown sound.

Before Motown is the first book about the history of jazz in Detroit. It shows the significant impact Detroit has had on the development of jazz in America, with its own sound, distinct from that of the other jazz centers of Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, or Kansas City. Starting with the big bands in the 1920s,with groups like the McKinney's Cotton Pickers and Jean Goldkette's Orchestra, and continuing into the 1950s, Detroit experienced a golden age of modern jazz centered around clubs like the Blue Bird Inn. That jazz scene comes alive in interviews with musicians and club owners, combined with unique period photographs and advertisements. In addition, Detroit's vital jazz scene is placed in its social context, particularly within the changing relations between blacks and whites at the time.

Long overdue, Before Motown tells the story of Detroit jazz as it really happened, told by the people who lived it. More importantly, it shows how life can mirror art in the most pragmatic of American cities, Detroit.

Lars Bjorn is Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan, Dearborn, and the author of numerous articles and publications about jazz. Jim Gallert is Vice President of the Jazz Alliance of Michigan and a veteran jazz broadcaster. He has been involved with the Detroit jazz scene for over twenty-five years.

The Jazz Age: Popular Music in the 1920s

List Price: $39.99 Price: $34.12 You Save: $5.87 (15%)

F. Scott Fitzgerald named it, Louis Armstrong launched it, Paul Whiteman and Fletcher Henderson orchestrated it, and now Arnold Shaw chronicles this fabulous era in his marvelously engrossing book, appropriately called The Jazz Age. Enriching his account with lively anecdotes and inside stories, he describes the astonishing outpouring of significant musical innovations that emerged during the "Roaring Twenties"--including blues, jazz, band music, torch ballads, operettas, and musicals--and sets them against the background of the Prohibition world of the Flapper and the Gangster.
The Jazz Age offers an insider's view into the significant developments and personalities of the jazz age, including the maturation and Americanization of the Broadway musical theater, the explosion of the arts celebrated in the Harlem Renaissance, the rise of the Classic Blues Singers, and the evolution of ragtime into stride piano. It also contains a bibliography, detailed discography, and listings of the songs of the twenties in Variety's "Golden 100" and of films featuring singers and songwriters of the era. Read more...

Race, Music, and National Identity: Images of Jazz in American Fiction, 1920-1960

List Price: $46.50 Price: $46.50

This study demonstrates that jazz as it appeared in narrative fiction was often used as a forum to address the nation's anxieties in the turbulent years during which the United States gradually changed from a nation dedicated to an isolationist policy to a superpower likely to intervene in foreign conflicts. The jazz narrative became one of the means through which this paradigm shift was justified to an American audience.

Jazz might strike many readers as a subject only for aficionados, but this book is accessible to a broad audience. It is aimed at casual fans of jazz music curious about the music's broader role in the cultural development of the United States and the interplay between jazz and American fiction. Read more...