The overarching goal of 'As Long As They Can Blow' is to show the mutual respect that black and white jazz musicians had for each other and how a shared love of the music and the relative privacy of the recording studio resulted in hundreds of early interracial jazz recordings.
—Stephen Provizer
As Long As They Can Blow: Interracial Jazz Recording and Other Jive Before 1935 has just been released in print, eBook and .pdf download.
Author Stephen Provizer has amassed a discography of hundreds of interracial recording sessions, which include some of the most well-known jazz musicians of the era, including Jelly Roll Morton, Coleman Hawkins, Eddie Lang, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Alberta Hunter, Don Redman and many, many more. There is also a concise list that can be used for quick access to those sessions.
The book also includes a brief history of the early recording industry, with an emphasis on how the industry dealt with the question of race, as well as a list of formal and informal interactivity between black and white jazz musicians outside the recording studio. Finally, there is a piece in the voice of Mezz Mezzrow and one in the voice of Eddie Condon, both of whom were active in interracial sessions. The facts are there, but the author uses techniques of creative non-fiction to put them into story form.
More information on these sessions, including photos and video, can be found at interracialjazz.com.
Author Stephen Provizer is a musician (brass) who has been writing about jazz since the 1990’s. His work can be found in publications like AllAboutJazz.com, Coda, Downbeat, Syncopated Times, Forward, Artsfuse.org and at his Brilliant Corners blog.
He wrote, produced and directed a radio play called The Amazing Story of Strange Fruit, about the seminal creation of that recording by Billie Holiday.
Author Stephen Provizer has amassed a discography of hundreds of interracial recording sessions, which include some of the most well-known jazz musicians of the era, including Jelly Roll Morton, Coleman Hawkins, Eddie Lang, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Alberta Hunter, Don Redman and many, many more. There is also a concise list that can be used for quick access to those sessions.
The book also includes a brief history of the early recording industry, with an emphasis on how the industry dealt with the question of race, as well as a list of formal and informal interactivity between black and white jazz musicians outside the recording studio. Finally, there is a piece in the voice of Mezz Mezzrow and one in the voice of Eddie Condon, both of whom were active in interracial sessions. The facts are there, but the author uses techniques of creative non-fiction to put them into story form.
More information on these sessions, including photos and video, can be found at interracialjazz.com.
About the Author
Author Stephen Provizer is a musician (brass) who has been writing about jazz since the 1990’s. His work can be found in publications like AllAboutJazz.com, Coda, Downbeat, Syncopated Times, Forward, Artsfuse.org and at his Brilliant Corners blog.He wrote, produced and directed a radio play called The Amazing Story of Strange Fruit, about the seminal creation of that recording by Billie Holiday.
