Home » Search Center » Results: Race and Jazz
Results for "Race and Jazz"
From Generation to Generation, A New Collection Transcends Borders and Barriers
by John Chacona
The release of the three-disc set The Concert for Bangladesh (Apple) in 1971 established a template for the charity benefit album that is still followed to this day: multiple discs in lavish packaging, a grab-bag of songs and most importantly, a red-carpet lineup of established, often older stars, one of whom was invariably the organizer of ...
Wynton Marsalis and Confederate Monuments: How a Jazz Musician Started a Political Movement
by Dustin Mallory
In the wake of the events that took place in Charlottesville, VA on August 11-12, the nation has been gripped by horrific violence and tragedy. Our screens have been filled with images of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the counter-protestors who clashed with them. The Unite the Right rally may have ended in chaos, but it began ...
BAM or JAZZ: Part Two!
by Greg Thomas
Jazz, an art form given birth in the United States by descendents of the formerly enslaved, has a complicated relationship with race. Although race, as a popular idea, has no basis in biology, many people mentally adhere to the idea of dividing groups of people based on race" as opposed to understanding how groups of people ...
BAM or JAZZ: Why It Matters
by Greg Thomas
Since the last Race and Jazz column, the first of a multi-part discussion with John Gennari--the top scholar on the history of jazz criticism--a firestorm of controversy has arisen surrounding Nicholas Payton's declaration that, to him, the word jazz is dead. He also feels that the word jazz is tantamount to or worse than the n" ...
Race and Jazz Criticism
by Greg Thomas
When I began this Race and Jazz series several months ago, I knew the topics I wanted to touch upon, and the general culture vs. race point-of-view I intended to pursue. With those chord changes (topics) and that melodic perspective (pro-culture, anti-race) in mind and at play, I figured I'd proceed with the rest by ear. ...
Gary Giddins on Ignored Black Jazz Writers
by Greg Thomas
In the first essay for the Race and Jazz column, I gave a first-person account of how my love and appreciation of certain white" saxophonists served to safeguard me from the temptation of racism back in college during the early-to-mid-'80s. My second essay privileged culture over race, and told the story of how attorney and constitutional ...
Race, Culture and a White Boy from Texas
by Greg Thomas
The date: October 12, 1931. A sixteen year-old white male from Austin High School in Texas, who in later years would help shape the future of the United States, bought a ticket to see Louis Armstrong, King of the Trumpet, and His Orchestra" at the old Driskill Hotel. He knew nothing about jazz or this King," ...
Jazz vs Racism
by Greg Thomas
Jazz saved me from becoming a racist. Back in the early to mid-1980s, while attending Hamilton College in central New York, I learned details about the transatlantic slave trade that sickened and angered me. I read about the history of the abolitionist movement in the 1800s, and the civil rights movements of last ...