Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | N | Notes

The Rise of a Jazz Art World.(Book Review)-

Article Excerpt
The Rise of a Jazz Art World. By Paul Lopes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. [vii, 294 p. ISBN 0-521-80191-5. $60 (hbk.); ISBN 0-521-00039-4. $23 (pbk.).] Bibliography, index.

Paul Lopes's detailed and lengthy study explores the evolution of ideas about the nature and significance of jazz, both as a music and as a cultural phenomenon, during the entire twentieth century. Lopes, a sociologist, begins by noting that creators and aficionados of many musical styles seek legitimacy and institutionalization within their culture, and that in the United States the legitimacy that is sought is usually modeled on that afforded European art music. For jazz musicians, critics, and listeners, the "quest for legitimacy" meant negotiating a modern mass culture which alternately used, abused, and ignored jazz for diverse reasons and purposes. "The key question," Lopes writes, "is how jazz came to signify various contours of status, distinction and identity in American music confronted by professional...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!