Fascinating Rhythm Reading Jazz in American Writing

I finally read and finished a book again. Its been a while, this book is called Fascinating Rhythm Reading Jazz in American Writing, its written by David Yaffe.  

"David Yaffe's writings have appeared in many publications, including the New Republic, The Nation, the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Boston Globe, the Village Voice, Slate, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He is Assistant Professor of English at Syracuse University."

Basically he's an academic who likes jazz, like most jazz writers and critics. In this book Yaffe explores the relationship between jazz and literature, talking a lot about Ralph Ellison, Norman Mailer, Stanley Crouch, Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates, Langston Hughs, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Fitzgerald, and J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye (there's jazz references in that novel), and goes into the aspect of the pimp over the artist when it comes to autobiographies (Lady Day, Miles, and Mingus get the work over). I would say the book credits Ralph Ellison more so than the others, and for good reason, because he was an important writer in the jazz idiom.

The book explores jazz and race quite spectacularly, going into the idea of the White Negro, and showing and explaining the close relationship between blacks and Jews going back to the early 1900s before bands were integrated, it wasn't until 1922 that Benny Goodman recorded the first integrated jazz band. Blacks and Jews were quite simpatico you could say. It wasn't until later that Blacks started to write and describe their art, poetry, and music in their own words without needing the white man to describe it in order to sell to the intellectual elite, which was mostly Leftist Jews. 

The book taught me a lot about jazz, not really the musical side (as Yaffe says pimping sells more than selling practicing scales) but the book focuses more on the cultural and literary aspects of jazz. As much as I love the literary side of jazz as Charlie Parker said in his only live television performance (and only recorded live performance with sound), "the music speaks much more than words ever could." I go with that tact, although I do believe that jazz needs writers and the literate elite to keep it alive without it getting deformed and mashed into fusion and smooth jazz. The neoclassical movement in jazz should always be strong, and should be informed by an educated elite, just like how it was in the 50's. If we keep things like that then I think jazz will be on a good track to staying relevant in an increasingly pop and rap dominated American society. Got that? Good. 

I think Cornel West sums up the book really well.

"This is a fascinating and formidable response to Ralph Ellison's famous call for a 'jazz-shaped' reading of American literature. Yaffe's bold and often brilliant treatments of black-Jewish relations in twentieth-century U.S. culture, Ellison's own seminal works, poetry and jazz influences, and the autobiographies of Mingus, Holiday, and Miles Davis are major contributions to American and Afro-American studies."--Cornel West, Princeton University

Now I feel a lot more informed on the cultural side of the jazz universe. Feels good to be a gangsta (kisses his gold chain)