This study explores the 'pre-academic' phase of jazz historiography in the United States, reviewing the development of the field prior to the appearance of Marshall Stearns' The Story of Jazz in 1956. The men and women who participated in the awakening of American jazz scholarship were partisans of a community of 'hot' record collectors, whose interest in the origins of jazz was a foregone conclusion. An international network of collectors took shape between the 1920s and 1934, providing a mechanism for the circulation of historical information on jazz, which then became the basis for the emergence of a jazz literati writing for a magazines such as Down Beat, Esquire, The New Republic, and Jazz Information. These writers shared a vision of jazz derived from their experiences as 'hot' collectors, including the beliefs that jazz was an 'art form' and should be 'non-commercial.' Inspired by their love for the music and emphasizing 'New Orleans style,' writers like Charles Edward Smith and William Russell explained that jazz was 'born in New Orleans' in works such as Jazzmen (1939) and The Jazz Record Book (1942) During the 1940s the consensus established by the 'hot' collectors and apparent in the early histories began to come under fire as a new wave of 'jazz intellectuals' entered the field. 'Traditionalist' revisionists like Rudi Blesh challenged the prevailing notions of chronology and terminology, while 'modernists' such as Leonard Feather sought to divert attention away from the past in favor of contemporary developments. A war of words ensued within the jazz press which led to a division of the jazz community into antagonistic factions, each with its own view of jazz history and terminology. In addition, the proliferation of vintage jazz reissues by major record companies and the shift away from 78s with the appearance of new technology after 1948 ended the predominance of the old guard of 'hot' collectors on the jazz scene Ultimately, the conceptualization of jazz history deriving from Jazzmen found refuge in New Orleans and became an important part of the culture which it celebrated. Beginning with the establishment of the National Jazz Foundation in the mid-1940s, New Orleanians adopted the 'born in New Orleans' thesis and integrated it into their tourist economy / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_27245 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Contributors | Raeburn, Bruce Boyd (Author), Malone, Bill C (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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