Jazz Diasporas: Race, Music, and Migration in Post-World War II Paris

by Rashida K. Braggs

Overview

At the close of the Second World War, waves of African American musicians migrated to Paris, eager to thrive in its reinvigorated jazz scene. Jazz Diasporas challenges the notion that Paris was a color-blind paradise for African Americans. On the contrary, musicians adopted a variety of strategies to cope with the cultural and social assumptions that confronted them throughout their careers in Paris, particularly as France became embroiled in struggles over race and identity when colonial conflicts like the Algerian War escalated. Using case studies of prominent musicians and thoughtful analysis of interviews, music, film, and literature, Rashida K. Braggs investigates the impact of this postwar musical migration. She examines key figures including musicians Sidney Bechet, Inez Cavanaugh, and Kenny Clarke and writer and social critic James Baldwin to show how they performed both as artists and as African Americans. Their collaborations with French musicians and critics complicated racial and cultural understandings of who could represent “authentic” jazz and created spaces for shifting racial and national identities—what Braggs terms “jazz diasporas.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520279353
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	01/26/2016
Series:	Music of the African Diaspora , #18
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Rashida K. Braggs is Assistant Professor in the Program of Africana Studies at Williams College.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction: Migrating Jazz People and Identities 1

1 Performing Jazz Diaspora with Sidney Bechet 29

2 Jazz at Home in France: French Jazz Musicians on the Warpath to "Authentic" Jazz 60

3 Inez Cavanaugh: Creating and Complicating Jazz Community 91

4 Boris Vian and James Baldwin In Paris: Are we a Blues People, Too? 125

5 Kenny Clarke's Journey Between "Black" and "Universal" Music 157

Coda: Beyond Color-Blind Narratives: Reading Behind the Scenes of Paris Blues 201

Notes 215

Works Cited 227

Index 243

Editorial Reviews

"Un libro apasionante, bien documentado y básico para entender la migración de músicos afroamericanos de jazz a Europa." ("A fascinating book, well documented and fundamental to understand the migration of African American jazz musicians to Europe.")

Tango Reporter

2015-11-05
A study of a key epoch in the transition of jazz from a distinctively American music to an international art form.Braggs (Africana Studies/Williams Univ.) uses the lives of jazz musicians largely as a way to study race relations in Paris from the 1940s through the 1970s. Sidney Bechet and Kenny Clarke, two major African-American figures, are featured in the first and final chapters. The lesser-known vocalist Inez Cavanaugh also gets a chapter. Such French musicians as clarinetist Claude Luter and pianist René Urtreger receive a fair share of attention, as do critics Hughes Panassié and Charles Delaunay. Farther afield, Braggs looks at James Baldwin, who spent much of his career writing about America from Paris, and French musician/novelist Boris Vian, who assumed a black identity for one of his novels and played jazz trumpet in a Paris club. Jazz lovers who expect new insights into the music are likely to be disappointed. Braggs is mainly interested in the adaptations they made to launch their careers in France, where initially racism appeared to be off the table. Black jazzmen certainly found fewer barriers, either professionally or socially, in France than in America. French critics and audiences considered African-Americans naturally superior to European musicians, at least as far as playing jazz. Bechet, undeniably a master, attained far greater acceptance in France than he ever did in America, and Clarke, one of the founders of bebop, became the first-call drummer for Parisian jazz sessions. Braggs provides interesting perspective on the "jazz wars" of the postwar era, when fans of traditional and modern styles fought it out. There is perhaps too much repetition—e.g., the author mentions at least three times Clarke's role in getting Miles Davis to record a French film soundtrack. Also, while Braggs draws on a wealth of material, much of it in French, the book is necessarily dependent on secondary and tertiary sources. A fascinating look into an important chapter in cultural history. Braggs should return to the subject in more depth.

Kirkus Reviews

"A model of research on global jazz."

Jazz and Culture

11/01/2015
Braggs (Africana studies, Williams Coll.) challenges the conception of Paris as a racism-free haven for the African American artists who flocked there after World War II.

Library Journal