Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans

by Charles B. Hersch

Overview

Subversive Sounds probes New Orleans’s history, uncovering a web of racial interconnections and animosities that was instrumental to the creation of a vital American art form—jazz. Drawing on oral histories, police reports, newspaper accounts, and vintage recordings, Charles Hersch brings to vivid life the neighborhoods and nightspots where jazz was born.

This volume shows how musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, Nick La Rocca, and Louis Armstrong negotiated New Orleans’s complex racial rules to pursue their craft and how, in order to widen their audiences, they became fluent in a variety of musical traditions from diverse ethnic sources. These encounters with other music and races subverted their own racial identities and changed the way they played—a musical miscegenation that, in the shadow of Jim Crow, undermined the pursuit of racial purity and indelibly transformed American culture.

“More than timely . . . Hersch orchestrates voices of musicians on both sides of the racial divide in underscoring how porous the music made the boundaries of race and class.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226328676
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	03/15/2008
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Charles Hersch is professor of political science at Cleveland State University and the author of Democratic Artworks: Politics and the Arts from Trilling to Dylan.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
New Orleans Maps
Opening Riff: Jelly Roll Morton’s Stars and Stripes
Introduction

1  Places
2  Reaction
3  Musicians
4  Music
5  Dissemination: Morton, La Rocca, and Armstrong

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Discography and Videography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"An important contribution to the social history of New Orleans and jazz."

Choice

"This is a fresh and original analysis of the context of the birth of jazz. In addition to offering a new and intellectually stimulating interpretation of the role of race, politics, and social class in the music’s origins, Hersch is the first in over a generation to delve deeply into the racial aspects of the lives and work of the earliest jazz musicians in New Orleans."

William Howland Kenney

"A significant contribution to our understanding of the longstanding--but understudied--relationship between music and politics. . . . Hersch's] argument is convincing, his writing engaging, and his musical analyses compelling and seductive."

Perspectives on Politics

"Hersch has the grasp of time and place that is the hallmark of all the most worthwhile historians. He has brought that to bear effectively here, and the results are illuminating for anyone wanting to understand how this music called jazz came to be."

All about Jazz - Nic Jones

"A provocative new history. . . . Hersch illuminates how musicians of color drew from realities that few white people experienced in forging a form of dance music for people of both races. In that sense, Subversive Sounds is more than timely. . . . Tapping oral histories from the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane, Hersch orchestrates voices of musicians on both sides of the racial divide in underscoring how porous the music made the boundaries of race and class. He writes, too, with an edgy sense of how music functioned."

Times-Picayune - Jason Berry

"Hersch has the grasp of time and place that is the hallmark of all the most worthwhile historians. He has brought that to bear effectively here, and the results are illuminating for anyone wanting to understand how this music called jazz came to be."

— Nic Jones

All about Jazz

"A provocative new history. . . . Hersch illuminates how musicians of color drew from realities that few white people experienced in forging a form of dance music for people of both races. In that sense, Subversive Sounds is more than timely. . . . Tapping oral histories from the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane, Hersch orchestrates voices of musicians on both sides of the racial divide in underscoring how porous the music made the boundaries of race and class. He writes, too, with an edgy sense of how music functioned."-Times-Picayune

— Jason Berry

Times-Picayune

"Exhaustive research informs [the author''s] tightly orchestrated analysis of musical performances and deft portraits of individual musicians, which stand out amid the richly textured descriptions of New Orleans life."

— Iain Anderson

American Historical Review

Hersch (political science, Cleveland State Univ.; Democratic Artworks) explores turn-of-the-century New Orleans, when Jim Crow segregation laws were forcing America into a binary of races. At the same time, a wide spectrum of musicians, audiences, and venues juxtaposed African, European, American, and Latin music and through modification and reinterpretation (or signifying), they created a unique patchwork of music called jazz. Jazz used aspects of marching music, popular at the time for its decisive rhythm in an increasingly industrial society, but also incorporated elements like syncopation and improvisation-altering time and giving the music flight. Opponents saw this new musical force as a threat to racial purity and some notions of what behavior and rhythm should be like. Hersch contends that "jazz did in fact subvert racial segregation." This well-documented history contributes to the dialog on the role of race in the origins of jazz. Recommended for academic and public libraries.
—Lani Smith

Library Journal

"[Hersch's] argument is convincing, his writing engaging, and his musical analyses compelling and seductive."-- "Perspectives on Politics"

"A novel discussion of a surprisingly neglected issue, whose suggestions are well worth pondering."--Andy Hamilton "The Wire"

"A provocative new history. . . . Hersch illuminates how musicians of color drew from realities that few white people experienced in forging a form of dance music for people of both races. In that sense, Subversive Sounds is more than timely. . . . Tapping oral histories from the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane, Hersch orchestrates voices of musicians on both sides of the racial divide in underscoring how porous the music made the boundaries of race and class. He writes, too, with an edgy sense of how music functioned."--Jason Berry "Times-Picayune"

"An important contribution to the social history of New Orleans and jazz."-- "Choice"

"Exhaustive research informs [the author's] tightly orchestrated analysis of musical performances and deft portraits of individual musicians, which stand out amid the richly textured descriptions of New Orleans life."--Iain Anderson "American Historical Review"

"Hersch has the grasp of time and place that is the hallmark of all the most worthwhile historians. He has brought that to bear effectively here, and the results are illuminating for anyone wanting to understand how this music called jazz came to be."--Nic Jones "All about Jazz"

"This is a fresh and original analysis of the context of the birth of jazz. In addition to offering a new and intellectually stimulating interpretation of the role of race, politics, and social class in the music's origins, Hersch is the first in over a generation to delve deeply into the racial aspects of the lives and work of the earliest jazz musicians in New Orleans."--William Howland Kenney, author of Jazz on the River (3/5/2007 12:00:00 AM)

"This well-documented history contributes to the dialog on the role of race in the origins of jazz."-- "Library Journal"

"Subversive Sounds is as thoroughly researched as it is groundbreaking. In his study of New Orleans jazz, Charles Hersch is scrupulously sensitive to the music, but he has also surveyed the birthplace of jazz with the keen eye of a social historian. I was especially impressed by his willingness to consider the role of white players--as well as black and Creole musicians--in the racial politics of early jazz."

--Krin Gabbard, author of Jammin' at the Margins: Jazz and American Cinema

"Subversive Sounds underscores the importance of thinking in subtle, complex, and nuanced ways about the relationship between jazz and race. Engagingly written and cleverly framed, Hersch's work displays ample skill and vision while showing us how profoundly race mattered in early New Orleans jazz. This valuable and important book belongs on the top shelf of new jazz studies."

--John Gennari, author of Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics (10/9/2007 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher

Subversive Sounds is as thoroughly researched as it is groundbreaking. In his study of New Orleans jazz, Charles Hersch is scrupulously sensitive to the music, but he has also surveyed the birthplace of jazz with the keen eye of a social historian. I was especially impressed by his willingness to consider the role of white players—as well as black and Creole musicians—in the racial politics of early jazz.”

Krin Gabbard

"A novel discussion of a surprisingly neglected issue, whose suggestions are well worth pondering."

The Wire - Andy Hamilton

Subversive Sounds underscores the importance of thinking in subtle, complex, and nuanced ways about the relationship between jazz and race. Engagingly written and cleverly framed, Hersch's work displays ample skill and vision while showing us how profoundly race mattered in early New Orleans jazz. This valuable and important book belongs on the top shelf of new jazz studies.”

John Gennari

"Exhaustive research informs [the author's] tightly orchestrated analysis of musical performances and deft portraits of individual musicians, which stand out amid the richly textured descriptions of New Orleans life."

American Historical Review - Iain Anderson