MENG 6710 Syllabus

Thinking Jazz / The Literature and Culture of the Jazz Age

To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group--a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project.
― Cornel West, Race Matters

Syllabus

This reading schedule (as well as the section titles) is meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive, chronological, or inclusive. In the event we find that we need to spend more time on a text/section than originally allocated (or allow more time for oral reports and films), we can adjust our syllabus accordingly. Please expect short video and audio clips regularly -- they are not (always) listed on the syllabus. You should also know that one of the signs of a good class discussion is that we will not have time to address all the reading that has been assigned for a certain day. Let's proceed with the understanding that teaching and learning, like life, is a set of contingencies full of improvisations!

Week 1	The Jazz Age -- What's the Fuzz about all that Buzz (and Fizz)? In-class screening, The Twenties Digital History: The Twentieth Century The Jazz Age Roadmap Alan P. Merriam and Fradley H. Garner, "Jazz, the Word, " Ethnomuscicology, 12, 3 (1968): 373-396
Week 2	The Prehistory of Jazz Neal Conan, 'Playback': A 100 Years of Music Machines W. E. B. DuBois, "Of the Sorrow Songs," The Souls of Black Folk (1904) Le Roi Jones, Amiri Baraka, Blues People (1963), "African Slaves/American Slaves: Their Music," chap. 3 Eugene Holley, Jr., "Black History Meets Black Music: Blues People at 50", II Ted Gioia, The Prehistory of Jazz -- The Africanization of American Music, chap. 1 Music/ians of the Week The Blues ____________________ Ma Rainey __________________________ Scott Joplin ___________________ Sidney Bechet ________________________
Week 3-4	F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Bard of Jazz—Reality and Myth Tales of the Jazz Age and Other Stories Roaring Twenties: History in the Key of Jazz Ted Gioia, The Jazz Age, chap 3 FSF __________________________ Cult(ure) of Consumption_____________________ Louis Armstrong _________________ Bix Beiderbecke ___________________________
Week 5-6	Toomer in Tune with the Time (Gone Past) — Harlem and the Critical Mass Gioia, New Orleans Jazz -- The Celebrations of a City in Decline, chap 2 E. J. Bellocq I, ELB II - Storyville District (viewer discretion advised) film screening, New Orleans (1947) Jelly Roll Morton ___________________ Shuffle Along ___________________________ Jean Toomer, Cane History of African American Negro Spirituals Alain Locke, "The New Negro" Cane ______________________ George Gershwin __________________________ Nella Larsen ______________________________
Week 7	Wild Women Don't Have the Blues Film Screening, Wild W0men Don't Have the Blues Kevin Young, Ed., Jazz Poetry (I) Women in Jazz Billie Holiday, BB Official Site, JAZZ-BH Wild Women ___________________ Jazz Poetry I ___________________________ Carl van Vechten _________________
Week 8	Voices from the Other and Upper (East) Side -- The Harlem Renaissance Before and After Julian Street, "The Jazz Baby" Rudolph Fischer, "Common Meter" Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" and "The Blues I'm Playing" Eudora Welty, "Powerhouse" Kevin Young, Ed., Jazz Poetry (II) Short Jazz Fiction ___________________ Jazz Poetry II ________________________
Week 9	Jazz in Junction City -- The Hub of Rails and Reeds Red Nichols I, II; Red Nichols/The Five Pennies, Five Pennies II Film screening, The Five Pennies (1959, selections) The Brian Sisters Red Nichols ________________________ Brian Sisters __________________________ Guest speaker, Joe McQueen I, II, III Recommended: The Harlem Renaissance in the American West: The New Negro's Western Experience Film screening, King of O-Town

Week 10–11	Literature, Labor, and the Red Scare John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer Focus Questions, Manhattan Transfer (removed) Fats Waller ______________________ MT I ______________________________ MT II _________________________The Red Scare _________________________ Cotton Club ___________________________
Week 12	Art of the 1920s and 30s -- Jamming Session African American Art -- The Harlem Renaissance Recommended: "Wild Ones," on improvisation in Marlon Brando, Charlie Parker, and Jackson Pollock Visual Arts in the HR__________________ American Precisionism ________________________ Art Tatum _________________________ overflow session -- student workshops -- Ken Burns, Jazz video clips Ralph Ellison - "Living With Music" - "A Coupla Sculped Indians" - The Ralph Ellison Project - "Why did Ralph Ellison despise modern Jazz? Theodor Adorno, "On Jazz," Essays on Music
Week 13-4	Making Sound History -- Radio and the Talkies Race Records (PBS) The Record Effect: How Technology Changed the Sound of Music Recommended: The History of Film, the 1920s Film screeing, Duke Ellington, Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life (1935) Film screeing, The Jazz Singer I , Jazz Singer II (film, 1927, selections) Radio and Jazz _______________________ Jazz Singer __________________________ Duke Ellington _______________________
Week 15	Rewriting the 20s: The Fiction of History August Wilson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Ma Rainey Play-Guide August Wilson, The Ground On Which I Stand (PBS 2015) Black Bottom ______________________ [Musician TBA] ________________________ * Paper Due Date: Monday, 30 November 2015 *
Week 16	The final word, instead of a final exam The only dumb question is the one you don't ask. My door is always open (and if it is not open, please knock; I will answer if I am there). Please don't hesitate to stop by during my office hours or to make an appointment, if you're having trouble getting started or want to talk about your ideas or progress.