[Dixielandjazz] Bruce Raeburn's new book--Charlie Suhor writes

[Norman Vickers]

To ;DJML

From: Norman

 

Charlie Suhor, percussionist, English professor, author, reviews Bruce Boyd
Raeburn's new book. Listmates  likely will remember Charlie's contributions
to this list. He is author of NEW ORLEANS JAZZ: POSTWAR YEARS TO 1970.

 

I hope you will find this review of interest. 

From: Charles Suhor [mailto:csuhor at zebra.net] 
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 10:16 PM
To: Norman Vickers
Subject: Bruce Raeburn's new book

 

Hi, Norm-Below is my review of Bruce Boyd Raeburn's excellent new book from
the current issue of JazzNotes, publication of JJA (Jazz Journalists
Association). There's info about JJA at www.jazzhouse.org--Charlie

New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History
By Bruce Boyd Raeburn

University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 2009; 342 pp.; $26.95 paperback

Review by Charles Suhor

What we today call "jazz journalism," "jazz criticism" and "jazz history"
began, like jazz itself, as the work of passionate amateurs. Bruce Raeburn,
curator of the Tulane University Jazz Archive, traces the growth of the
profession from the foundational writings of zealous record collectors to
the mainstream of historical and critical studies. His brilliantly
researched book is essential reading for jazz journalists.

Focusing on writings about the New Orleans style, Raeburn explores issues
that have been disputed and recast over the years in magazines like Down
Beat, Esquire, HRS Society Rag, Jazz Information, Jazz Record, Metronome and
Record Changer. He notes that the early discourse evolved willy-nilly, with
designations like ragtime, folk art, sweet versus hot jazz, corn and race
music. Jazz was variously described as primitive, robotic, bourgeois,
mechanistic, spontaneous, freewheeling, popular, artistic and what have you.

Jazz criticism involved a potpourri of insights and attitudes. A cadre of
Marxist writers defined the music in terms of class struggle and racial
oppression. Purists argued for the superiority of traditional New Orleans
jazz, first over the emerging swing of the 1930s, then more ferociously over
bebop in the mid-1940s. Other writers claimed that jazz progressed from
simple to superior, more sophisticated forms. The dispute raged until "the
combatants had completely exhausted their vocabulary of insults." Ideas
about jazz were also shaped, often distorted, by the demands of record
companies for salable products and the predilections of A&R men and
influential writers.

Pulling all of this into a coherent narrative is a formidable task, but
Raeburn handles it well. He sees the writings of Charles Edward Smith,
William (Bill) Russell and Frederick Ramsey, Jr., authors of the 1939 volume
Jazzmen, as seminal. They "had given to the jazz world a firm foundation on
which to build. Basing their work on historical research and devising
theories accordingly, they produced a series of books and articles that are
still useful as examples of jazz scholarship."

The writers who participated in the unfolding discussion are too numerous to
list here, but a few noteworthy figures are George Avakian, Rudi Blesh,
Nesuhi Ertegun, Charles Delaunay, Leonard Feather, Ralph J. Gleason, John
Hammond, S. I. Hayakawa, Wilder Hobson, Andre Hodeir, George Hoefer, Alan
Lomax, Hugues Panassie, Winthrop Sargeant, Marshall Stearns, Edmond Souchon,
Virgil Thomson and Eugene Williams. The only photo in the book is a
hilarious cover picture of Smith, Russell and Ramsey. I would have gladly
paid a few dollars more for a photo gallery of the major principals.

Many JJA members will be familiar with these writers, but Raeburn laces the
story of their contributions with rich detail, firm context and thoughtful
commentary. He argues persuasively that New Orleans was the central origin
site of jazz, dissecting Leonard Feather's famous argument to the contrary
in The Book of Jazz. He acknowledges the primacy of African-Americans in
shaping the new music but sees the city's unique environment as a network of
cross-cultural influences. Above all, he rejects critical dogmas - those of
traditional jazz purists as well as progressive/evolutionary critics. He
praises writers and promoters like Avakian, Ertegun, Hammond and Smith, who
expanded their tastes beyond rigid categories.

This admirable catholicity has a downside. Raeburn doesn't provide a sharp
image of his own view of the New Orleans style. He cites the musicological
and sociological analyses of many writers and appears to accept the
perspectives of early figures - especially Smith and Russell - on
fundamentals such as group polyphony, basic instrumentation and
African-American influence. But he waxes romantic and impressionistic when
speaking in his own voice: "In the final analysis, New Orleans style was a
way of living that manifested itself musically in the 'City that Care
Forgot'.... Liberty, equality, fraternity, and fun are the hallmarks of the
New Orleans style."

Raeburn's endnotes provide excellent documentation and further details that
illuminate the text. But I have a concern about his bibliography that
wouldn't matter in a different kind of book. Raeburn gives only a brief,
topically selected list of recommended materials, pointing out that the
endnotes contain complete citations. But the information there, of course,
is scattered among hundreds of notes spanning 60 pages. Since the essence of
this study is a survey of writers, books and magazines that together portray
the evolution of writing about jazz, a complete bibliography would provide a
broad overview of the nature, amount and timing of the various
contributions.

But Raeburn's groundbreaking work hints provocatively at further avenues of
research. He touches sporadically on the neglect and outright denigration of
jazz in the New Orleans daily papers. A more fine-grained study might pick
up the scent and track the roles of periodicals like Figaro, New Orleans,
Second Line and Vieux Carre Courier in modeling a wider cultural vision and
creating a niche for local jazz journalism.

An update of Raeburn's work would also be useful. His account of critiques
of the New Orleans style essentially ends after the traditional jazz versus
swing and bebop wars. Intensive coverage of early styles slowed to a trickle
in large circulation magazines, revived in part by the influence of
Preservation Hall in the 1960s. But reviews of recordings and performances
and commentaries and feature stories on a wide range of traditional jazz
continued in specialized publications (American Rag, JazzBeat, The
Mississippi Rag, IAJRC Journal and Second Line); bulletins of traditional
jazz societies; foreign "trad" magazines; and recently with online sources
like the few-holds-barred Dixieland Jazz Mailing List (islandnet.com/djml).
The dynamic of the concurrent decline of interest and diffusion of coverage
in jazz journalism is a story worth telling.

But Raeburn's book will be an abiding reference point on my bookshelf. While
the author set out to do an academic study (a reworking of his doctoral
thesis at Tulane), he displays a gift for rendering scholarly research in
well-crafted prose. The result is serious and enjoyable reading, an in-depth
account of the early history of jazz journalism.

 

 
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