Gregory Thomas examines the controversial issue of race and jazz.
BAM or JAZZ: Part Two!
Jazz, an art form given birth in the United States by descendents of the formerly enslaved, has a complicated relationship with race. Although race, as a popular idea, has no basis in biology, many people mentally adhere to the idea of dividing groups of people based on “race" as opposed to understanding how groups of people ...
BAM or JAZZ: Why It Matters
Since the last Race and Jazz column, the first of a multi-part discussion with John Gennari--the top scholar on the history of jazz criticism--a firestorm of controversy has arisen surrounding Nicholas Payton's declaration that, to him, the word jazz is dead. He also feels that the word jazz is tantamount to or worse than the “n" ...
Race and Jazz Criticism
When I began this Race and Jazz series several months ago, I knew the topics I wanted to touch upon, and the general culture vs. race point-of-view I intended to pursue. With those chord changes (topics) and that melodic perspective (pro-culture, anti-race) in mind and at play, I figured I'd proceed with the rest by ear. ...
Gary Giddins on Ignored Black Jazz Writers
In the first essay for the Race and Jazz column, I gave a first-person account of how my love and appreciation of certain “white" saxophonists served to safeguard me from the temptation of racism back in college during the early-to-mid-'80s. My second essay privileged culture over race, and told the story of how attorney and constitutional ...
Race, Culture and a White Boy from Texas
The date: October 12, 1931. A sixteen year-old white male from Austin High School in Texas, who in later years would help shape the future of the United States, bought a ticket to see “Louis Armstrong, King of the Trumpet, and His Orchestra" at the old Driskill Hotel. He knew nothing about jazz or this “King," ...
Jazz vs Racism
Jazz saved me from becoming a racist.
Back in the early to mid-1980s, while attending Hamilton College in central New York, I learned details about the transatlantic slave trade that sickened and angered me. I read about the history of the abolitionist movement in the 1800s, and the civil rights movements of last century, as well ...
