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Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature

Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature

by Steven C. Tracy

Published by: The University of Alabama Press

Imprint: The University of Alabama Press

560 Pages, 149.00 × 226.00 × 43.00 mm

Paperback
9780817358969
Published: November 2016

£26.99

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Exploring the deep and enduring relationship between music and literature, Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature examines the diverse ways in which African American hot” music influenced American cultureparticularly literaturein early twentieth century America. Steven C. Tracy provides a history of the fusion of African and European elements that formed African American hot” music, and considers how terms like ragtime, jazz, and blues developed their own particular meanings for American music and society. He draws from the fields of literature, literary criticism, cultural anthropology, American studies, and folklore to demonstrate how blues as a musical and poetic form has been a critical influence on American literature.

Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature begins by highlighting instances in which American writers, including Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, and Gertrude Stein, use African American culture and music in their work, and then characterizes the social context of the Jazz Age, discussing how African American music reflected the wild abandon of the time. Tracy focuses on how a variety of schools of early twentieth century writers, from modernists to members of the Harlem Renaissance to dramatists and more, used their connections with hot” music to give their own work meaning.

Tracy’s extensive and detailed understanding of how African American hot” music operates has produced a fresh and original perspective on its influence on mainstream American literature and culture. An experienced blues musician himself, Tracy draws on his performance background to offer an added dimension to his analysis. Where another blues scholar might only analyze blues language, Tracy shows how the language is actually performed.

Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature is the first book to offer such a refreshingly broad interdisciplinary vision of the influence of African American hot” music on American literature. It is an essential addition to the library of serious scholars of American and African American literature and culture and blues aficionados alike.

Focusing on ‘hot jazz,’ the music that most influenced modern literature, Tracy has written an important book about the influence of blues and jazz on American writers. His treatment is rich, thorough, and unencumbered by academic jargon, and he is joyously passionate in the illustrations he offers for each idea or theme. Highly recommended."" - CHOICE

""Hot Music, Ragmentation and the Bluing of American Literature is a highly original study which applies fresh ideas and perspectives to an aspect of modern American literature and culture which has often been discussed but never adequately examined and understood."" - African American Review

""Steven Tracy’s magisterial study fills one of the gaping holes in our historic understanding of American expressive culture. As no one else before him has done, Tracy explores in detail the role of the art form known as the blues, which is rooted in the southern black experience, in shaping not simply our national popular music but also our most acclaimed and even revered literature. Tracy brings to this achievement both his unusual gifts as a practicing bluesman and also his finely honed skills as an academic, one able to meet complex challenges in research and interpretation and write about them with clarity and grace. This is an extraordinary, indispensable book from a remarkable American scholar."" - Arnold Rampersad, author of Ralph Ellison: A Biography and The Life of Langston Hughes

""An extensive, meticulously detailed analysis of various ways that blues, jazz and ragtime, loosely considered ‘hot music,’ had an impact on a wide range of American authors during the decade of the 1920s—often referred to as ‘The Jazz Age.’ . . . This is a tremendous resource for researchers, not only for Tracy’s insightful analyses, but also for the sheer volume of recordings and texts that he has consulted and referenced in this study."" - Living Blues

""Hot Music, Ragmentation, and the Bluing of American Literature is a monumental contribution to our understanding of the deep, enduring influence of blues on American literature. Steven Tracy ranges across the fields of literature, literary criticism, cultural anthropology, American studies, and folklore, and he offers the reader a refreshingly broad, interdisciplinary vision of blues and American literature."" - William Ferris, author of The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists and Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues

""Steven Tracy’s book is a highly original study which applies strikingly new ideas and approaches to an important aspect of modern American culture which has never been adequately examined and appreciated. Tracy’s unique credentials as an accomplished blues performer and a distinguished literary scholar enable him to explore ‘the emergence of the blues in mainstream culture’ in ways that are both comprehensive and penetrating. This book will make a major contribution to our understanding of the diverse ways in which African American music has broadly influenced American life and literature."" - Bob Butler, author of The Open Journey in African American Literature and Native Son: The Emergence of a New Black Hero