Making Jazz French: Music and Modern Life in Interwar Paris (American Encounters/Global Interactions) [Paperback]

Jeffrey H. Jackson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0822331241 | ISBN-13: 978-0822331247

Between the world wars, Paris welcomed not only a number of glamorous American expatriates, including Josephine Baker and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also a dynamic musical style emerging in the United States: jazz. Roaring through cabarets, music halls, and dance clubs, the upbeat, syncopated rhythms of jazz soon added to the allure of Paris as a center of international nightlife and cutting-edge modern culture. In Making Jazz French, Jeffrey H. Jackson examines not only how and why jazz became so widely performed in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s but also why it was so controversial.

Drawing on memoirs, press accounts, and cultural criticism, Jackson uses the history of jazz in Paris to illuminate the challenges confounding French national identity during the interwar years. As he explains, many French people initially regarded jazz as alien because of its associations with America and Africa. Some reveled in its explosive energy and the exoticism of its racial connotations, while others saw it as a dangerous reversal of France’s most cherished notions of "civilization." At the same time, many French musicians, though not threatened by jazz as a musical style, feared their jobs would vanish with the arrival of American performers. By the 1930s, however, a core group of French fans, critics, and musicians had incorporated jazz into the French entertainment tradition. Today it is an integral part of Parisian musical performance. In showing how jazz became French, Jackson reveals some of the ways a musical form created in the United States became an international phenomenon and acquired new meanings unique to the places where it was heard and performed.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A history that reads like a good story, this new book by Jeffrey H. Jackson illumines the multiple reactions to jazz in France, ranging from enthusiasm and fascination to fear and disgust. It also vividly recaptures the broad cultural context and above all succeeds in demonstrating the importance of jazz for the ongoing debate about French
national identity and modernity.”—Charles Rearick, author of The French in Love and War: Popular Culture in the Era of the World Wars

“Jeffrey H. Jackson’s work is unique in providing a more detailed history of jazz in interwar France than anything yet in print (certainly in English). Jackson offers a new, rather unusual perspective, concentrating on the ways jazz was integrated into national practices and traditions, rather than portraying it as simply a foreign intrusion into national life. This is a very rich approach to cultural history, offering a far more complex and nuanced understanding of the process of trans-Atlantic cultural interchange than top-down perspectives.”—Tyler Stovall, coeditor of The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France

“This lively and innovative book views jazz through the prism of contemporary ideas about 'blackness' and the Americanization of Europe's economy and culture to explore the relationship between culture, race, and national identity in twentieth-century France. Jeffrey H. Jackson reveals a complex interplay of cultural and social forces that stretches from across the Atlantic to the trenches of World War I to the colonies of la plus grande France."—Alice Conklin, author of A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930

About the Author

Jeffrey H. Jackson is Associate Professor of History at Rhodes College.  He is the author of Paris Under Water:  How the City of Light Survived the Great Flood of 1910 and the co-editor of Music and History:  Bridging the Disciplines.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (August 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822331241
• ISBN-13: 978-0822331247
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeffrey H. Jackson is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Environmental Studies and Sciences Program at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

During the fall of 2007, Jackson was a Fellow-in-Residence at the Columbia University Institute for Scholars at Reid Hall in Paris. Also in 2007, the History News Network named Jackson a "Top Young Historian" in the US.

He has published on a range of topics, beginning with his first book "Making Jazz French: Music and Modern Life in Interwar Paris" (2003). Based on this work, Jackson was invited to be a consultant for a documentary entitled "Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story" for "Great Performances" on PBS. He is also the co-editor of a collection of essays entitled "Music and History: Bridging the Disciplines" (2005).

Jackson received his B.S. in history summa cum laude with High Honors from Vanderbilt University in 1993 and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in 1999. At Rhodes College, he teaches courses in modern European history, cultural history, French history, and interdisciplinary Humanities. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Historical Association, and the Sinfonia Foundation.

For more information, visit: jeffreyhjackson.blogspot.com and www.ParisUnderWater.com.