How America invented swing, how swing energized America. It was for stage bands, for dancing, and for a jiving mood of letting go. Throughout the nation swing resounded with the spirit of good times. The swing era was America's segue into modernity. But this pop genre, for a decade America's favorite, arose during the worst of times, the Great Depression. From its peak in the 1930s until bebop, rhythm and blues, and country swamped it after World War II, swing defined an American generation and measured America's musical heartbeat. In its heyday swing reached a mass audience of very disparate individuals and united them. They perceived in the tempers and tempos of swing the very definition of modernity. What fed the music? And, in turn, what did the music feed? What social structures encouraged swing's creation, acceptance, and popularity? This book analyzes the cultural and historical significance of swing and tells how and why swing achieved its audience, unified its fans, defined its generation, and, after World War II, fell into decline. As it examines the role of race, class, and gender in the creation of this music, this book tells how the genre came to symbolize the modernist revolution taking place in America. The author was associate professor of history at Kent State University, Trumbull Campus, in Warren, Ohio, and the author of "All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA's Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935-1939."

This book argues that sound – as it is created, transmitted, and perceived – plays a key role in the constitution of space and community in contemporary Japan. The book examines how sonic practices reflect politics, aesthetics, and ethics, with transformative effects on human relations. From right-wing sound trucks to left-wing protests, from early 20th century jazz cafes to contemporary avant-garde art forms, from the sounds of U.S. military presence to exuberant performances organized in opposition, the book, rich in ethnographic detail, contributes to sensory anthropology and the anthropology of contemporary Japan.

Between the mid-1930s and the late '40s the centre of the jazz world was a two-block stretch of 52nd Street in Manhattan. Dozens of crowded basement clubs played host to legends like Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday. These clubs defied the traditional boundaries between art and entertainment, and between the races.

This unique volume explores the relationship between music and crime in its various forms and expressions, bringing together two areas rarely discussed in the same contexts and combining them through the tools offered by cultural criminology. Contributors discuss a range of topics, from how songs and artists draw on criminality as inspiration to how musical expression fulfills unexpected functions such as building deviant subcultures, encouraging social movements, or carrying messages of protest. Comprised of contributions from an international cohort of scholars, the book is categorized into five parts: The Criminalization of Music; Music and Violence; Organised Crime and Music; Music, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity and Music as Resistance. Spanning a range of cultures and time periods, Crime and Music will be of interest to researchers in critical and cultural criminology, the history of music, anthropology, ethnology, and sociology.

Ideal for home learning, this simple and inspirational guide helps children understand and appreciate music. Using clear, accessible pictures, and diagrams, Help Your Kids with Music is a unique visual guide to musical theory that will demystify the subject for everyone. This colourful study aid also has a glossary of key musical terms and symbols, and includes the latest updates to the UK National Curriculum, covering everything from semitones and note values, to harmony and music appreciation. Help Your Kids with Music helps you work through music step-by-step, and is the perfect home reference guide for every parent and child who wants to understand music theory and put it into practice. Series Overview: DK's bestselling Help Your Kids With series contains crystal-clear visual breakdowns of important subjects. Simple graphics and jargon-free text are key to making this series a user-friendly resource for frustrated parents who want to help their children get the most out of school.

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

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Colin McPhee was a performer, writer, and pioneer among Western composers in turning to Asia for inspiration. A close friend of Aaron Copland, Carlos Chavez, Henry Cowell, and Virgil Thomson, he played a vital role in new music activities in New York in the 1920s, but his most important accomplishments came from his devotion to the music of Bali. Carol Oja's Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds traces his life, his influences on fellow musicians, and the profound experience of a composer striving to comprehend an entirely new musical language. After hearing rare recordings of the Balinese gamelan--a percussion orchestra with delicately layered textures and clangorous sounds--McPhee traveled to Bali and worked closely with such Western anthropologists as Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. The island may also have appealed to him because of its relatively open attitude toward homosexuality. Gay by inclination, he nevertheless married anthropologist Jane Belo and built a native-style house on the island where they lived for most of the 1930s. During this time, McPhee became a devoted and meticulous chronicler of Balinese musical culture, and his Music of Bali remains a classic in ethnomusicology. Beginning in the mid-1930s, his own compositions became an imaginative hybrid of Balinese and Western music, anticipating the later work of such figures as John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Steve Reich. Finally back in print, Carol Oja's account of McPhee's unconventional life and work evokes key issues in composition and ethnomusicology, sure to be of interest to scholars, musicians or anyone interested in 20th century American or Balinese music.

A groundbreaking Black artist and his career in the Jim Crow South This book is the first biography of Graham Jackson (1903-1983), a virtuosic musician whose life story displays the complexities of being a Black professional in the segregated South. David Cason discusses how Jackson navigated a web of racial and social negotiations throughout his long career and highlights his little-known role in events of the twentieth century. Widely known for an iconic photo taken of him playing the accordion in tears at Franklin D. Roosevelt’s funeral, which became a Life magazine cover, Jackson is revealed here to have a much deeper story. He was a performer, composer, and high school music director known for his skills on the piano and organ. Jackson was among the first Black men to enlist in the Navy during World War II, helping recruit many other volunteers and raising over $2 million for the war effort. After the war he became a fixture at Atlanta music venues and in 1971, Governor Jimmy Carter proclaimed Jackson the State Musician of Georgia. Cason examines Jackson’s groundbreaking roles with a critical eye, taking into account how Jackson drew on his connections with white elites including Roosevelt, Coca-Cola magnate Robert Woodruff, and golfer Bobby Jones, and was censured by Black Power figures for playing songs associated with Confederate memory. Based on archival, newspaper, and interview materials, The Life and Music of Graham Jackson brings into view the previously unknown story of an ambitious and talented artist and his controversial approach to the politics and culture of his day. Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.