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FALL 2006 35

Richard Crawford. America’s Musical Life: A History. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. 976 pages. $23.95.

In line with the theme of this issue of the Forum, I have taken my liberty as fl edgling book review editor, general reader, and musically challenged for- mer trombonist to recom- mend Richard Crawford’s large, well-written, highly regarded, and inexpensive history of American music. Although originally pub- lished in 2001, America’s Musical Life became avail- able in paperback in late 2005.

The author of ten books in the area of American music, Richard Crawford is the Hans T. David Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan and has served as the president of the American Musicological Society. America’s Musical Life might be regarded as the culmination of a lifetime of superb scholarship and musical experience. His thoroughly readable writing style can be called “relaxed aca- demic lively,” moving quickly but comprehensively through his subject with a minimum of sometimes necessary musico- logical jargon.

There is no need to establish the work’s bona fi des. In ad- dition to many glowing professional reviews, it has received at least two prestigious national honors: in 2001 the Society for American Music’s Irving Lowens Book Award and in 2002 ASCAP’s Deems Taylor Award. Kirkus Reviews calls it “the best one-volume history yet on the subject for musi- cians and enthusiasts, professional or amateur.” Publishers Weekly calls it a “defi nitive history of music in the U.S.” that is “sure to delight music afi cionados and history buffs alike.”

In forty chapters, all but the fi rst seven split about equal- ly between the nineteenth century and the twentieth century, Crawford covers the scene from sixteenth-century Native American music to recent rap. Black and white illustrations reinforce the text, ranging from an 1803 shaped-note score to an 1899 sheet-music page of Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” and photos from Stephen Foster to Wynton Marsalis. Throughout the work, Crawford connects the diverse forms and styles of American music to the diverse social, religious, and political contexts in which they were developed, per- formed, and experienced. This approach is not superfi cial or accidental, but intrinsic to Crawford’s focus. As he puts it on page xii of the Introduction,

In America’s Musical Life, performance rather than composition is the starting point. Composers are by no means slighted here. But in a chronicle starting in the 1500s and seeking at every point to portray the historical conditions in which music has been made, they share the stage with sing- ers, players, conductors, teachers, entrepreneurs, and even writers, not to mention composers from overseas.

Fittingly, Crawford dedicates the book to his wife Penelope, herself an accomplished teacher and performer on the forte- piano.

Because of my related interests, I found the chapters on American church music, slave songs, and American musi- cal theater especially illuminating. I also learned about the late-nineteenth-century musical prodigy Amy Beach, the fi rst American woman to compose major works for the concert hall. Unfortunately, Crawford’s coverage effectively concludes in the mid-1990s and so includes virtually noth- ing on more recent Country, “crossover,” and various sorts of Hispanic music. The opportunities for social tie-ins are clearly there.

Neil R. Luebke is a former Society president of Phi Kappa Phi and the current Forum Book Review Editor. He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at Oklahoma State University.

Bill Crow. Jazz Anecdotes: The Second Time Around. Oxford University Press, 2005. 416 pages. $17.95.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past …

—Shakespeare

While reading Jazz Anecdotes, I was reminded of the opening line of Shakespeare’s sonnet 30 that I learned quite by ac- cident as a college freshman. However, these anecdotes are more about remembrances of a select group of people who are commercial musicians (Glenn Miller, Fred Waring, and oth- ers), jazz musicians (Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, and so on), managers, agents, and teachers; the places that they

played, and the people with whom they interacted; and the many pranks, practical jokes, insults, put-ons, and numerous other devious activities in which they engaged.

36 PHI KAPPA PHI FORUM/VOL. 86, NO. 4

Commercial musicians, as I see them, are musicians whose total motivation for performing is the dancing entertainment of their public. This statement is intended as a description and not a condemnation or an evaluation of anyone’s musical abilities. And very often it is the com- mercial musician who hires the jazz musician because of a specifi c need of the jazz musician’s improvisational skills.

Unlike the commercial musician, jazz musicians seek to challenge the listener’s ear rather than limit their perfor- mance. The musical character of jazz musicians is the key to their individuality. They constantly strive for a unique sound that separates one from another, even if they play the same instrument. Jazz is their raison d’être.

Bill Crow has a gift. He is an urban storyteller who can stitch together these stories that can only come from someone who knows the world of the jazz musician, that peculiar breed of individual whose need for self expression often ignores all other logical opportunities that lead to a “normal” lifestyle. This book is also a testimony to the fact that jazz is connected to every aspect of American life. These anecdotes include such diverse but similar musical personali- ties as Fred Waring (director of the Pennsylvanians chorale) and music-loving comedian Jackie Gleason, whose anecdote segues into a Theodore “Sonny” Rollins escapade without missing a beat.

The beauty of the book is that under the rubric of jazz we fi nd individuals of different business persuasions: huck- sters, thieves, con artists, and the perennial management with alleged ties to the underworld. Crow’s book contains examples of the prejudice and racism encountered by the musicians and how they handled the situation.

When all is said and done, this book says more about twentieth-century America than any academic history text. The degree of racial segregation (not to be confused with racial discrimination) that existed at the time that these mu- sicians were plying their trade becomes superfl uous. We see the attitude of Billie “Lady Day” Holiday when told she had to darken her complexion so as not to confuse the customers at the Fox Theater in Detroit into thinking that a white girl was singing with a black band. The book also relates Bessie Smith’s encounter with the Klan in 1927, where her brazen confrontation of their presence chased the hooded Klansmen from the area of her performance.

Then there is the humorous approach to solving a race problem at a hotel in Omaha, Nebraska, by a black musi- cian named Rudy Powell. Powell posed as an Arab wearing a fez and a beard and convinced the hotel clerk that he and his nine “brothers,” who allegedly did not speak English, needed rooms. He threatened to contact the State Depart- ment if the hotel refused. The frightened clerk capitulated, the scam worked, and the band got the rooms.

This book is America through and through, with humor as a necessary ingredient to coping with life’s less positive circumstances. A raggedy “Blue Goose” (Greyhound bus) became the mode of transportation for many struggling

bands, while Duke Ellington’s and Cab Calloway’s bands traveled in the luxury of Pullman rail cars. But through it all, they were jazzmen and women living the American Dream from both sides of the spectrum.

Jazz Anecdotes allows the musicians to speak unabash- edly, even with pride about their contributions to twentieth- century American music. While Jazz Anecdotes is the title of this book, the individuals and their stories paint a picture of an America seldom seen and always hidden in plain view.

Ellis L. Marsalis, Jr. is an internationally renowned jazz pianist as well as the father of several prominent jazz musicians. In 2001 he retired from twelve years as the Coca Cola Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of New Orleans, where he is an Active-for-Life member of Phi Kappa Phi.

Arthur Kempton. Boogaloo: The Quintessence of American Popular Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003. 480 Pages. $19.95 (Paper)

Every summer across the South there are reunions of graduates of defunct black high schools that be- come occasions of attendees’ rueful refl ections on how much was lost to children in their communities when desegregation washed away our schools. At least then the socially conservative traditions of Afra- merican life were intact enough to produce people who withstood the worst assault of outsiders. (page 5.)

This quotation from Arthur Kempton’s Boogaloo: The Quintessence of American Popular Music sums up my own admiration for great African American icons and musicians who withstood many obstacles to achieve their de- served place in history. The night I heard “Strange Fruit” for the fi rst time, I wept. From that day I became increasingly intrigued with the obstructions Aframericans had placed in front of them by society and even more intrigued with the great men and woman who would respond and ultimately prevail. Reading Boogaloo was like reliving a conversation that my fellow Southern musicians and I have frequently about popular music starting in the South, in the Delta, and in New Orleans and moving its way up North.

Dancing has been prevalent in America’s popular culture since the turn of the last century and up through the swing craze, with dance names such as “The Shim Sham Shimmy,” “The Charleston,” “The Lindy Hop,” and many more. “Boogaloo” is no different; it is a dance term and a descrip- tion of an era that began in the mid 1960s. Although this dance style, which blends Soul music, Rock and Roll, and Latino Mambo, is credited with developing in New York, in 1965 the comedic banter and dance duo Tom and Jer- rio (Robert “Tommy Dark” Tharp and Jerry J. Murray) popularized the term and dance when they made the record

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