G erald H orne . Jazz and Justice

In his latest book Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music, Gerald Horne offers a sweeping history of jazz from its origins in New Orleans in the late nineteenth century to the present day, from Jelly Roll Morton to Kamasi Washington, with myriad examples of oppression that have informed the music’s development. In his own words, the book documents “terribly destructive forces—racism, organized criminality, brutal labor exploitation, battery, debauchery, gambling—from which grew an intensely beautiful art form, today denoted as ‘jazz’” (29). Unlike other jazz histories, the focus here is not on musical analysis, but rather on the devastating economic, sociological, and psychological circumstances under which jazz has thrived both during and after Jim Crow segregation. Since jazz history has primarily been written by white men and does not adequately address the persistent racism that accompanies the development of the music, Jazz and Justice is...

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Economic Justice · Jazz · Literature · Music education · Music industry · Musical · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Racism · Sociology · Visual arts · White (mutation) · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Music History and Culture · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies