Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-29T07:44:47.599Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 4 - Reconsidering “the Revolution in Music”

from I - Poetry and Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2022

By
Eric Porter
Edited by
Shelly Eversley
Shelly Eversley
Affiliation:
Baruch College, The City University of New York
Get access

Summary

Focusing on recently come-to-light recordings of interviews with musicians conducted by jazz critic and historian Frank Kofsky, this essay takes as its point of departure a reconsideration of Kofsky’s influential yet controversial theories about the transformations (creative and political) occurring in the jazz world during the Black Arts Movement era. The essay notes how the interviews showcase an analytical nuance that many of Kofsky’s critics do not recognize, but still shows how he might have theorized the “revolution in music” differently if he had listed to his interviewees more carefully. Musicians’ comments, the essay suggests, help us understand the multiplicity of the so-called jazz revolution in ways that exceed any simple notions of politics or identity. They also help us understand how the weight of political expectation vis-à-vis “the Black community” and “the revolution” was itself an aesthetically productive force, whether musicians were working with or against it.

Keywords

Black experimental musicjazzjazz and politicsFrank KofskyJohn Coltrane
Type
Chapter
Information
African American Literature in Transition, 1960–1970
Black Art, Politics, and Aesthetics
 , pp. 90 - 116
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Anderson, I. 2007. This Is Our Music: Free Jazz, the Sixties, and American Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Brown, M. 1973. Afternoon of a Georgia Faun: Views and Reviews. Nia Music.Google Scholar
Brown, M. 1984. Recollections: Essays, Drawings, Miscellanea. Frankfurt: Juergen A. Schmitt.Google Scholar
Cortez, J. 1996. “How Long Has Trane Been Gone.” In The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, ed. Gates, H. L., Jr., and McKay, N. Y., 1957–59. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
DeLanda, M. 2006. A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Gayle, A., Jr. 1971. The Black Aesthetic. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Gennari, J. 2006. Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isoardi, S. 2006. The Dark Tree: Jazz and the Community Arts in Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, L. 1967. Black Music. New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar
Kofsky, F. 1966, January. “The Avant-Garde Revolution: Origins and Directions.” Jazz: 14–19.Google Scholar
Kofsky, F. 1967. “A New World Music? An Interview with Roswell Rudd.” American Dialog 4.1 (Spring): 33–36.Google Scholar
Kofsky, F. 1970. Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music. New York: Pathfinder Press.Google Scholar
Kofsky, F. 1973. “Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music: Social Change and Stylistic Development in the Art of John Coltrane and Others, 1954–1967.” PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Kofsky, F. 1998a. Black Music, White Business: Illuminating the History and Political Economy of Jazz. New York: Pathfinder Press.Google Scholar
Kofsky, F. 1998b. John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s. New York: Pathfinder Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, G. E. 2008. A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathes, C. 2015. Imagine the Sound: Experimental African American Literature after Civil Rights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Monson, I. 2007. Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Neal, L. 1968. “The Black Arts Movement.” The Drama Review 12.4 (Summer): 28–39.Google Scholar
Nisenson, E. 1995. Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest. New York: Da Capo Press.Google Scholar
Porter, E. 2002. What Is This Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Shepp, A. 1965, December 16. “An Artist Speaks Bluntly.” Down Beat: 11, 42.Google Scholar
Trotsky, L. 1960. Literature and Revolution. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Widener, D. 2010. Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×