Jazz Among the Discourses

by Krin Gabbard (Editor)

The study of jazz comes of age with this anthology. One of the first books to consider jazz outside of established critical modes, Jazz Among the Discourses brings together scholars from an array of disciplines to question and revise conventional methods of writing and thinking about jazz.
Challenging "official jazz histories," the contributors to this volume view jazz through the lenses of comparative literature; African American studies; music, film, and communication theory; English literature; American studies; history; and philosophy. With uncommon rigor and imagination, their essays probe the influence of various discourses—journalism, scholarship, politics, oral history, and entertainment—on writing about jazz. Employing modes of criticism and theory that have transformed study in the humanities, they address questions seldom if ever raised in jazz What are the implications of building jazz history around the medium of the phonograph record? Why did jazz writers first make the claim that jazz is an art? How is an African American aesthetic articulated through the music? What are the consequences of the interaction between the critic and the jazz artist? How does the improvising artist navigate between chaos and discipline?
Along with its companion volume, Representing Jazz , this versatile anthology marks the arrival of jazz studies as a mature, intellectually independent discipline. Its rethinking of conventional jazz discourse will further strengthen the position of jazz studies within the academy. Contributors . John Corbett, Steven B. Elworth, Krin Gabbard, Bernard Gendron, William Howland Kenney, Eric Lott, Nathaniel Mackey, Burton Peretti, Ronald M. Radano, Jed Rasula, Lorenzo Thomas, Robert Walser

Genres: Music, Jazz, History

304 pages, Paperback

First published May 24, 1995

About the author

Krin Gabbard is a “come-back” trumpet-player even though he spends most of his time writing books and teaching classes about movies. In recent years, most of his writing has been about jazz. He was born in 1948 in Charleston, a small town in East Central Illinois. He spent the first eighteen years of his life in Charleston, the home of Eastern Illinois University, where both his parents taught. At the University of Chicago, Krin was not skilled enough to play trumpet with the Art Ensemble of Chicago (which actually held auditions at the university), and the local rock bands had no need for trumpets. Mostly he read old books and acted in a few plays. After graduating with a B.A. from Chicago in 1970, Krin went to Indiana University where he took graduate degrees in Classics and Comparative Literature. He also hosted a weekly radio program devoted to the music of Duke Ellington. In 1973, he met and fell in love with Paula Beversdorf. They have been married ever since.

In 1981, he began teaching in the Comparative Literature Department at the State University of New York in Stony Brook. Krin has taught many different courses at Stony Brook, everything from ancient Greek literature to a seminar on Miles Davis. Mostly, however, he has taught cinema studies. His first three books grew out of his interest in film.

As a child, Krin played the cornet in the school band, but he gave it up in college. Thirty-seven years later he bought a new trumpet and began taking lessons. His most recent book, Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture (2008), describes his new life as an amateur trumpet-player. The book also gives a history of the trumpet from ancient Egypt to the present, with special attention to the African American jazz artists who transformed the instrument in the twentieth century.

Krin and Paula live on the Upper West Side of New York City and occasionally find time to go to a movie or a jazz club.