Modernism and Popular Music

"Introduction: popular music and the experience of modernism This is a book about the "cultural modernism" of the early twentieth century. Part I examines the place of popular music within conceptions of modernism, and Part II examines what I call "the rhythms and semiotics of language and sound" in the music of the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter, Thomas "Fats" Waller, and Billie Holiday, with occasional references to modernist writers William Butler Yeats, T S. Eliot, Ralph Ellison, William Carlos Williams, Virginia Woolf, and others. The emphasis of Modernism and Popular Music is primarily linguistic or textual in that I am pursuing an account of how a "revolution in words," as I note in the Conclusion, transformed or marked the ways in which sensibility, mind, belief, perspective, society, economics, and human experience more generally came to be understood in the early twentieth century. I argue, however, that this revolution, which is usually associated with poets, writers, artists, linguists, and philosophers - as well as twentieth-century composers of "art" music - is just as evident, if not more so, in the work of the great songwriters and jazz performers who came to prominence in the United States between the two World Wars"--

List of contents

Preface; Introduction: popular music and the experience of modernism; Part I. Musical Modernism: Popular Music in the Time of Jazz: 1. Classical modernity and popular music; 2. Twentieth-century modernism and 'jazz' music; Part II. Gershwin, Porter, Waller, and Holiday: 3. Melting pot and meeting place: the Gershwin brothers and the arts of quotation; 4. 'What is this thing called love?': Cole Porter and the rhythms of desire; 5. Signifying music: Fats Waller and the time of jazz; 6. Music without composition: Billie Holiday and ensemble performance; Postscript: popular music and the revolution of the word; Bibliography; Index.

About the author

Ronald Schleifer is George Lynn Cross Research Professor of English and Adjunct Professor in Medicine at the University of Oklahoma.

Product details

• Authors: Ronald Schleifer, Schleifer Ronald
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 02.01.2014
• EAN: 9781107655300
• ISBN: 978-1-107-65530-0
• No. of pages: 254
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Music > General, dictionaries; MUSIC / Genres & Styles / General, MUSIC / Instruction & Study / Theory, Easy listening, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Classical, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, History of Art, Early 20th century c 1900 to c 1950, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Popular Music, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Music: styles and genres, 20th Century & Contemporary Classical Music, Art music, orchestral and formal music, Theory of music and musicology, ART / Movements / Modernism