The Jazz Republic

Reveals the wide-ranging influence of American jazz on German discussions of music, race, and culture in the early twentieth century

This dissertation examines the German encounter and engagement with jazz music during the Weimar Republic through the three interwoven issues of music, race, and American culture. Through close readings of newspaper and journal articles, as well as analysis of discussions of music, theater, and the visual arts, it reconstructs jazz's multiple locations within Weimar's cultural landscape and demonstrates how jazz played a pivotal role in defining Weimar's modernity. It suggests that jazz music occupied a central position in the Weimar Republic, not as the reflection of something outside German culture, but as one of the most complicated and contested objects through which this culture and its modernity were imagined, constructed, and defined.

Chronicles the history of jazz over the complete lifespan of East Germany, from 1945 to 1990, for the first time.

Jazz has had a peculiar and fascinating history in Germany. The influential but controversial German writer, broadcaster, and record producer, Joachim-Ernst Berendt (1922–2000), author of the world’s best-selling jazz book, labored to legitimize jazz in West Germany after its ideological renunciation during the Nazi era. German musicians began, in a highly productive way, to question their all-too-eager adoption of American culture and how they sought to make valid artistic statements reflecting their identity as Europeans. This book explores the significance of some of Berendt’s most important writings and record productions. Particular attention is given to the “Jazz Meets the World” encounters that he engineered with musicians from Japan, Tunisia, Brazil, Indonesia, and India. This proto-“world music” demonstrates how some West Germans went about creating a post-nationalist identity after the Third Reich. Berendt’s powerful role as the West German “Jazz Pope” is explored, as is the groundswell of criticism directed at him in the wake of 1968.

Basil Breakey photographed and befriended these township jazz musicians, and so built up a significant historical record. Here are Kippie Moeketsi, Dollar Brand ( Abdullah Ibrahim), Chris MacGregor, Basil Coetzee, Barney Rachabane, and others.

From 1955-65 the historian Eric Hobsbawm took the pseudonym 'Francis Newton' and wrote a monthly column for the New Statesman on jazz - music he had loved ever since discovering it as a boy in 1933 ('the year Adolf Hitler took power in Germany'). Hobsbawm's column led to his writing a critical history, The Jazz Scene (1959). This enhanced edition from 1993 adds later writings by Hobsbawm in which he meditates further 'on why jazz is not only a marvellous noise but a central concern for anyone concerned with twentieth-century society and the twentieth-century arts.' 'All the greats are covered in passing (Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday), while further space is given to Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk, Mahalia Jackson, and Sidney Bechet ... Perhaps Hobsbawm's tastiest comments are about the business side and work ethics, where his historian's eye strips the jazz scene down to its commercial spine.' Kirkus Reviews

A galvanizing history of how jazz and jazz musicians flourished despite rampant cultural exploitation The music we call “jazz” arose in late nineteenth century North America—most likely in New Orleans—based on the musical traditions of Africans, newly freed from slavery. Grounded in the music known as the “blues,” which expressed the pain, sufferings, and hopes of Black folk then pulverized by Jim Crow, this new music entered the world via the instruments that had been abandoned by departing military bands after the Civil War. Jazz and Justice examines the economic, social, and political forces that shaped this music into a phenomenal US—and Black American—contribution to global arts and culture. Horne assembles a galvanic story depicting what may have been the era’s most virulent economic—and racist—exploitation, as jazz musicians battled organized crime, the Ku Klux Klan, and other variously malignant forces dominating the nightclub scene where jazz became known. Horne pays particular attention to women artists, such as pianist Mary Lou Williams and trombonist Melba Liston, and limns the contributions of musicians with Native American roots. This is the story of a beautiful lotus, growing from the filth of the crassest form of human immiseration.