Mitografía Y Mitopoeia Del Jazz Y Del Blues En La Cultura Estadounidense Contemporánea
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UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA Departamento de Filología Inglesa II (Literatura de los Paises de Lengua Inglesa), MITOGRAFÍA Y MITOPOEIA DEL JAZZ Y DEL BLUES EN LA CULTURA ESTADOUNIDENSE CONTEMPORÁNEA MEMORIA PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE DOCTOR PRESENTADA POR Claudia Alonso Recarte Bajo la dirección de los doctores Isabel Durán Giménez-Rico Eduardo Valls Oyarzun, Madrid, 2012 ©Claudia Alonso Recarte, 2012 UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA II FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA MITOGRAFÍA Y MITOPOEIA DEL JAZZ Y DEL BLUES EN LA CULTURA ESTADOUNIDENSE CONTEMPORÁNEA JAZZ AND BLUES-IDIOMATIC MYTHOGRAPHY AND MYTHOPOEIA IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CULTURE TESIS DOCTORAL EUROPEA Presentada por: Claudia Alonso Recarte Dirigida por: Dra. Isabel Durán Giménez-Rico Dr. Eduardo Valls Oyarzun Madrid, 2012 DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA II UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID MITOGRAFÍA Y MITOPOEIA DEL JAZZ Y DEL BLUES EN LA CULTURA ESTADOUNIDENSE CONTEMPORÁNEA JAZZ AND BLUES-IDIOMATIC MYTHOGRAPHY AND MYTHOPOEIA IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CULTURE Tesis Doctoral presentada por CLAUDIA ALONSO RECARTE Para la obtención del Grado de Doctor, Mención Europea ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the financial aid from several institutions. I would like to thank the Fundación Caja Madrid for granting me a one-year postgraduate scholarship to initiate my studies in jazz and jazz literature at Rutgers University and the Jazz Institute in Newark, New Jersey. I would also like to thank the Franklin Institute at the University of Alcalá for granting me the Washington Irving scholarship, and the Friends of Thoreau research program, also at the Franklin Institute, for providing me with another year-long fellowship which allowed me to continue with my research as I ventured as well into new academic fields. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the Complutense University for granting me additional aid through their scholarship for Ph.D. researchers. Special thanks goes to my supervisors, Professor Isabel Durán Giménez-Rico and Dr. Eduardo Valls Oyarzun, who dedicated their time and expertise to the reading, editing and perfecting of this study and whose insight has been invaluable not only for the polishing of the contents and structure, but for guiding me throughout the years to become a disciplined scholar. I am as well indebted to Dr. Ana Antón-Pacheco Bravo for supervising my M.A. thesis and for initiating me in the development of what in time became my doctoral dissertation. Special thanks as well to Professor Klaus Benesch and Professor Boris Vejdovsky for their critical input in the evaluation of the final drafts and for their academic support and encouragement throughout the period of research. I also wish to express my gratitude to Professor Félix Martín Gutiérrez and to Dr. Carmen Méndez García, from the Complutense University, for the constant help and advice they have given me with throughout the years. My research abroad would not have been as enriching had it not been for the support from many people. Lewis Porter kindly allowed me to audit and actively participate in his Jazz Historiography and Ethnomusicology courses at Rutgers University, and deserves full credit for introducing me to the notion of mythistory and recommending helpful bibliography. I also thank John Howland for inviting me to participate in his Jazz Literature course, and Dan Morgenstern for his kind invitation to use the resources available at the Jazz Institute. I am just as much indebted to my classmates at Rutgers for sharing with me their experiences within the jazz culture: Tim Wilkins, Jared Pauley, Juan Cachinero, Victor Svorinich, Hyland Harris and Brad Faberman. My months at the Amerika Institut at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München were critical for the discussions as to what direction the dissertation would take, and I thank the entire staff and the researchers for their guiding hand and their generosity in every aspect during my stay. I am extremely grateful to Sascha Pöhlmann, Anna Flügge, Fabian Diesner, Thea Diesner, Berndt Ostendorf, Christof Decker, Andrew Estes, Britta Walshdmitt-Nelson, Kerstin Schmidt, Sonja Teine, Torsten Kathke, Charlotte Lerg, Angelika Möller, Anita Vrzina, Peter Just, Sebastian Lie Huber and Thoren Opitz. A special thank you is extended to Ana, Natalie, David, Susana, Alicia, Rocío, Carlos, María and Natalia from the Complutense University, and Jesús Moya and Begoña Ruiz from the University of Castilla-La Mancha. It is a joy to be around you and an honor to have you as my colleagues. Thank you to my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and to Emilio and Herminia for their constant support. To my dear friends Teresa, Patricia, Merche, César, Óscar, Ángel, and Manu, for being the beautiful, caring people they are and for being the strong pillars that I can‟t do without. To my loving parents and my sister for always supporting me in every aspect of my life and work. Not only have they been role models of hard work, commitment and persistence, but they have taught me what I have learned is the most priceless lesson of all: to feel spiritually and morally involved in one‟s own research. Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my companion, my touchstone, my soul mate, my team: Nacho. Words will always fall short of expressing how blessed I feel to have you as my inspiration. For my parents, Ana and Enrique and for Nacho CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 13 PART 1: THE ACADEMIC PATH TOWARDS JAZZ MYTHOGRAPHY 27 1.1. A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF JAZZ HISTORIES, JAZZ-ORIENTED JOURNALISM AND THEIR MYTHS 32 1.2. THE EMERGENCE OF NEW JAZZ STUDIES 46 1.3. RECENT RESEARCH ON JAZZ AND MYTH 59 1.4. FINAL NOTES ON JAZZ MYTHOGRAPHY 75 PART 2: BARTHEAN MYSTIFICATION AND THE POLITICS OF RACE 85 2.1. ROLAND BARTHES‟S MYSTIFYING THEORY: AN OVERVIEW 89 2.2. JAZZ AND BARTHEAN MYSTIFICATION 96 2.3. BOURGEOIS RHETORIC AND THE MYTH OF PRIMITIVISM 109 2.3.1. The Primitive „Other‟ 110 2.3.2. Rhetorical Devices 116 2.4. JAZZ PRIMITIVISM AND THE PROBLEM OF AUTHENTICITY IN CARL VAN VECHTEN‟S NIGGER HEAVEN 131 2.4.1. Jazz Characters and the Cabaret Underground 136 2.4.2. Racial Authenticity, Aestheticist Sincerity, and the Primitivist Myth 144 2.5. WHITE NEGROES AND JAZZ HIPSTERS: FROM MEZZ MEZZROW‟S REALLY THE BLUES TO JOHN CLELLON HOLMES‟S THE HORN 154 2.5.1. Mezzrow and the Colonization of Blackness 156 2.5.2. Holmes and the Mystification of the Jazz Hero Monomyth 163 2.6. CONCLUSION 180 PART 3: SIGNIFYIN(G) THEORY AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN JAZZ LITERARY TRADITION 183 3.1. HENRY LOUIS GATES‟S SIGNIFYIN(G) THEORY: AN OVERVIEW 187 3.2. SIGNIFYING, MYTHOPOEIA, JAZZ AND THE BLUES 195 3.3. BLUES WOMEN, MYTHOPOEIC FEMINISM, AND ALICE WALKER‟S THE COLOR PURPLE 216 3.3.1. Blues Women as „Race Women‟ 219 3.3.2. Shug Avery and the Signifying Rhetoric of the Blues 227 3.4. LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND THE POLITICS OF SIGNIFYING IN RALPH ELLISON‟S INVISIBLE MAN 245 3.4.1. Ellison and the African American Aesthetic Panorama 247 3.4.2. Armstrong as a Mythopoeic Trope 252 3.5. RITUALS OF HEROISM IN ALBERT MURRAY‟S NON-FICTION AND TRAIN WHISTLE GUITAR 272 3.5.1. Literary Heritage and Blues-Idiomatic Rituals in Murray‟s Non-Fiction …………………………………………………………………………… 275 3.5.2. The Hero Monomyth in Train Whistle Guitar 289 3.6. CONCLUSION 303 PART 4: MYTHISTORY AND ‘GREAT MEN’ IN KEN BURNS’S JAZZ 307 4.1. MYTHISTORY AND THE HISTORIAN: AN OVERVIEW 312 4.2. MODERN MYTHISTORY: THE USE OF ANECDOTES IN JAZZ 321 4.2.1. Anecdotes as Mythistorical Features 323 4.2.2. Anecdotes as Narrative Elements in Jazz 328 4.2.2.1. Anecdotes and Creation Myths 331 4.2.2.2. Anecdotes and the Frontiersman/Self-Made Man Ethic 334 4.2.2.3. Anecdotes and the American Tragedy 338 4.2.2.4. Anecdotes and the „Resistance‟ to Eurocentric Institutions 342 4.3. PATRIARCHAL DISCOURSE AND THE HERO MONOMYTH IN JAZZ 349 4.3.1. Cross-Gender References and Asexual Constructions of Jazz Women ……………………………………………………………………… 350 4.3.2. „Peripheral Women‟ and Female Archetypes 359 4.4. CONCLUSION 366 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 371 REFERENCES 387 13 INTRODUCTION 14 15 And my slumbering fantasy assumes reality Until it seems it’s not a dream The two are you and me Shades of delight, cocoa hue Rich as the night Afro-blue “Afro-Blue” azz is music, but it has never, in its short history, been an object of commentary limited to musicians. In 1925, H.S. Gordon published an article titled “The Jazz J Myth,” in which he began by claiming that “the outstanding achievement of jazz is that everybody has, or had, an opinion about it” (2002: 430). He later adds that “the notable thing is not jazz, but the jazz-craze. It is precisely because everybody talked about it that it is remarkable, and for no other reason whatsoever” (2002: 430). Gordon spoke of jazz itself as being a myth, in the sense that it was built on the erroneous assumptions that the music represented some form of aesthetic novelty, for he felt that “its monotony was deadly” (2002: 430). Myth in this context is to be understood as rhetoric empowered with the ability to distort into an illusion, a falsity. Regardless of what his understanding of myth was, Gordon was on to something when he noticed that during the 1920s, everybody seemed to have an opinion about the music – nobody was impervious to it. Jazz has had the power to define two time periods of twentieth-century America: the Jazz Age and the Swing Era, which is the closest that the aesthetic ever got to becoming America‟s most popular music.