Playing with Jazz Aesthetics

University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 2003 Performing texts; playing with jazz aesthetics Richard (Rick) Walters University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Walters, Richard (Rick), "Performing texts; playing with jazz aesthetics" (2003). Doctoral Dissertations. 174. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/174 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO U SERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. 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Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PERFORMING TEXTS; PLAYING WITH JAZZ AESTHETICS BY RICK WALTERS BA University of New Hampshire, 1994 MA Boston College, 1996 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English May, 2003 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number3083745 Copyright 2003 by Walters, Richard (Rick) All rights reserved. ___ ® UMI UMI Microform 3083745 Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED C2003 Rick Walters Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This dissertation has been examined and approved. Dissertation Director, Lester Fisher, Professor of English / John Ernest, Associate Professor of English J. William Harris, Professor <Professor of History lisa MacFarlane, Associate Professor of English Michael Annicchiarico, Associate Professor of Music / A/[ou^ Zo&3 D4te Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge, in no particular order, Jerry Howard, Pops, Lou Gehrig, Mark Selvaggio, Dub Frazier, Buzz Aldrin, Clifford, the Big Red Dog, The Outer Limits, BradburyAsimovHeinlein, Dean Swift, Sam Clemens, FZ, Truck, LeeBirdDizMonkTrane, Pedro and Prof, Walter Payton for playing die game right, Billy Shears, John Lennon, A1 Downing, A pair of Zircon encrusted Tweezers. FaganBecker—Those days are gone forever, over a long time ago— Joni Mitchell, Herb Apert, just another hard-time band with Negro affectations, Hendrix, Cedric Maxwell, Thomas Pynchon, The BSA, Ornette Coleman, Father "Chico" Pouliot, The Jazz Dogs, my dissertation commitee for leaving me alone when I weanted to be left alone, Anthony Bourdain, most of my students, various ice-pop manufacturors, Getzen, The City of New Orleans, Spinal Tap, whoever invented cheese, The City of New York, Richard Pryor, Stevie Wonder, Christy Matthewson, Walter johnson, Satchel Paige, Warren Spahn whose name I was afraid to say when I was 10 because it sounded like "sperm", The Wizard of Oz, Areatha Franklin, Joe Bond, Nathanael West, Virginia Woolf, every musician I've ever played with, Greg Dubuclet, Peter "the fetus" Fenn, Jimmy Pankow, the dogs past and present Moses, Venus, Spooky, Walt and Satchmo, and most of all my family—parents Dick and Gwynne (spell it right,please!), brothers Douglas and John, sister Georgia, and most bestest of all, Nicole and the guys, Max and Jake. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOREWORD "I keep seeing my book wandering through the halls. There the thing is, creeping feebly, if you can imagine a naked humped creature with filed- down genitals, only worse, because its head bulges at the top and there's a gargoylish tongue jutting at a comer of the mouth and truly terrible feet. It tries to cling to me, to touch and fasten. A cretin, a distort. Water-bloated, slobbering, incontinent. I'm speaking slowly to get it right. It's my book after all, so I'm responsible for getting it right. The loneliness of voices stored on tape. By the time you listen to this, I'll no longer remember what I said." Don DeLillo (MaoD 92) v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..........................................................................................iv FOREWORD..................................................................................................................v ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................. vii CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................1 I. 32 BAR TUNE: MAX IS MAKING WAX.......................................................12 H. READING MUSIC; PLAYING JAZZ.............................................................32 INTERCHAPTER 1 ......................................................................................... 58 HI. GROWING UP BEBOP? LANGSTON, JESSIE A N D .................................... 80 A COMING OF AGE INTERCHAPTER E .......................................................................................112 IV. LISTENING TO MONK.................................................................................122 INTERCHAPTER m ......................................................................................152 V. IGNORING THE FATHER: BIRD HUNTING IN THE.............................. 171 EARLY WORKS OF JAMES BALDWIN INTERCHAPTER IV .....................................................................................197 VI. DOES FRANK ZAPPA BELONG IN A Ph.D DISSERTATION?................214 INTERCHAPTER V .......................................................................................239 VH. 32 BAR TUNE: CODA....................................................................................243 WORKS CITED.........................................................................................................246 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT PERFORMING TEXTS; PLAYING WITH JAZZ AESTHETICS by Rick Walters University of New Hampshire, May, 2003 Despite all the critical attention jazz has received in recent years from scholars in other fields—literature, history, political science, cultural studies—very little headway has been made in understanding what jazz aesthetics are and how they might inform other forms of cultural and artistic expression. Part of the difficulty lies in the time-bound, performative nature of the artform and the fact that it is primarily a non-discursive means of expression; that is to say, jazz does not translate well. This dissertation attempts to evoke and inhabit jazz aesthetics rather than trying to define, categorize or delineate them. Alternating between close reading, formal musical analysis, musicology and narrative improvisation, this performance sounds much in the manner of a jazz set in which the musicians work through a series of styles, forms and settings. The texts and approaches taken here are a mixture of the familiar and the unexpected. Thelonious Monk is discussed as a formalist of the highest order; Langston Hughes is not read as a "jazz poet"; James Baldwin is argued to be more concerned with jazz brothers than literary fathers; Frank Zappa becomes one of the keepers of the jazz flame. Between these ostensibly conventional chapters lives a counter-melody, an "autobiography" at times parodic, satirical, self-reflexive and allusive that vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. mimics, mocks, pays tribute to, improvises and signifies upon other less scholarly forms of "jazz writing". Although any number of elements suggestive of a jazz aesthetic

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