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Few musicians can boast careers as long and productive as that of jazz instrumentalist Garvin Bushell. In Jazz from the Beginning, Bushell vividly recounts his musical experiences and reflects on some of the major personalities who shaped the history of jazz. Bushell's memoir vibrates with the excitement of being a part of the evolution of jazz. He began his career as a teenager, playing clarinet in a circus band. In the 1920s, he played gigs in rowdy Harlem cabarets and was a member of the Sam Wooding ensemble, one of the first black musical groups to tour Europe, Russia, and South America. In the 1930s, he performed with the big bands of Fletcher Henderson, Cab Calloway, and Chick Webb. In the 1950s and 1960s he participated in the Dixieland revival and in the modern experiments of Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane. Bushell also recalls with candor the scarring experiences of racial prejudice he encountered while touring America and Europe.Mark Tucker has carefully compiled Bushell's memoirs from a series of thirty-one taped interviews made in the summer of 1986. His text preserves Bushell’s warmth and personality and provides scholars and music lovers alike with a critical analysis of African-American music and an important record of seventy years of American musical history.

This second volume of Music in Black American Life offers research and analysis that originally appeared in the journals American Music and Black Music Research Journal, and in two book series published by the University of Illinois Press: Music in American Life, and African American Music in Global Perspective. In this collection, a group of predominately Black scholars explores a variety of topics with works that pioneered new methodologies and modes of inquiry for hearing and studying Black music. These extracts and articles examine the World War II jazz scene; look at female artists like gospel star Shirley Caesar and jazz musician-arranger Melba Liston; illuminate the South Bronx milieu that folded many forms of black expressive culture into rap; and explain Hamilton's massive success as part of the "tanning" of American culture that began when Black music entered the mainstream.

Part sourcebook and part survey of historic music scholarship, Music in Black American Life, 1945–2020 collects groundbreaking work that redefines our view of Black music and its place in American music history.

Contributors: Nelson George, Wayne Everett Goins, Claudrena N. Harold, Eileen M. Hayes, Loren Kajikawa, Robin D. G. Kelley, Tammy L. Kernodle, Cheryl L. Keyes, Gwendolyn Pough, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Mark Tucker, and Sherrie Tucker