Constructing Cab Calloway

IF 0.2 1区 艺术学 0 MUSIC JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY Pub Date : 2019-07-01 DOI:10.1525/JM.2019.36.3.370
N. Sloan
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Abstract

Cab Calloway was of the most popular jazz musicians of the 1930s and 1940s whose legacy today is complicated by his repertoire of novelty songs with references to minstrelsy, his residency at a segregated Harlem cabaret, the Cotton Club, and his marketing to white audiences by manager Irving Mills. Calloway’s sound and persona—commercial, racialized, theatrical—did not square with an emergent art discourse around jazz during the 1930s. Hit songs like “Minnie the Moocher” (1931), with its dark, minor sound world, exaggerated depictions of seedy Harlem nightlife, and cultivated use of local slang, catapulted Calloway to success and stardom while erasing him from a burgeoning narrative that defined jazz as an autonomous, high-art tradition. Drawing on an elaborate press manual prepared by Mills, Calloway’s reception in historical black newspapers, and musical analysis of recordings of “Minnie” and other lesser-known Calloway numbers, this article examines the music, marketing and reception of Calloway during his Cotton Club residency (1931–34, with sporadic appearances thereafter) to illuminate the contemporary valences of an important interwar performer. Rather than hearing Calloway’s music in terms dictated by jazz’s post-war art discourse, the article strives to locate his songs in their original time and place, and seeks to understand Calloway’s significance by exploring the construction of his public persona. The application of a lens of historical particularity reveals that Calloway’s “novelty” songs acted as powerful articulations of contemporary black life during a pivotal period of Harlem culture.
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建造Cab Calloway
卡布·卡洛韦是20世纪30年代和40年代最受欢迎的爵士音乐家之一,他的遗产今天变得复杂起来,因为他保留了与吟诗人有关的新奇歌曲,他在哈莱姆区一个种族隔离的歌舞表演,棉花俱乐部的居住,以及他的经纪人欧文·米尔斯向白人观众推销。卡洛维的声音和角色——商业化、种族化、戏剧化——与20世纪30年代围绕爵士乐的新兴艺术话语不一致。像《Moocher Minnie》(1931)这样的热门歌曲,以其黑暗、小的声音世界,对哈莱姆粗俗夜生活的夸张描绘,以及对当地俚语的精心使用,使卡洛维一举成名,成为明星,同时也使他从一种新兴的叙事中抹去,这种叙事将爵士乐定义为一种自主的、高雅的艺术传统。根据米尔斯精心准备的出版手册、卡洛维在黑人历史报纸上的受欢迎程度,以及对“米妮”和其他不太知名的卡洛维作品录音的音乐分析,本文考察了卡洛维在棉花俱乐部(1931年至1934年,此后偶尔露面)居住期间的音乐、营销和受欢迎程度,以阐明这位两次世界大战之间重要表演者的当代价值。本文不是从爵士乐战后艺术话语的角度来听卡洛威的音乐,而是努力将他的歌曲定位在它们最初的时间和地点,并试图通过探索卡洛威公众形象的构建来理解他的意义。在哈莱姆文化的关键时期,卡洛威的“新奇”歌曲有力地表达了当代黑人的生活。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.90
自引率
0.00%
发文量
8
期刊介绍: The widely-respected Journal of Musicology enters its third decade as one of few comprehensive peer-reviewed journals in the discipline, offering articles in every period, field and methodology of musicological scholarship. Its contributors range from senior scholars to new voices in the field. Its reach is international, with recent articles by authors from North America, Europe and Australia, and circulation to individuals and libraries throughout the world.
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