Pub Date : 2023-03-23DOI: 10.1017/S175219632300010X
James M. Doering, Lauren C. Bell
Abstract The U.S. Supreme Court has for decades served as an unlikely venue for the performance of music. Between 1988 and 2020, more than 125 musicians, including some of the country's most prominent performers, appeared for intimate audiences in the Supreme Court's East Conference Room. The concerts were officially “off the record,” but details survive in records kept by the U.S. Supreme Court, papers of former justices and friends of the court involved in the creation of the programs, and in interviews with individuals who supported and participated in the events. This article reconstructs the history of this long running but little-known music series and contextualizes it within the court's culture and broader themes of access and power.
{"title":"The Court as Concert Hall: Music at the U.S. Supreme Court","authors":"James M. Doering, Lauren C. Bell","doi":"10.1017/S175219632300010X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S175219632300010X","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The U.S. Supreme Court has for decades served as an unlikely venue for the performance of music. Between 1988 and 2020, more than 125 musicians, including some of the country's most prominent performers, appeared for intimate audiences in the Supreme Court's East Conference Room. The concerts were officially “off the record,” but details survive in records kept by the U.S. Supreme Court, papers of former justices and friends of the court involved in the creation of the programs, and in interviews with individuals who supported and participated in the events. This article reconstructs the history of this long running but little-known music series and contextualizes it within the court's culture and broader themes of access and power.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48102234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-23DOI: 10.1017/S1752196323000032
Laura Risk
Abstract Ginger Smock (1920–95), an African American jazz and classical violinist, was a popular Los Angeles entertainer and one of the first African American women bandleaders on television. This article traces her career from Los Angeles’ Central Avenue to Las Vegas showroom orchestras, drawing on archival materials from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Through a close reading of a 1951 DownBeat profile of Smock, I interrogate racialized constructions of gender in that magazine and frame mid-century jazz reporting on women instrumentalists via a “narrative of perpetual discovery” that positions these women as waiting for a career break that never comes. As an antidote to the effacement implicit in such narratives, I propose close documentation of sustained artistic practice: That is, the day-to-day facts of a working musician's life. This article reads Smock's professional trajectory through an intersectional lens to offer a critical perspective on the ways in which social identities, especially race and gender, may shape both musical careers and our historicization of those careers.
{"title":"Ginger Smock: Narratives of Perpetual Discovery, Jazz Historiography, and the “Swinging Lady of the Violin”","authors":"Laura Risk","doi":"10.1017/S1752196323000032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196323000032","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Ginger Smock (1920–95), an African American jazz and classical violinist, was a popular Los Angeles entertainer and one of the first African American women bandleaders on television. This article traces her career from Los Angeles’ Central Avenue to Las Vegas showroom orchestras, drawing on archival materials from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Through a close reading of a 1951 DownBeat profile of Smock, I interrogate racialized constructions of gender in that magazine and frame mid-century jazz reporting on women instrumentalists via a “narrative of perpetual discovery” that positions these women as waiting for a career break that never comes. As an antidote to the effacement implicit in such narratives, I propose close documentation of sustained artistic practice: That is, the day-to-day facts of a working musician's life. This article reads Smock's professional trajectory through an intersectional lens to offer a critical perspective on the ways in which social identities, especially race and gender, may shape both musical careers and our historicization of those careers.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48470753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-23DOI: 10.1017/S1752196323000093
Dan Blim
Abstract Reissues of recordings are commonplace, yet rarely examined by scholars. This article considers how reissuing is a creative act akin to museum curation. Through this lens, reissuers emerge as crucial interpretive figures, making decisions that affect how music and music history are understood by listeners. I take as a case study the Anthology of American Folk Music (1952), one of the most canonic and widely praised reissues. Created by record collector and avant-garde artist Harry Smith and distributed by Folkways, the Anthology comprises eighty-four commercially released recordings made between 1926 and 1932, accompanied by an idiosyncratic set of liner notes. At the time, folk music was beset by various mythologies, notably an idealization of racial purity and an antithetical stance toward commercialism and modernity. When reissuing the material, Smith carefully selected, sequenced, and annotated the recordings in ways that unsettled these mythologies. In 1994, the Smithsonian reissued the Anthology on compact disc. Drawing on archival documents from the Smithsonian, I demonstrate how their decisions reframed the Anthology in various ways to fit their goals and concerns. Through marketing, reproduction, cover design, and the soliciting and editing of additional notes, the Smithsonian elevated Smith as a racially progressive auteur while navigating commercial concerns and historical preservation. In particular, the editing of notes avoided controversial statements during an era of politically contentious museum exhibitions. Nevertheless in doing so, the very myths that Smith unsettled in his reissuing were replaced by an idealized race-blindness, anti-commercialism, and historicism.
{"title":"Historical Records: Reissuing as Curatorial Practice in Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music","authors":"Dan Blim","doi":"10.1017/S1752196323000093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196323000093","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Reissues of recordings are commonplace, yet rarely examined by scholars. This article considers how reissuing is a creative act akin to museum curation. Through this lens, reissuers emerge as crucial interpretive figures, making decisions that affect how music and music history are understood by listeners. I take as a case study the Anthology of American Folk Music (1952), one of the most canonic and widely praised reissues. Created by record collector and avant-garde artist Harry Smith and distributed by Folkways, the Anthology comprises eighty-four commercially released recordings made between 1926 and 1932, accompanied by an idiosyncratic set of liner notes. At the time, folk music was beset by various mythologies, notably an idealization of racial purity and an antithetical stance toward commercialism and modernity. When reissuing the material, Smith carefully selected, sequenced, and annotated the recordings in ways that unsettled these mythologies. In 1994, the Smithsonian reissued the Anthology on compact disc. Drawing on archival documents from the Smithsonian, I demonstrate how their decisions reframed the Anthology in various ways to fit their goals and concerns. Through marketing, reproduction, cover design, and the soliciting and editing of additional notes, the Smithsonian elevated Smith as a racially progressive auteur while navigating commercial concerns and historical preservation. In particular, the editing of notes avoided controversial statements during an era of politically contentious museum exhibitions. Nevertheless in doing so, the very myths that Smith unsettled in his reissuing were replaced by an idealized race-blindness, anti-commercialism, and historicism.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43467759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S1752196322000402
Nina Penner
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic and the intensification of IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, and People of Color) activism during this time have prompted many in the classical music industry to pause and reflect on the ways in which we perpetuate colonialism and racism in our leadership and governance structures, programming, casting practices, performance practices, and treatment of IBPOC artists. This article focuses on Messiah/Complex (2020) by Toronto's Against the Grain Theatre (AtG). All soloists were Indigenous or people of color. Based on conversations with several Indigenous artists involved in this project, this article argues that we need to move from thinking about how to include more Indigenous artists to thinking about how we can create space for Indigenous sovereignty. That is going to involve giving over decision-making power to Indigenous artists at all levels. Messiah/Complex could have made a more decisive move toward sovereignty if it had begun with conversations with IBPOC artists about what they want to say at this moment. The performers should have been able to decide not only what language to perform in but also whether they want to perform Handel's music at all, who they want to collaborate with, and how they want to work together.
{"title":"Against the Grain Theatre's Messiah/Complex and Indigenous Sovereignty","authors":"Nina Penner","doi":"10.1017/S1752196322000402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196322000402","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic and the intensification of IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, and People of Color) activism during this time have prompted many in the classical music industry to pause and reflect on the ways in which we perpetuate colonialism and racism in our leadership and governance structures, programming, casting practices, performance practices, and treatment of IBPOC artists. This article focuses on Messiah/Complex (2020) by Toronto's Against the Grain Theatre (AtG). All soloists were Indigenous or people of color. Based on conversations with several Indigenous artists involved in this project, this article argues that we need to move from thinking about how to include more Indigenous artists to thinking about how we can create space for Indigenous sovereignty. That is going to involve giving over decision-making power to Indigenous artists at all levels. Messiah/Complex could have made a more decisive move toward sovereignty if it had begun with conversations with IBPOC artists about what they want to say at this moment. The performers should have been able to decide not only what language to perform in but also whether they want to perform Handel's music at all, who they want to collaborate with, and how they want to work together.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42292732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/s1752196322000487
Stephanie Jensen-Moulton
{"title":"Philippa Duke Schuyler. Seven Pillars of Wisdom Sarah Masterson, piano. Centaur Records 3944, 2022","authors":"Stephanie Jensen-Moulton","doi":"10.1017/s1752196322000487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1752196322000487","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48135381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/s1752196323000019
{"title":"SAM volume 17 issue 1 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s1752196323000019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1752196323000019","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46630334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S1752196322000414
Adam Behan
Abstract Joni Mitchell's life was completely transformed in 1965–67: She became pregnant, was abandoned by the child's father, gave birth to her daughter, placed her baby for adoption, married and subsequently divorced Chuck Mitchell, and moved between several cities in North America. In this article, I center this often overlooked period of Joni's life—which she herself has referred to as “this three-year period of childhood's end”—and move away from the usual focus on her studio albums. I contextualize this discussion within 1960s counterculture and examine how these turbulent changes are refracted through her music making, specifically through a selection of early recordings of her song “Urge for Going.” In so doing, I seek alternatives to the prevalent and influential theories of musical persona in popular music studies, arguing instead for the merits of an approach which strives for an intellectual disposition of care.
摘要:1965年至67年,乔尼·米切尔的生活发生了彻底的变化:她怀孕了,被孩子的父亲抛弃,生下了女儿,将孩子收养,与查克·米切尔结婚,随后离婚,并在北美的几个城市之间流动。在这篇文章中,我将Joni生命中这段经常被忽视的时期——她自己称之为“这三年的童年结束期”——作为中心,并将注意力从通常的录音室专辑上转移开。我将这场讨论置于20世纪60年代反主流文化的背景下,并研究这些动荡的变化是如何通过她的音乐创作折射出来的,特别是通过她的歌曲《Urge for Going》的早期录音。在这样做的过程中,我寻求流行音乐研究中流行且有影响力的音乐人格理论的替代品,相反,为一种努力实现谨慎的智力倾向的方法的优点而争论。
{"title":"Joni Mitchell's Urges for Going, 1965–67: Coffeehouses, Counterculture, and Care","authors":"Adam Behan","doi":"10.1017/S1752196322000414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196322000414","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Joni Mitchell's life was completely transformed in 1965–67: She became pregnant, was abandoned by the child's father, gave birth to her daughter, placed her baby for adoption, married and subsequently divorced Chuck Mitchell, and moved between several cities in North America. In this article, I center this often overlooked period of Joni's life—which she herself has referred to as “this three-year period of childhood's end”—and move away from the usual focus on her studio albums. I contextualize this discussion within 1960s counterculture and examine how these turbulent changes are refracted through her music making, specifically through a selection of early recordings of her song “Urge for Going.” In so doing, I seek alternatives to the prevalent and influential theories of musical persona in popular music studies, arguing instead for the merits of an approach which strives for an intellectual disposition of care.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42055927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S1752196322000499
Paula Harper
{"title":"Beyoncé: At Work, On Screen, and Online Edited by Martin Iddon and Melanie L. Marshall. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020.","authors":"Paula Harper","doi":"10.1017/S1752196322000499","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196322000499","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49163467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/s1752196323000020
{"title":"SAM volume 17 issue 1 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s1752196323000020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1752196323000020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42859058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S1752196322000451
A. Kluth
mentors like Jimmy Vaughan from the narrative. Mack’s careful analysis reveals the ways in which apprenticeships both function and are obscured in blues traditions. By incorporating autobiographical storytelling into the concept of blues, this book is a groundbreaking work that will be foundational for scholars of blues, popular music, American studies, Black studies, and media studies. The book is aimed at scholarly audiences, but the writing is accessible and engaging enough for advanced undergraduates and general audiences. Mack’s work offers a new analytical frame for considering who can participate in blues and how, while simultaneously locating and challenging reductive tropes and exploitative and appropriative participants. This work could be built upon by future scholars to include how the blues industry—including blues labels, nonprofits, blues societies, and the blues radio and festival circuit—factors into these conversations.
{"title":"Atmospheric Noise: The Indefinite Urbanism of Los Angeles By Marina Peterson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021.","authors":"A. Kluth","doi":"10.1017/S1752196322000451","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196322000451","url":null,"abstract":"mentors like Jimmy Vaughan from the narrative. Mack’s careful analysis reveals the ways in which apprenticeships both function and are obscured in blues traditions. By incorporating autobiographical storytelling into the concept of blues, this book is a groundbreaking work that will be foundational for scholars of blues, popular music, American studies, Black studies, and media studies. The book is aimed at scholarly audiences, but the writing is accessible and engaging enough for advanced undergraduates and general audiences. Mack’s work offers a new analytical frame for considering who can participate in blues and how, while simultaneously locating and challenging reductive tropes and exploitative and appropriative participants. This work could be built upon by future scholars to include how the blues industry—including blues labels, nonprofits, blues societies, and the blues radio and festival circuit—factors into these conversations.","PeriodicalId":42557,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Society for American Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45043035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}