Jazz Mavericks of the Lone Star State

by Oliphant, Dave

• ISBN13: 9780292714960
• ISBN10: 0292714963
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

Jazz is one of America's greatest gifts to the arts, and native Texas musicians have played a major role in the development of jazz from its birth in ragtime, blues, and boogie-woogie to its most contemporary manifestation in free jazz. Dave Oliphant began the fascinating story of Texans and jazz in his acclaimed book Texan Jazz, published in 1996. Continuing his riff on this intriguing musical theme, Oliphant uncovers in this new volume more of the prolific connections between Texas musicians and jazz. Jazz Mavericks of the Lone Star State presents sixteen published and previously unpublished essays on Texans and jazz. Oliphant celebrates the contributions of such vital figures as Eddie Durham, Kenny Dorham, Leo Wright, and Ornette Coleman. He also takes a fuller look at Western Swing through Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies and a review of Duncan McLean's Lone Star Swing. In addition, he traces the relationship between British jazz criticism and Texas jazz and defends the reputation of Texas folklorist Alan Lomax as the first biographer of legendary jazz pianist-composer Jelly Roll Morton. In other essays, Oliphant examines the links between jazz and literature, including fiction and poetry by Texas writers, and reveals the seemingly unlikely connection between Texas and Wisconsin in jazz annals. All the essays in this book underscore the important parts played by Texas musicians in jazz history and the significance of Texas to jazz, as also demonstrated by Oliphant's reviews of the Ken Burns PBS series on jazz and Alfred Appel Jr.'s Jazz Modernism.

Table of Contents

Tuning Up with a Few Introductory Notes

Jazz Mavericks of the Lone Star State

The Roots of Texan Jazz

From Bebop to Hard Bop and Beyond: The Texas Connections

Texas Bebop Messengers to the World: Kenny Dorham and Leo Wright

British Acolytes of Jazz and Its Texas Contingent

The Wisconsin-Texas Jazz Nexus

Jazz in Literature

The Alchemy of Jazz

Ornette Coleman's Harmolodic Life

A Jazz Master's Diamond Jubilee

A Texas Take on Ken Burns's Jazz

Swinging Through Texas on a Scottish Air

The Birth of Western Swing

The Inventor of Jazz Revisited: Untangling the Legacy of Jelly Roll

Morton and Alan Lomax

Discographies and Texan Jazz

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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