Civic Jazz: American Music and Kenneth Burke on the Art of Getting Along

211 Pages·2015·1.45 MB·English

by  Gregory Clark

Civic Jazz

Civic Jazz
American Music and Kenneth Burke on
the Art of Getting Along
GreGory Clark
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
gregory clark is University Professor of English at Brigham
Young University. He is the author of Rhetorical Landscapes in America:
Variations on a Theme from Kenneth Burke and coeditor of Trained
Capacities: John Dewey, Rhetoric, and Democratic Practice and Oratorical
Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Transformations in the Theory and
Practice of Public Discourse.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2015 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2015.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 21818- 2 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 21821- 2 (paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 21835- 9 (e- book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226218359.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clark, Gregory, 1950– author.
Civic jazz : American music and Kenneth Burke on the art of getting
along / Gregory Clark.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-226-21818-2 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-226-21818-X
(cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-226-21821-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)—
ISBN 0-226-21821-X (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-226-21835-9
(e-book) 1. Jazz—Social aspects. 2. Music and rhetoric. 3. Rhetoric—
Philosophy. 4. Burke, Kenneth, 1897–1993. I. Title.
ML3508.C53 2015
781.65'11—dc23
2014023238
a This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1 992
(Permanence of Paper).
To Linda, for swinging along.
Music . . . would be the song above catastrophe.
Kenneth BurKe
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Foreword by Marcus Roberts xi
1 Setting Up 1
2 A Rhetorical Aesthetic of Jazz 22
3 What Jazz Is 39
4 Where Jazz Comes From 62
5 What Jazz Does 83
6 How Jazz Works 116
7 So What? 138
Notes 153 Bibliography 175
Discography 183 Index 185

Acknowledgments
The College of Humanities at Brigham Young University
has supported this project with consistency, generosity and
considerable patience. I am deeply grateful.
People working in rhetorical studies who have been par-
ticularly helpful as I have moved along through this project
include Jerry Hauser, Michael Halloran, Debra Hawhee, Mi-
chael Leff, Carolyn Miller, and Jack Selzer. Anthony Burke
and Michael Burke have been generous with their time and
their memories as I have rummaged through their father’s
work. Jeanette Sabre and Sandra Stelts have been invaluable
in facilitating my use of the Kenneth Burke Papers held at
Penn State University. Amy Lafave guided me through the
archive of the Lenox School of Jazz at the Lenox Library. Tara
T. Boyce and Lisa Nielson Thomas assisted me in finalizing
the manuscript at about the same time as Robert Bullough
was providing me with a thorough reading that made the
book much better.
Jazz people who have been helpful through the years
include Wess Anderson, Jonathan Batiste, Stanley Crouch,
Nat Hentoff, Laura Johnson, Sheila Jordan, Steve Lindeman,
Wynton Marsalis, Albert Murray, Marcus Roberts, Wallace
Roney, Harvie S, and Loren Schoenberg.
Douglas Mitchell at the University of Chicago Press
has offered me the confidence I have needed to complete
a slow and difficult project, and selected reviewers have
been both rigorous and encouraging in critiques that have
helped me along.
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