Struggling to define a nation : American music and the twentieth century

Identifying music as a vital site of cultural debate, Struggling to Define a Nation captures the dynamic, contested nature of musical life in the United States. In an engaging blend of music analysis and cultural critique, Charles Hiroshi Garrett examines a dazzling array of genres—including art music, jazz, popular song, ragtime, and Hawaiian music—and numerous well-known musicians, such as Charles Ives, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and Irving Berlin. Garrett argues that rather than a single, unified vision, an exploration of the past century reveals a contested array of musical perspectives on the nation, each one advancing a different facet of American identity through sound. Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Charles Ives’S Four Ragtime Dances And “True American Music” 2. Jelly Roll Morton And The Spanish Tinge 3. Louis Armstrong And The Great Migration 4. Chinatown, Whose Chinatown? Defining America’S Borders With Musical Orientalism 5. Sounds Of Paradise: Hawai'i And The American Musical Imagination Conclusion: American Music At The Turn Of A New Century Notes Bibliography Index Identifying music as a vital site of cultural debate, this book captures the dynamic, contested nature of musical life in the United States. It examines an array of genres - including art music, jazz, popular song, ragtime, and Hawaiian music - and well-known musicians, such as Charles Ives, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and Irving Berlin