Struggling to Define a Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century, (Paperback)

Identifying music as a vital site of cultural debate, <i>Struggling to Define a Nation </i>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.

• Struggling to Define a Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century, (Paperback)
• Author: University of California Press
• ISBN: 9780520254879
• Format: Paperback
• Publication Date: 2008-10-12
• Page Count: 312