Jazz and Machine-Age Imperialism: Music, "Race," and Intellectuals in France, 1918–1945

237 Pages·2013·1.111 MB·English

by  Jeremy F. Lane

Jazz and Machine- age iMperialisM

Jazz and Machine- Age Imperialism
Music, “Race,” and Intellectuals in France, 1918– 1945
JereMy F. lane
The University of Michigan Press
Ann Arbor
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2013
All rights reserved
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except
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Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
c Printed on acid- free paper
2016 2015 2014 2013 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Lane, Jeremy F.
Jazz and machine- age imperialism : music, “race,” and intellectuals in France, 1918- 1945 /
Jeremy F. Lane.
pages cm. — (Jazz perspectives)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 472- 11881- 6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978- 0- 472- 02922- 8 (e- book)
1. Jazz— France— History and criticism. 2. Music and race— France— History— 20th
century. 3. World War, 1939– 1945— Music and the war. I. Title.
ML3509.F7L36 2013
781.650944’09041— dc22 2012047395
What special analytical problems arise if a style, genre, or particular perfor-
mance of music is identified as being expressive of the absolute essence of
the group that produced it? What contradictions appear in the transmission
and adaptation of this cultural expression by other diaspora populations,
and how will they be resolved? How does the hemispheric displacement and
global dissemination of black music get reflected in localised traditions of
critical writing, and . . . what value is placed on its origins, particularly if they
come into opposition against further mutations produced during its contin-
gent loops and fractal trajectories?
Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic (1993)

acknowledgMents
In writing this book, I have been helped by numerous friends and colleagues
who have offered invaluable amounts of advice, encouragement, and construc-
tive criticism along the way. It was Chris Bongie who first persuaded me that a
book on jazz would be more interesting than a study of the then still relatively
unknown French intellectual Jacques Rancière. He subsequently took the time
to read a very early draft Introduction, itemizing its numerous failings with pa-
tient insistence and a refreshing honesty, sending me back to the drawing board
to, I hope, salutary effect. I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to both Mar-
tin Munro and Celia Britton who, having pointed me in the direction of those
French intellectuals of color who had an interest in jazz, went on to read early
versions of my work, offering detailed comments, advice, and encouragement
in equal measure. Bill Marshall has proved a longtime supporter of the project,
inviting me to a number of conferences over the years to present my ideas. He
and Richard Watts generously acted as tour guides on my first visit to the city
of New Orleans. Philip Swanson and Jon Beasley-M urray have provided much-
needed support along the way, in the form of friendship, intellectual sustenance,
and entertainment. I should also like to thank Chris Hebert, at the University
of Michigan Press, for his support and work in piloting the project through var-
ious stages of the editorial and production process. Finally, the two anonymous
reviewers of my manuscript provided a range of detailed and extremely helpful
comments and suggestions, for which I am deeply grateful.
Early and significantly different versions of sections of this book have previ-
ously appeared as “Rythme de Travail, Rythme de Jazz: Jazz, Primitivism and
Machinisme in Inter- war France,” Atlantic Studies 4, no. 1 (April 2007): 103– 16,
and “Jazz as Habitus: Discourses of Class and Ethnicity in Hugues Panassié’s
Le Jazz Hot (1934),” Nottingham French Studies 44, no. 3 (2005): 40–5 3. I am
grateful to the editors of both journals for allowing me to reproduce elements
of those articles here. I am also grateful to the University of Virginia Press for
permission to reproduce selected quotations from Léopold Sédar Senghor,
The Collected Poetry (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1991), and
to Présence africaine for permission to reproduce extracts from Léon- Gontran
Damas, Pigments- Névralgie (Paris: Présence africaine, 1972).

contents
Introduction 1
1. Between “the Virgin Forest and Modernism”: Techno- Primitive
Hybrids in the Work of André Schaeffner and Robert Goffin 35
2. Armstrong’s “Bitter Laughter”: Jazz, Gender, and Racial Politics in
Léon- Gontran Damas’s Pigments (1937) 65
3. Jazz as Antidote to the Machine Age: From Hugues Panassié to
Léopold Sédar Senghor 90
4. “And What If Jazz Were French . . . ?” Postcolonial Melancholy and
Myths of French Louisiana in Vichy- Era France 126
5. “Marvellous” Ellington: René Ménil, Jazz, Surrealism, and
Creole Identity in Wartime Martinique 155
Coda: Jazz After Empire 180
Notes 201
Bibliography 209
Index 221