Product Description
by Kevin Whitehead (Author)
Jazz stories have been entwined with cinema since the inception of jazz film genre in the 1920s, giving us origin tales and biopics, spectacles and low-budget quickies, comedies, musicals, and dramas, and stories of improvisers and composers at work. And the jazz film has seen a resurgence in recent years--from biopics like Miles Ahead and HBO's Bessie, to dramas Whiplash and La La Land. In Play the Way You Feel, author and jazz critic Kevin Whitehead offers a comprehensive guide to these films and other media from the perspective of the music itself. Spanning 93 years of film history, the book looks closely at movies, cartoons, and a few TV shows that tell jazz stories, from early talkies to modern times, with an eye to narrative conventions and common story points. Examining the ways historical films have painted a clear picture of the past or overtly distorted history, Play the Way You Feel serves up capsule discussions of sundry topics including Duke Ellington's social life
at the Cotton Club, avant-garde musical practices in 1930s vaudeville, and Martin Scorsese's improvisatory method on the set of New York, New York.
Author Biography
Kevin Whitehead, the longtime jazz critic for NPR's Fresh Air, has written about jazz, movies, and popular culture for 40 years. His books include New Dutch Swing (1998) and Why Jazz? A Concise Guide (2011). His essays have appeared in such collections as The Cartoon Music Book, Discover Jazz and Traveling the Spaceways: Sun Ra, the Astro-Black and Other Solar Myths. Whitehead has taught at the University of Kansas, Towson University, and Goucher College.
