ISBN10: 1479892327, ISBN13: 9781479892327, [publisher: NYU Press 2020-07-21, New York] Hardcover Language: ENG
[London, United Kingdom] [Publication Year: 2020]

ISBN10: 1479892327, ISBN13: 9781479892327, [publisher: New York University Press, New York] Hardcover Hardcover. Winner of the 2022 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities, award by by the Council of Graduate SchoolsExplores the role of jazz celebrities like Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williams as representatives of African American religion in the twentieth centuryBeginning in the 1920s, the Jazz Age propelled Black swing artists into national celebrity. Many took on the role of race representatives, and were able to leverage their popularity toward achieving social progress for other African Americans. In Lift Every Voice and Swing, Vaughn A. Booker argues that with the emergence of these popular jazz figures, who came from a culture shaped by Black Protestantism, religious authority for African Americans found a place and spokespeople outside of traditional Afro-Protestant institutions and religious life. Popular Black jazz professionalssuch as Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williamsinherited religious authority though they were not official religious leaders. Some of these artists put forward a religious culture in the mid-twentieth century by releasing religious recordings and putting on religious concerts, and their work came to be seen as integral to the Black religious ethos. Booker documents this transformative era in religious expression, in which jazz musicians embodied religious beliefs and ...
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