Taking to heart Ralph Ellison's remark that much in American life is "jazz-shaped," The Jazz Cadence of American Culture offers a wide range of eloquent statements about the influence of this art form on our world. The editor has gathered a comprehensive collection of important essays, speeches and interviews about the impact of jazz on other arts, on politics and on the rhythm of everyday life.

There are 35 essays, including :-

Jazz and the White Critic Amiri Baraka
Duke Ellington: "Music Like A Big Hot Pot of Good Gumbo" Wynton Marsalis & Robert O'Meally
Blues to Be Constitutional Stanley Crouch
Improvisation In Jazz Bill Evans
Characteristics of Negro Expression Zora Neale Hurston
Be Like Mine? Michael Jordan and the Pedigree of Desire Michael Eric Dyson
The Golden Age, Time Past Ralph Ellison
It Jus Be's Dat Way Sometime: The Sexual Politics of Women's Blues Hazel V. Carby
Preface to Three Plays August Wilson
Skyscrapers, Airplanes, and Airmindedness: "The Necessary Angel" Ann Douglas
Pulp & Circumstance: The Story of Jazz in High Palces... and more Gerald Early

ROBERT O'MEALLY is Zora Neale Hurston Professor of American Literature and director of the Jazz Study Group at Columbia University. His previous books include The Craft of Ralph Ellison and Lady Day: Many Faces of the Lady.

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