Q Summarize the week 1 assigned readings.
Introduction from “Harlem Renaissance” By Nathan Irvin Huggins
Preface from “The Jazz Age: Popular Music in the 1920s” By Arnold Shaw
This week the assigned readings comprise of the introductory parts of the recommended books. In the book “The Jazz Age: Popular Music in the 1920s” by Arnold Shaw, the author points out the absence of mention of popular music in the numerous surveys and writings by popular journalists chronicling the 1920s of America. He then goes on to state the importance of this decade in the aspect of music, comparing it with the 1950s which is known for the ‘rock revolution’. The 1920s saw the emergence of the Jazz and Blues as forms of the Black music, which fused with the white music influenced the era and even the Broadway theatre, which broke off its European connections.