- Paperback: 200 pages
- Publisher: University of Tennessee Press; 1st edition (May 1, 1997)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 087049967X
- ISBN-13: 978-0870499678
Boldly conceived and compellingly argued, this revisionist work offers a
new interpretation of the Harlem Renaissance by focusing on its music.
Jon Michael Spencer challenges the emphasis of earlier historical
studies - which have tended to bypass music in favor of literature - as
well as their general conclusion that the Renaissance was a failure.
Spencer's discussion encompasses the music and writings of a wide range
of important figures, including James Weldon Johnson, Harry T. Burleigh,
Roland Hayes, Marian Anderson, Alain Locke, William Grant Still, R.
Nathaniel Dett, and Dorothy Maynor. He argues that the singular
accomplishment of the Harlem Renaissance composers and musicians was to
achieve a "two-tiered mastery" promoted by Johnson, Locke, the Harmon
award, and Crisis and Opportunity magazines. Their work, Spencer says,
drew on the "mood and spirit" of African American folk music while
mastering the forms and techniques of the European classical tradition
in music. Spencer also contends, with Locke, that the Harlem Renaissance
had its roots in the turn of the century and extended for three decades
beyond the 1920s. He thus contests assertions that the arrival of the
Great Depression effectively ended the Renaissance, as issues of
economic survival allegedly subsumed artistic aspirations. In positing a
much longer period for the Renaissance and offering evidence for it,
Spencer argues that this flowering of African American creative endeavor
constitutes a major cultural legacy that can only be described as a
resounding success.
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