Featuring more than seventy thought-provoking selections drawn from contemporary journalism, reviews, program notes, memoirs, interviews, and other sources, Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History, Second Edition, brings to life the controversies and critical issues that have accompanied more than 100 years of jazz history. This unique volume gives voice to a wide range of perspectives which stress different reactions to and uses of jazz, both within and across communities, enabling readers to see that jazz is not just about names, dates, and chords, but rather about issues and ideas, cultural activities, and experiences that have affected people deeply in a great variety of ways. Selections include contributions from well-known figures such as Jelly Roll Morton, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis; from renowned writers including Langston Hughes, Norman Mailer, and Ralph Ellison; and from critics and historians ranging from Gunther Schuller and Christopher Small to Sherrie Tucker and George Lipsitz. Filled with insightful writing, Keeping Time aims to increase historical awareness, to provoke critical thinking, and to encourage lively classroom discussion as students relive the intriguing story of jazz.

Table of Contents:
First Accounts 1. Sidney Bechet's Musical Philosophy 2. "Whence Comes Jass?" Walter Kingsley 3. The Location of "Jass," New Orleans Times-Picayune 4. A "Serious" Musician Takes Jazz Seriously, Ernest Ansermet 5. "A Negro Explains 'Jazz,'" James Reese Europe 6. "Jazzing Away Prejudice," Chicago Defender 7. Mister Jelly Roll, Jelly Roll Morton The Twenties 8. Jazzing Around the Globe, Burnet Hershey 9. "Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?" Anne Shaw Faulkner 10. Jazz and African Music, Nicholas G.J. Ballanta-Taylor 11. Sexual Politics of Women's Blues, Hazel B. Carby 12. The Man Who Made a Lady Out of Jazz (Paul Whiteman), Hugh C. Ernst 13. "The Jazz Problem," The Etude 14. "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Langston Hughes 15. A Black Journalist Criticizes Jazz, Dave Peyton 16. "The Caucasian Storms Harlem," Rudolph Fisher 17. The Appeal of Jazz Explained, R.W.S. Mendl The Thirties 18. What Is Swing? Louis Armstrong 19. Looking Back at "The Jazz Age," Alain Locke 20. Defining "Hot Jazz," Robert Goffin 21. Black Music in Our Culture, John Hammond 22. Lady Sings the Blues, Billie Holiday and William F. Dufty 23. Jazz at Carnegie Hall, James Dugan and John Hammond 24. Duke Ellington Explains Swing 25. Jazz and Gender During the War Years, Down Beat The Forties 26. "Red Music," Josef Skvorecky 27. "From Somewhere in France," Charles Delaunay 28. "Upside Your Head!" Johnny Otis 29. Jazz: A People's Music, Sidney Finkelstein 30. "Bop is Nowhere," D. Leon Wolff and Louis Armstrong 31. To Be or Not to Bop, Dizzy Gillespie 32. The Golden Age, Times Past, Ralph Ellison 33. The Professional Dance Musician and His Audience, Howard S. Becker The Fifties 34. Perspectives in Jazz, Marshall Stearns 35. Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence, Andre Hodeir 36. Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller 37. "Beneath the Underdog," Charles Mingus 38. Psychoanalyzing Jazz, Miles D. Miller 39. Vatican is Asked to Rule on Jazz, Paul Hofmann 40. US Has Secret Weapon - Jazz, Felix Belair, Jr. 41. "The White Negro," Norman Mailer 42. Louis Armstrong on Music and Politics The Sixties 43. "Free Jazz," Ornet Coleman 44. "Jazz and the White Critic," LeRoi Jones 45. The Playboy Panel: Jazz, Today and Tomorrow The Seventies 46 . Jamey Aebersold, "The Scale Syllabus" 47. What Jazz Means to Me, Max Roach 48. Stomping the Blues, Albert Murray 49. Notes (8 Pieces), Wadada Leo Smith 50. Jazz Pop - A "Failed Art Music" Makes Good, Robert Palmer The Eighties 51. Jazz: "America's Classical Music," William "Billy" Taylor 52. "A Rare National Treasure," U.S. Congress 53. Interview with Wynton Marsalis and Herbie Hancock 54. Music of the Common Tongue: Survival and Celebration in Afro-American Music, Christopher Small The Ninties 55. Who Listens to Jazz? 56. "Free Jazz" Revisited, Ornet Coleman 57. Ring Shout! Samuel A. Floyd Jr. 58. Ferociously Harmonizing with Reality, Keith Jarrett 59. Constructing the Jazz Tradition, Scott DeVeaux 60. "Local Jazz," James Lincoln Collier 61. "Out of Notes": Signification, Interpretation, and the Problem of Miles Davis, Robert Walser 62. "What Makes 'Jazz' the Revolutionary Music of the 20th Century, and Will It Be Revolutionary for the 63. Improvised Music After 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives, George E. Lewis Today 64. "Resistance Is Futile!" Sarah Rodman 65. "Music and Language," Brad Mehldau 66. "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't in the History Books," Sherrie Tucker 67. Three Polemics on the State of Jazz, Stanley Crouch 68. The Jazz Left, Herman S. Gray 69. Songs of the Unsung: The Darby Hicks History of Jazz, George Lipsitz 70. Exploding the Narrative in Jazz Improvisation, Vijay Iyer 71. Celebrating the Global: The Nordic Tone in Jazz, Stuart Nicholson 72. "Who Listens to Jazz Now?" National Endowment for the Arts