The Jazz Revolution

A cultural study of the meaning of jazz for America in the 1920s. Jazz made a tremendous impact on America at that time, becoming a subject of controversy as well as a major social influence.

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This is an cultural study about the effects of jazz on America in the 1920s. Jazz had a profound impact at this time, and became a subject of huge controversy. Its raw emotion and sexuality, its extraordinary artistic innovation, and the speed of its communities to the broader worlds of Chicago and New York, were both shocking and powerfully attractive at the same time. Kathy Ogren first describes the dissemination of jazz from its roots in the deep south to the cabarets and nightclubs of the north, and through recordings and radio. She then focuses on the dynamically opposed attitudes that the early jazz boom produced, both in blacks and whites, and provides new insights into the music's sociological impact and importance.