Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz

Music Is My Life: Louis Armstrong, Autobiography, and American Jazz
ISBN-10
0472028502
ISBN-13
9780472028504
Category
Music
Pages
349
Language
English
Published
2012-05-03
Publisher
University of Michigan Press
Author
Daniel Stein

Description

Music Is My Life is the first comprehensive analysis of Louis Armstrong's autobiographical writings (including his books, essays, and letters) and their relation to his musical and visual performances. Combining approaches from autobiography theory, literary criticism, intermedia studies, cultural history, and musicology, Daniel Stein reconstructs Armstrong's performances of his life story across various media and for different audiences, complicating the monolithic and hagiographic views of the musician. The book will appeal to academic readers with an interest in African American studies, jazz studies, musicology, and popular culture, as well as general readers interested in Armstrong's life and music, jazz, and twentieth-century entertainment. While not a biography, it provides a key to understanding Armstrong's oeuvre as well as his complicated place in American history and twentieth-century media culture.

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