Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot, 1843-1924
by David Wondrich
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Book Summary Information
Author: David WondrichEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2003-08-01
ISBN: 155652496X
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Book Reviews of Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot, 1843-1924
Book Review: Highly informative and fun to read
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the first book I have read that really tries to explore American popular music in the years before the known heroes made their collective (recorded) mark. This book delves into the weird worlds of minstrelsy (white, and then black performers, playing banjoes and fiddles in "blackface") and medicine shows informatively, and with a necessary combination of humor and reverence for the music and musicians. Wondrich takes us through the "Brass Band Craze" that followed the Civil War (and gave us the like of Stephen Foster and John Phillips Sousa) and Ragtime (which had it's debut in the whorehouses around the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition in 1893) with witty, literate prose, and dozens and dozens of names (and when possible, the original catalog numbers of their recordings).
The real aim of Wondrich's search into the annals of old American music is to find the stuff that's "Hot". "Hot" music, by his definition, contains two ingredients: Drive and Swerve. He, of course, defines these terms too (and a handful of others, which he, quite affectively, makes his own). This lens through which he looks at the old music is what really makes it such an entertaining read (and gives such promise to all the recordings he mentions - the writing is hip, and for that reason I trust that all these 100 year old recordings he mentions will be too).
In his preface, Wondrich mentions the Sex Pistols and Robert Johnson in close order. Having discovered the Blues after Punk, he realized that the edginess of Punk was not entirely new. And any investigation of the Blues will reveal that it wasn't either - at least not at the time when white folks finally started recording it. So this book digs into the "Hot" American music that was happening before, and during the years when the Blues and Jazz became commonly known as such. A wonderful, informative read.
Summary of Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot, 1843-1924
The early decades of American popular music-Stephen Foster, Scott Joplin, John Philip Sousa, Enrico Caruso-are, for most listeners, the dark ages. It wasn't until the mid-1920s that the full spectrum of this music-black and white, urban and rural, sophisticated and crude-made it onto records for all to hear. This book brings a forgotten music, hot music, to life by describing how it became the dominant American music-how it outlasted sentimental waltzes and parlor ballads, symphonic marches and Tin Pan Alley novelty numbers-and how it became rock 'n' roll. It reveals that the young men and women of that bygone era had the same musical instincts as their descendants Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, and even Ozzy Osbourne. In minstrelsy, ragtime, brass bands, early jazz and blues, fiddle music, and many other forms, there was as much stomping and swerving as can be found in the most exciting performances of hot jazz, funk, and rock. Along the way, it explains how the strange combination of African with Scotch and Irish influences made music in the United States vastly different from other African and Caribbean musics; shares terrific stories about minstrel shows, "coon" songs, whorehouses, knife fights, and other low-life phenomena; and showcases a motley collection of performers heretofore unknown to all but the most avid musicologists and collectors.Popular Books
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