Download or read book City Songs and American Life 1900 1950 written by Michael L. Lasser and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nothing defines the songs of the great American songbook more richly and persuasively than their urban sensibility. During the first half of the twentieth century, songwriter such as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, George and Ira Gershwin, and Thomas 'Fats' Waller flourished in New York City, the home of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Harlem. Many of these remarkably deft and forceful creators were native New Yorkers. Others got to Gotham as fast as they could. Either way, it was as if, from their vantage point on the West Side of Manhattan, these artists were describing America--not its geography of politics, but its heart--to Americans and to the world at large. In City songs and American life, 1900-1950, renowned author and broadcaster Michael Lasser offers an evocative and probing account of the popular songs--including some written originally for the stage or screen--that America heard, and sang, and danced to during the turbulent first half of the twentieth century. Lasser demonstrates how the spirit of the teeming city pervaded these wildly diverse songs. Often that spirit took form overtly in songs that portrayed the glamor of Broadway of the energy and jazz age culture of Harlem. But a city-bred spirit--or even a specifically New York City way of feeling and talking--also infused many other widely known and loved songs, stretching from the early decades of the century to the twenties (the age of the flapper, bathtub gin, and women's right to vote), the Great Depression, and, finally, World War II. Throughout this remarkable book, Lasser emphasizes how the soul of city life, as echoes in the nation's songs, developed and changed in tandem with economic, social, and political currents in America as a whole"--Dust jacket flap.
Download or read book New York written by Nancy Groce and published by Billboard Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lushly illustrated celebration of New York life as captured in music brings together pieces of more than a thousand songs written about the Big Apple.
Download or read book Cities of Others written by Xiaojing Zhou and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2014-12-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asian American literature abounds with complex depictions of American cities as spaces that reinforce racial segregation and prevent interactions across boundaries of race, culture, class, and gender. However, in Cities of Others, Xiaojing Zhou uncovers a much different narrative, providing the most comprehensive examination to date of how Asian American writers - both celebrated and overlooked - depict urban settings. Zhou goes beyond examining popular portrayals of Chinatowns by paying equal attention to life in other parts of the city. Her innovative and wide-ranging approach sheds new light on the works of Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese American writers who bear witness to a variety of urban experiences and reimagine the American city as other than a segregated nation-space. Drawing on critical theories on space from urban geography, ecocriticism, and postcolonial studies, Zhou shows how spatial organization shapes identity in the works of Sui Sin Far, Bienvenido Santos, Meena Alexander, Frank Chin, Chang-rae Lee, Karen Tei Yamashita, and others. She also shows how the everyday practices of Asian American communities challenge racial segregation, reshape urban spaces, and redefine the identity of the American city. From a reimagining of the nineteenth-century flaneur figure in an Asian American context to providing a framework that allows readers to see ethnic enclaves and American cities as mutually constitutive and transformative, Zhou gives us a provocative new way to understand some of the most important works of Asian American literature.
Download or read book Dark Age Ahead written by Jane Jacobs and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this indispensable book, urban visionary Jane Jacobs argues that as agrarianism gives way to a technology-based future, we’re at risk of cultural collapse. Jacobs—renowned author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Economy of Cities—pinpoints five pillars of our culture that are in serious decay: community and family; higher education; the effective practice of science; taxation, and government; and the self-regulation of the learned professions. The corrosion of these pillars, Jacobs argues, is linked to societal ills such as environmental crisis, racism, and the growing gulf between rich and poor. But this is a hopeful book as well as a warning. Drawing on a vast frame of reference—from fifteenth-century Chinese shipbuilding to Ireland’s cultural rebirth—Jacobs suggests how the cycles of decay can be arrested and our way of life renewed. Invigorating and accessible, Dark Age Ahead is not only the crowning achievement of Jane Jacobs’ career, but one of the most important works of our time.
Download or read book Ready for a Brand New Beat written by Mark Kurlansky and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a song change a nation? In 1964, Marvin Gaye, record producer William “Mickey” Stevenson, and Motown songwriter Ivy Jo Hunter wrote “Dancing in the Street.” The song was recorded at Motown’s Hitsville USA Studio by Martha and the Vandellas, with lead singer Martha Reeves arranging her own vocals. Released on July 31, the song was supposed to be an upbeat dance recording—a precursor to disco, and a song about the joyousness of dance. But events overtook it, and the song became one of the icons of American pop culture. The Beatles had landed in the U.S. in early 1964. By the summer, the sixties were in full swing. The summer of 1964 was the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, the beginning of the Vietnam War, the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and the lead-up to a dramatic election. As the country grew more radicalized in those few months, “Dancing in the Street” gained currency as an activist anthem. The song took on new meanings, multiple meanings, for many different groups that were all changing as the country changed. Told by the writer who is legendary for finding the big story in unlikely places, Ready for a Brand New Beat chronicles that extraordinary summer of 1964 and showcases the momentous role that a simple song about dancing played in history.
Download or read book The Critic written by and published by . This book was released on 1902 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pick Yourself Up written by Charlotte Greenspan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a career that spanned nearly five decades, Dorothy Fields penned the words to more than four hundred songs, among them mega-hits such as "On the Sunny Side of the Street," "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," "The Way You Look Tonight," and "If My Friends Could See Me Now." While Fields's name may be known mainly to connoisseurs, her contributions to our popular culture--indeed, our national consciousness--have been remarkable. In Pick Yourself Up, Charlotte Greenspan offers the most complete, serious treatment of Fields's life and work to date, tracing her rise to prominence in a male-dominated world.
Download or read book The Survey written by and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 1130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Choir written by and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Music Trade Indicator written by and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 1036 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Music Trades written by and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 1404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Worship in the City written by Nancy Elizabeth Hardy and published by The United Church of Canada. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chosen to reflect the urban context, Worship in the City’s rich collection of prayers and songs shows that in its diversity and creativity, the city can offer an environment that is good for the soul. -- Nancy Elizabeth Hardy
Download or read book A People at War written by Scott Reynolds Nelson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-04-16 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Civil War had a devastating impact on countless numbers of common soldiers and civilians. This book shows how average Americans coped with despair as well as hope during this vast upheaval.
Download or read book Farm Boys and Girls Leader written by and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Anthology of Magazine Verse and Anthology of Poems from the Seventeen Previously Published Braithwaite Anthologies written by and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book T P s and Cassell s Weekly written by and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 980 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Geographies of Urban Sound written by Dr Torsten Wissmann and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking into account both the urban soundscape and the impacts of sound on the urban dweller, this book examines sound not as a by-product of urban life, but as a fundamental part of the urban experience that is crucial to understanding the city’s sense of place. Illustrated by case studies from Europe and North America, these range from on-site measurements to the construction of audio tours for local tourism, from media analysis of popular culture audio drama to sound-identity and city branding, and from the classification of noise in city planning to a consideration of the complex relationship between sacred sound and the creation of a sense of place.
