Outside and Inside
Outside and Inside
Race and Identity in White Jazz Autobiography
Outside and Inside: Representations of Race and Identity in White Jazz Autobiography is the first full-length study of key autobiographies of white jazz musicians. White musicians from a wide range of musical, social, and economic backgrounds looked to black music and culture as the model on which to form their personal identities and their identities as professional musicians. Their accounts illustrate the triumphs and failures of jazz interracialism. As they describe their relationships with black musicians who are their teachers and peers, white jazz autobiographers display the contradictory attitudes of reverence and entitlement, and deference and insensitivity that remain part of the white response to black culture to the present day.
Outside and Inside features insights into the development of jazz styles and culture in the urban meccas of twentieth-century jazz in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Reva Marin considers the autobiographies of sixteen white male jazz instrumentalists, including renowned swing-era bandleaders Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Charlie Barnet; reed instrumentalists Mezz Mezzrow, Bob Wilber, and Bud Freeman; trumpeters Max Kaminsky and Wingy Manone; guitarist Steve Jordan; pianists Art Hodes and Don Asher; saxophonist Art Pepper; guitarist and bandleader Eddie Condon; and New Orleans–style clarinetist Tom Sancton.
While critical race theory informs this work, Marin argues that viewing these texts simply through the lens of white privilege does not do justice to the kind of sustained relationships with black music and culture described in the accounts of white jazz autobiographers. She both insists upon the value of insider perspectives and holds the texts to rigorous scrutiny, while embracing an expansive interpretation of white involvement in black culture. Marin opens new paths for study of race relations and racial, ethnic, and gender identity formation in jazz studies.
Marin’s text is enhanced with excellent photographs and notes, a bibliography of works cited, and a helpful index. Her well-written and well-argued study is accessible to all and is highly recommended to libraries of all types.
I cannot imagine a more balanced and nuanced approach to the highly vexed issues around jazz, race, and sexuality. Reva Marin has taken on a deeply problematic subject and opened it up brilliantly.
In Outside and Inside Reva Marin brings gender squarely and skillfully into the jazz autobiography discourse. The sampling of male jazz autobiographies selected for analysis is judicious, reflecting a range of behaviors related to race and ethnicity. Highly recommended.
Outside and Inside provides a fascinating and long-overdue look at the role of white jazz musicians through the lens of their autobiographies. Marin explores the relationships of these musicians to African American culture as well as to their own white ethnicities with subtlety and insight. This book is essential and richly enjoyable reading for all those interested in the complex role of race and ethnicity in jazz.
Reva Marin is the author of Oscar: The Life and Music of Oscar Peterson, a finalist for the 2004 Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction, and “Representations of Identity in Jewish Jazz Autobiography,” published in the Canadian Review of American Studies.
