Extreme Exoticism

Extreme Exoticism: Japan in the American Musical Imagination offers a detailed and wide-ranging documentation and investigation of the role of music in shaping American perceptions of the Japanese, the influence of Japanese music on American composers, and the place of Japanese Americans in American musical life. This book covers over 150 years of American musical history, from the first American encounters with the Japanese in the mid nineteenth-century to today, as it reveals the central role of music in American japonisme. Nearly every musical genre, media, and form is discussed, as parallels between “high” and “low” art and connections between various art forms are explored. Particular emphasis is placed on popular song in both the Tin Pan Alley period and in more recent decades and on representations of the Japanese throughout the history of Hollywood film and Broadway musicals. Manifestations of the “Madame Butterfly” narrative are explored throughout a wide range of popular musical, cinematic, and theatrical genres. Musical representations of Japan were directly connected to efforts to reshape American perceptions of race and gender and for the purposes of political propaganda, particularly during World War II and the Cold War periods. The book also details the extensive influence of Japanese traditional music on modernist American composers and the pursuit of Japanese musical performance by numerous American musicians.