scholarly journals California’s Composer Laureate

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-51
Author(s):  
Anthony Macías
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
California History ◽  
Big Band ◽  
Alta California ◽  
Mexican Culture ◽  
Modern Jazz ◽  
Musical Philosophy ◽  
The 1960S

This essay uses the 1960s, Gerald Wilson’s most prolific period, as a window into his life and work as a big band jazz trumpeter, soloist, arranger, conductor, and composer. This selective snapshot of Wilson’s career inserts him more fully into jazz—and California—history, while analyzing the influence of Latin music and Mexican culture on his creations. Tracing the black-brown connections in his Alta California art demonstrates an often-overlooked aspect of Wilson’s musical legacy: the fact that he wrote, arranged, recorded, and performed Latin-tinged tunes, especially several brassy homages to Mexican bullfighters, as well as Latin jazz originals. Wilson’s singular soul jazz reveals the drive and dedication of a disciplined artist—both student and teacher—who continually honed his craft and expanded his talents as part of his educational and musical philosophy. Wilson’s California story is that of an African American migrant who moves out west, where he meets a Chicana Angelena and starts a family—in the tradition of Cali-mestizaje—then stays for the higher quality of life, for the freedom to raise his children and live as an artist, further developing and fully expressing his style. However, because he never moved to New York, Wilson remains under-researched and underappreciated by academic jazz experts. Using cultural history and cultural studies research methods, this essay makes the case that Gerald Wilson should be more widely recognized and honored for his genius, greatness, and outstanding achievements in the field of modern jazz, from San Francisco to Monterey, Hollywood, and Hermosa Beach.

The Counterculture Comics versus the Hate Clubs of the Air

2019 ◽  
pp. 8-31
Author(s):  
Dannagal Goldthwaite Young
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
First Generation ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
Talk Radio ◽  
Political Satire ◽  
Radio Stations ◽  
Political Comedy ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter describes what is referred to as the first generation of American irony and outrage of the 1960s: the radical counterculture comedy of the 1960s versus conservative talk radio programming. While conservative voices on limited-circulation radio stations around the country were railing against the United Nations and a liberal United States Supreme Court, liberal activists in New York and San Francisco were producing a very different kind of political information that was antiwar, antisegregation, and anti–status quo: ironic social and political satire in smoky underground comedy clubs and coffeehouses. The chapter provides historical details about conservative radio shows hosted by people like Clarence Manion and Dan Smoot, and contrasts these shows’ voice and approach with that of radical satirists of that same era, particularly that of the improvisational political comedy theatre company The Committee, including insights from interviews with members of the group.

Digging for Apples: Reappraising the Influence of Situationist Theory on Theatre Practice in the English Counterculture

2001 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. D. White
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Performance History ◽  
Read Group ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Critical Model

This article is a development of a paper submitted to last year's ASTR conference at City University of New York as part of a panel discussion on the legacy of the 1960s. That paper was prepared to the conference brief that submissions should involve some reflexive investigation of research methods and scholarly practices. Reviewing existing material written on the causal links between Situationist theory and theatre practice in the 1960s counterculture in England, I began to question the “fit” between these two areas. A critical narrative concerning the development of a post-Brechtian theatrical style in the work of a generation of English political dramatists — such as Howard Brenton, Trevor Griffiths, and David Edgar — during the late 1960s and early 1970s has come to read Situationism as a dominant shaping force. On closer examination, however, this relationship is neither as clear nor as convincing as this now commonplace critical model would suggest. Additionally, neglected and underreported instances and examples — some of which are explored in this article — seem to tell contrasting, or more complex, stories about the forms and practices of English theatre in the counterculture. Investigation of some of these issues has led me to consider why it is that particular historical orthodoxies develop to account for movements and moments in cultural and performance history. What happens to make a small and, at the time, not widely published or read group of theorists such as the Situationists take on a retrospectively key position in scholarly accounts of cultural history? Thus, this article investigates the transmission of Situationist ideas in English theatre practice to conclude that there may be a broader, more idiosyncratic, history to read against dominant accounts of influence and causation.

Gillespie, Dizzy (1917–93)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Garlitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Big Band ◽  
John Coltrane ◽  
Modern Jazz ◽  
Small Band ◽  
Latin Jazz ◽  
Charlie Parker ◽  
Artistic Career

Dizzy Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader. Over the course of his artistic career Gillespie was based in New York City, where he was first active performing in big bands, eventually leading bands of his own. Along with his musical colleague, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, Gillespie was one of the progenitors of the modern jazz movement bebop in the 1940s. Considered one of the pioneers of Latin jazz, especially Afro-Cuban jazz, Gillespie traveled extensively, performing with an international roster of musicians. Compositions that reflect this style of jazz include "Tin Tin Deo," and "Manteca" (1947). Gillespie’s musical orientation to Afro rhythms was evident as early as 1942, when he composed the jazz standard "A Night in Tunisia." When he dissembled his big band to form a sextet in 1949, Gillespie gave modern jazz tenor saxophonist John Coltrane his start in improvisational focussed small band work.

Monk, Thelonious (1917–1982)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Garlitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Big Band ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Thelonious Monk ◽  
John Coltrane ◽  
Greenwich Village ◽  
Modern Jazz ◽  
Duke Ellington ◽  
Charlie Parker ◽  
52Nd Street

Thelonious Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. One of the earliest performers in the bebop movement of modern jazz dating from the mid-twentieth century, namely the 1940s in New York City, Monk performed original compositions in neighborhoods there such as Harlem and Greenwich Village, as well as the thriving 52nd Street district of jazz nightclubs. The pianist performed with other leading figures in modern jazz including bebop progenitors Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and avant-garde saxophonist John Coltrane, all of whom performed and recorded Monk’s compositions. Monk’s compositions are some of the most commonly performed jazz standards today. Giddins and DeVeaux (2009) argue that Monk’s compositions are the second most frequently performed standards written by any one composer in jazz today, after those of pianist and big-band leader Duke Ellington.

Disorders relating to use of PCP and hallucinogens

2012 ◽  
pp. 486-490
Author(s):  
Henry David Abraham
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Experimentation ◽  
Physiological Effects ◽  
Single Class ◽  
Hallucinogenic Drugs ◽  
Organic Mental Disorder ◽  
The 1960S

Phencyclidine (PCP, ‘angel dust’) is an arylcyclohexylamine dissociative anaesthetic. It was first abused in the United States in New York and San Francisco in the 1960s, but abuse declined when a broad range of adverse complications was noted. Agents that alter perception and mood without disorientation typify hallucinogenic drugs. They have been known and used for millennia for purposes ranging from magical to medical. Hallucinogenic drugs comprise not so much a single class of compounds, but a multiple classes affecting different neuronal receptors. This chapter looks at the epidemiology, acute physiological effects, and adverse effects of both PCP and hallucinogens. it also covers PCP delirium, PCP-induced psychotic disorder, PCP abuse, dependence, and organic mental disorder, and finally human experimentation with hallucinogens.

Women in journalism: Margaret Jones, gender discrimination and the Sydney Morning Herald, 1965–1985

2016 ◽  
Vol 161 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willa McDonald
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
The Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Foreign Correspondent ◽  
The 1960S

Margaret Jones (1923–2006) was a trailblazer for women in Australian journalism. A member of the press for more than 30 years, she assumed senior positions at the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) from the 1960s, earning a reputation in the process as an exceptional print journalist. From the beginning, Jones was noted for challenging head-on the sexism she encountered in the media industry. She became foreign correspondent for the SMH in New York, Washington, London and Beijing, helping to carve out roles for women in serious mainstream journalism. This article traces Margaret Jones’ career as reporter and feature writer with the publishing house Fairfax, as a contribution to Australian feminist cultural history and the history of women in newspaper journalism.

Biracial Coalition Politics in Los Angeles

1986 ◽  
Vol 19 (03) ◽  
pp. 582-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphe Sonenshein
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Relative Size ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Racial Polarization ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Joint Membership

In their 1984 bookProtest Is Not EnoughBrowning, Marshall, and Tabb suggest that biracial coalitions are powerful vehicles for achieving minority incorporation in the political life of cities. They argue that black electoral mobilization and subsequent incorporation depend on both the relative size of the black community and white support. Similarly, Hispanic incorporation is a function not only of the percentage of Hispanics in the population but also joint membership with blacks in a liberal coalition (pp. 245–246).Their optimistic view of biracial and multiracial coalitions contrasts strikingly with the more common pessimism about cross-racial politics. Racial polarization in such major cities as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia (as well as in a number of medium and smaller-sized cities) has fed the belief that the black protests and white backlash of the 1960s have doomed biracial politics.Protest Is Not Enoughfocuses on ten small and medium-sized Northern California cities. The largest, San Francisco, is the 16th most populous city in the U.S. But biracial coalition politics has been most advanced in Berkeley, a city of only 103,328 in 1980. Thus the book's argument is vulnerable to the challenge that full-blown biracial politics worked only in a rather small, unusual city and otherwise had a significant impact in cities of only moderate size in the traditionally liberal Bay Area.

Hollywood

Los Romeros ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 94-114
Author(s):  
Walter Aaron Clark
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Military Service ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The U.S

The Romeros moved to Hollywood in 1958, where they established a studio for teaching guitar. Starting in 1960, the quartet performed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, and was making recordings on the Contemporary and Mercury labels. The guitar had become the dominant instrument of that period, and there was a ready market for a quartet of Spaniards playing classical and flamenco favorites. They were soon touring throughout the U.S., in cities large and small. The highlight of the 1960s was their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, in 1967, a decade after their arrival in California and the year in which they became U.S. citizens. This was also the year in which they premiered Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto andaluz, written for the quartet. Pepe and Angel were deemed unsuited for military service and not drafted.

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