New Book Examines Jewish Identity and Jazz Music
Presents first comprehensive analysis of how jazz has been used to explore Jewish experienceJazz history includes numerous contributions from Jewish artists, from Benny Goodman to John Zorn, who have played a major role in the development of the music from its birth in New Orleans to the present day. However, there has been little examination of why so many Jewish musicians gravitated to jazz or how they used the music to explore Jewish identity and experience. Jews and Jazz: Improvising Ethnicity, a new book by Charles Hersch, chair of the Department of Political Science at Cleveland