New Orleans: Creolization and All That Jazz

Ralph Ellison once wrote that the rules of performance in American culture are jazz-shaped. This book explores the Afro-Creole core culture of New Orleans as the mainspring of this energizing music.Much of the cultural capital of the city is buried in a complex, tripartite racial history, which threatens the binary logic of North American racism with all sorts of sensual transgressions. Its jazz-derived culture combines elements of African, French, Spanish, and Anglo-American cultural practices which, in their fusion, have created a unique propulsive energy: second line parades, jazz funerals, Mardi Gras Indians, Cajun and Creole foodways, minstrelsy, dance, ragtime, and jazz.Photographs by Michael P. Smith, Historic New Orleans Collection are included in this work.