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Acknowledgments

Although the cover and title page indicate that this book has one author, it is in fact the result of a wide-ranging series of relationships—with musicians, colleagues, friends, and family—spanning a life, several cities, and three academic institutions. Indeed, the number of intellectual and spiritual gifts I have received over that time and in those places has left me with an obligation to reciprocate that I will fulfill gladly, though many of my return gifts, sadly, will be prestations to the universe rather than to those who shared with me their time and their perspectives, who let me into their worlds, and who gave me their support.

In particular, it saddens me that neither Mark Tucker, one of my stalwart supporters during my time at Columbia University and afterward, nor James Williams, who saw potential in my work and opened doors for his fellow Tennessean, lived to see this book published. Both of them, prematurely felled by cancer, were the kinds of people, as the cliché goes, one doesn’t meet every day. Eminently skilled and widely esteemed in their respective fields, they both exhibited a capacious humanity, trying always to make the world a better place for those around them. I doubt that any of this book’s merits would be what they are without their profound influence.

Equally important are the musicians who, in sometimes only fleeting conversations, made observations or shared insights that turned my head just enough to make me see things in fresh and productive ways. I mention most of them by name throughout this book, listing them prominently in chapters 2 and 4. Bruce Barth, Peter Bernstein, Antonio Hart, Sam Newsome, Leon Parker, and Steve Wilson were especially helpful. They invited me into their homes and to their recording sessions and their gigs, even after my fieldwork was done. Like James Williams, they had little to nothing to gain from me, but they offered me nearly everything via their candid, thoughtful responses and their friendship. To this day, seeing them perform on my returns to New York City or when they are touring as leaders or sidemen remains a revelatory delight for me.

In addition to the musicians, my scholarly interlocutors have contributed immensely to the style and substance of this book. At the University of Michigan I had the pleasure of sharing ideas about music making and scholarship with a broad range of individuals affiliated with the School of Music, the American Culture Program, the Atlantic Studies Initiative, and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. In particular, the research support provided by former dean of the School of Music, Paul Boylan, and by senior vice-provost for Academic Affairs, Lester P. Monts, was crucial in this project’s early stages. My colleagues in Music History and Musicology, the School of Music, and the Music in the United States of America project office—including Naomi André, Gregory Barnett, Judith Becker, James Borders, Evan Chambers, Mark Clague, David Crawford, Hugh de Ferranti, Joseph Lam, Beth Levy, Stefano Mengozzi, Marcello Piras, Gillian Rodger, Louise Stein, Amy Stillman, Steven M. Whiting, and Roland John Wiley—provided as nurturing an environment as any junior professor might have desired. Likewise, my conversations with varied performance faculty—Gerald Cleaver, Ellen Rowe, Ed Sarath, and the late Donald Walden—helped to keep me anchored in the particulars of music making even as I made my way, again, through the broad and varied literature on jazz, improvisation, and American culture. I am also grateful to the Julie and Parker Hall Endowment for Jazz and American Popular Music at the University of Chicago, whose support made it possible for me to use Jack Vartoogian’s photograph of Steve Wilson on this book’s cover. Beyond there, Paul A. Anderson, Santiago Colás, Frances Aparicio, Kevin Gaines, Frank Gunderson, Sandra Gunning, Martha S. Jones, Marlon Ross, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Lucia M. Suárez, and Penny M. Von Eschen were among my favorite interlocutors in the broader university community. A number of people who were graduate students during those years have also contributed significantly to this work. Among them are Tamar Barzel, John Behling, Kate Brucher, Charles Gentry, Mark Kirschenmann, Caroline Kovtun, LaTissia Mitchell, Shani Mott, Michal Rahfaldt, Matthew Shippee, Wilson Valentín-Escobar, and Carla Vecchiola. I am particularly indebted to Ryan Snyder Ananat and Stephanie Heriger, whose research assistance in two critical periods freed me to concentrate on writing.

Still, my experience at Michigan owed its particular luster to the polish provided by three special colleagues. Richard Crawford, who also served as Mark Tucker’s mentor, warmly welcomed me from the beginning of my campus visit in 1997. His sage guidance and his unflappable (and sometimes unflattering) humor were a constant during my time in Ann Arbor and have continued since my departure in 2003. He was the person who introduced me to Samuel A. Floyd Jr. and set me on the path to publishing this book in the Music of the African Diaspora series. Even more, it is through Crawford’s influence as well as Tucker’s that I learned about the constant work that good writing requires. I’m still trying to emulate his example, but he’s pushed me farther than I thought I could go. Albin J. Zak III and Erik Santos were (and remain) the best friends and colleagues I could have hoped for. Through countless dinners, drinks, impromptu jams, discussions of recordings, late-night listening sessions, and reading suggestions (as well as through performances with other members of the short-lived Ann Arbor Noise Collective), they made life seem like an endlessly gratifying voyage of discovery. I feel privileged to have been able to share so much with and learn so much from them. Many of the same observations are true of their wives, Victoria von Arx and Toko Shiiki-Santos, respectively. Their collective friendship is one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.

At the University of Chicago, my home since 2003, I have had an unparalleled interdisciplinary and collegial experience. In particular, my contact with faculty and staff across the university, some of whom have now taken positions elsewhere, has been both invigorating and positively challenging. Although I am certain to omit some people inadvertently, I have particularly grown through my association with (from the music department) Melvin L. Butler, Thomas Christensen, Martha Feldman, Philip Gossett, Berthold Hoeckner, Robert L. Kendrick, Kaley R. Mason, Marta Ptaszynska, Steven P. Rings, Anne Robertson, and Lawrence W. Zbikowski (with special thanks to Kathy Holmes) and (from the university more broadly) Lauren Berlant, Bill Brown, James Chandler, Cathy Cohen, Nicole M. Guidotti-Hernández, Deborah L. Gillaspie, Robert von Hallberg, Melissa Harris-Perry, Elise M. LaRose, Waldo Johnson, Scott Landvatter, David Levin, and Jacqueline Stewart. Among those whom I first encountered as graduate students, Nathan Bakkum, Vicki Brennan, Eric Brinkmann, M. Celia Cain, Sinan Dora, Byron Dueck, Luis-Manuel Garcia, Donald James, Jaime Jones, Kristen McGee, Kevin McKenna, Andrew Mall, Marina Peterson, Rumya Putcha, Melissa Reilly, Peter Shultz, Greg Weinstein, and Mark Yeary have been invaluable conversation partners and good friends. In my time at Chicago, though, Philip V. Bohlman and Martin Stokes (now at King’s College London) were my greatest sources of inspiration, both because of the breadth and depth of their intellects and because of their unfailing generosity of spirit. For good reason, they remain exemplars of what ethnomusicologists are and can do as scholars and human beings.

My ten-year-plus association with the Jazz Study Group at Columbia University also widened my horizons and expanded my acquaintance with some of the leading scholars working today. Spearheaded in its first incarnation by Robert G. O’Meally, to this day one of my most cherished mentors, the group was a place where I first tried out some of the ideas presented here and garnered feedback that helped me to hone them further. The group’s scholars and staff over the years have my undying gratitude. They include Herman Beavers, Gerald Early, Brent Hayes Edwards, Krin Gabbard, John Gennari, Farah Jasmine Griffin, William J. Harris, Robin D. G. Kelley, Sue Laizik, George E. Lewis, Bill Lowe, Timothy R. Mangin, Ingrid Monson, Fred Moten, Richard J. Powell, Guthrie P. Ramsey, David Lionel Smith, John F. Szwed, Jeffrey Taylor, Salim Washington, and many others. The varied fruit of the group’s work is on display in two volumes: The Jazz Cadence of American Culture (1995), edited by O’Meally and curated by the group, and Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (O’Meally, Edwards, and Griffin 2004), featuring contributions from the group and its affiliates. I would be remiss in not extending warm thanks to James C. “J. C.” Sylvan, whose administrative expertise and wry humor helped to make the time I spent at Columbia’s Center for Jazz Studies in 2000 and 2001 all the more rewarding. That sabbatical year was funded in part by a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

In the much broader worlds of academia and the jazz scene, I have been enriched by my experiences with Paul Austerlitz, Gage Averill, Amy Bauer, Mellonee V. Burnim, Aaron Cohen, Scott DeVeaux, Kate Dumbleton, Daniel Ferguson, Kai Fikentscher, Aaron A. Fox, Alyssa Garcia, Melissa Gonzalez, Jocelyne Guilbault, Harold J. Haskins, Cheryl L. Keyes, Donna L. Kwon, Ferentz Lafargue, Steven Mamula, Portia K. Maultsby, Robin D. Moore, Zachary Ross Morgan, Michelle Nasser, Katherine S. Newman, Danielle Pacha, Steven F. Pond, Lewis Porter, Michelle Smith-Bermiss, Gabriel Solis, Nicole Stahlmann, George L. Starks Jr., Maurice Stevens, Michael E. Veal, Bonnie L. Wade, Richard Wang, Jeremy Wallach, Christopher J. Washburne, Christopher A. Waterman, Peter Watrous, and Cynthia P. Wong-Lippe. A stellar group of friends dating back three decades, especially Charles B. Adams, Jennifer Clary, Jeffrey Fracé, Adam Glaser, Beverly James, Stephen Lapointe, Carmen Maldonado, Jerusha Ramos, Roberto B. Vargas, and Paula Young, has also provided loving moral support through the years.

More so than most projects, this book has had a long development. It was delayed at some points by my unwillingness to declare it done and at others by the disciplinary disagreements that various drafts have occasioned. Some of the arguments contained herein will likely engender further disagreement and commentary, but both are welcome and, in fact, necessary. Through the whole process, Mary C. Francis has been a perceptive and accommodating editor. Taking over from Lynne Withey shortly after I signed my contract, she has guided this project through sometimes difficult straits with grace and seemingly endless patience. Eric Schmidt, Sharron Wood, and Mari Coates likewise have helped me work through the most intricate issues in the production process with skill and aplomb.

Miriam Tripaldi came into my life late in my work on this project, and she has quickly become a loving supporter and a true partner, making my life fulfilling and the work of finishing this book enjoyable in ways I never could have imagined: I owe her debts a lifetime will be too short to repay. But I look forward to that lifetime.

Most importantly, however, my extended family, centered in Nashville, Tennessee, has kept me going. In a world where many increasingly delay marriage and child rearing, having the opportunity to know one’s great-grandparents or even grandparents past one’s early years is a privilege. Because I was lucky on both counts, my great-grandparents in rural Tennessee and rural Louisiana, present mostly in memory over the last few decades, are a constant reminder of what struggle, strategic planning and creative improvisation can mean beyond the individual life. My grandparents, and especially my grandfathers, have been exemplars, people who taught me more about being in and hearing the world than I ever realized it was possible to know. On a more day-to-day level, my siblings, Lawrence Jackson Jr. and Melody Morris, as well as their children have always been only a phone call away and ready to remind me both that I am loved and do love and that there is a world beyond work. In the same way, my parents, Lawrence Sr. and the late Sherryl L. Jackson, were ever-interested, ever-supportive, ever-loving, even when the child who always wanted to be a pediatrician suddenly declared an interest in some strange thing called ethnomusicology. Without them nothing you read here would have been possible. The faults in this book are all mine, but any celebration or congratulations should be all theirs.