Research Catalog
The Mahalia Jackson reader
- Title
- The Mahalia Jackson reader / edited by Mark Burford.
- Publication
- New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]
- ©2020
Items in the Library & Off-site
Filter by
2 Items
Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JNE 20-128 | Performing Arts Research Collections - Music |
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | Sc E 21-750 | Schomburg Center - Research & Reference |
Details
- Additional Authors
- Burford, Mark, 1967-
- Description
- xii, 458 pages : illustrations; 25 cm.
- Summary
- ""African American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson was just sixty years old when her heart finally gave out on January 27, 1972, as she lay alone in her sick bed at Little Company of Mary Hospital just south of Chicago. Obituaries faithfully recounted the best-known story lines of her unlikely career: how the power of her voice was rooted in her devout Baptist upbringing; her birth in 1911 and rise from dire poverty in Uptown New Orleans to international celebrity; a dedication to the black freedom struggle that further elevated her to the status of cultural and political symbol. Together, Jackson's voice, faith, prestige, and activism, made her at the time of her death, in the assessment of her friend Harry Belafonte, "the single most powerful black woman in the United States." Yet her reputation is also complex. Invoking the charisma of Martin and Malcolm, the persuasion of statesmen and despots, and the splendor of divas and diadems, Maceo Bowie's letter to the editor of the Chicago Defender seems to both celebrate and grapple with the substance of Jackson dynamism as a gospel singer and her consequence as an illustrious black public figure. In an editorial in the Defender following Jackson's death, E. Duke McNeil acknowledged Jackson's habitual acclaim as the "Queen of the gospel singers," while also observing: "You can almost say that Mahalia was the 'greatest' because she was the only gospel singer known everywhere." Indeed, for scholars of black gospel, the music itself is often hidden in plain sight. On the one hand, gospel voices are inescapable, audible not just within the music industry, where they have become a lingua franca for pop singers, but also in recurring representations of the black church, in the omnipresent sound of the black gospel choir, and in the personal histories of many black artists. On the other, in comparison with such genres as jazz, blues, country music, and hip hop, documentation of black gospel music, which has thrived in in-group settings, is relatively scant, leaving researchers with limited sources and largely reliant on oral history. Fortunately, the scope and coverage of Jackson's caereer produced a paper trail that enables us to study her personal and professional life while gaining insight into the black gospel field of which she was such an integral part. In compiling a wide swath of these sources on Jackson, The Mahalia Jackson Reader seeks to paint a fuller and more vivid picture of one of the most resonant musical figures of the second half of the twentieth century. This volume offers a wealth of biographical detail about Jackson, though it also reveals that Jackson was many things to many people. This is reflected in the book's organization by topic and type of writing, though, as often as possible, Jackson's own voice joins the dialogue, offering her side of the story. Jackson always identified as a child of New Orleans and the documents in Part I convey her recognition of the singularity of that city and of her legacy as the grandaughter of enslaved and emancipated African Americans. Stories about Jackson's upbringing are recounted by the esteemed critics and commentators in Part II, though these writers also ruminate upon the essence of her artistry, her relationship to jazz, her significance as an African American woman in the public eye, and the ways in which she became an increasingly complicated crossover figure as her visibility grew beyond the bounds of the black church. Newspaper coverage in Part III offers "hot takes" on Jackson's appearances, the pop-cultural cachet of postwar gospel singing, and the singer's transatlantic reception. Already in the 1950s, though even more in subsequent decades, it is evident that beyond being an exemplar of gospel singing, Jackson was read through various investments in the sociopolitical significance of black expressive culture. In 1931, Jackson moved from New Orleans to Chicago where she became immediately immersed in a burgeoning modern gospel movement. The testimony of Jackson and her associates in Part IV are more personal and allow us to understand her less as an exceptional individual than as a musical colleague and as a member of a black South Side community. Yet another perspective on Jackson emerges from the writing directed toward a scholarly audience in Part V, which seeks to contextualize the singer historically and offer enterprising interpretive claims"--
- Series Statement
- Readers on American musicians
- Uniform Title
- Readers on American musicians.
- Subjects
- African American gospel singers
- Gospel singers
- Gospel music
- African American gospel singers > United States > Biography
- Gospel singers > United States > Biography
- African Americans > Music > History and criticism
- Jackson, Mahalia, 1911-1972
- Gospel music > History and criticism
- United States
- Biographies
- Criticism, interpretation, etc
- Genre/Form
- Biographies.
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Louisiana roots -- Commentary, conversation, and critical appraisal -- Press coverage -- Mahalia Jackson and her circle in their own words -- Scholarly literature -- Live performance -- The record business -- Radio, television, and film -- Bill Russell's Mahalia Jackson journal -- Politics, activism, and entrepreneurship -- Poetry.
- Call Number
- Sc E 21-750
- ISBN
- 9780190461652
- 0190461659
- 9780190461676 (canceled/invalid)
- 0190461675 (canceled/invalid)
- 9780190461669 (canceled/invalid)
- 0190461667 (canceled/invalid)
- LCCN
- 2019038537
- OCLC
- 1119065525
- Title
- The Mahalia Jackson reader / edited by Mark Burford.
- Publisher
- New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]
- Copyright Date
- ©2020
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- Readers on American musiciansReaders on American musicians.
- Local Note
- Schomburg copy with dust jacket.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Local Note
- ED: REED COLLEGE.
- Added Author
- Burford, Mark, 1967- editor.
- Other Form:
- Online version: The Mahalia Jackson reader New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. 9780190461676 (DLC) 2019038538
- Research Call Number
- Sc E 21-750JNE 20-128