Black Music, White Business by Frank Reviewed by Paul Hubert THE LATE Frank Kofsky offers in this book to Illuminate the mistory and political cconomy of jazz'. With its companion volume John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution, it springs from an attempt to revise and update tion in Music, which Pathfinder also published, in 1970.
Like the carlier book, the central tacsis is coy cical: 12k IS principally an African-American art arising from black culture and experience. The main innochanges in the music are not simply the product of individual brilliance but rooted in fundamental changes in the culture and experience of black Americans.
The mainly black jazz innovators have been both exploited and oppressed by the white business executives and capitalists.
Those who have read the carlier book will perhaps remember what to expect. It is helpful to have this argument boldly stated, and there is much here which is Stimulating However now we begin to confront problems.
Kofsky's focus is overwhelmingly American. This is perhaps not surprising in a book on jazz jazz has become more globalised in the past 30 years, and he does not reflect this.
There are a few mentions for non-American and non-1277 musicians, but the musical frame of reference is US jazz through to the Sous in a more narrow Another problem of the past 30 years is that the boundaries of 1372 have become harder to make out. This is significant not least. because it has been a matter of dispute between leading black American players such as Wynton Marsalis and Wester Bowse.
Neo-classical
Marsalis has been a Icading 'neo-classicist, not only playing classical trumpet concertos but also counterposing classic styles or jazz from tac past to avant-garde experimentation. Bowie, with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and other groups, has played music by Hendrix, collab. orated with soul musicians and African drummers and looked for other ways to develop the music.
However Kofsky's main interest was not to account for these developments using Marxist method but to settle scores with white critics and business fig: ures. The readability of the book depends on the reader's willingness to watch him sally forth against such former doyens of US jazz criticism as Leonard Feather, Nat Hentoff and, in particular, Martin Williams. of "friends of jazz' in the record business who made a career and a fortune out of ensuring that black artists were not rewarded for their artistry. A large part of his first chapter relays details of John Hammond's role in signing both Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday to no-royalty deals with Columbia.
Some of the most interesting material in the book is documentation of equally squalid business dealings in the 1970s. However this is not particular to jazz, although Kofsky takes the view that there is something special about the abuse of it.
Some of this is interesting, and undouorcury ac scores somic tits on his targets. He quotes Martin Williams saying, after declaring his 'belief in the equality of men', that "Negroes as a race have a rhythmic genius that is not like that of other races".
However he goes from this to argue that Williams' method justifies white domination of the monopoly record companics and that Williams consciously gave his approval to an order in which black people should know their place. Williams is in no place to respond, being dead.
Marxism
Kofsky's most interesting promise for readers of this newspaper is to use Marxism to analyse his subject. In his first chapter he introduces the concepts of "Alienation, 'Underemployment and contempt, *Powerlessness and qualitatively heightened exploitation, and "Idcological mystification' as necessary to reveal the history and political economy of jazz. They are used in structuring the book - but most strikingly in the chapter headings. His most extended explanation of the Marxist method is as a response to Williams' dismissal of Marxism. He makes a rather forced effort to apply dialectical materialism to John Coltrane's stvlistic developments, as material illustration of propositions such as "Changes in quantity beyond a certain point must produce correspond. ing changes in quality". This exposition is unconvincing not least because it is compressed into two pages, before returning to sniping at Williams. It is only in the last chapter, consisting of just 13 pages, that Kofsky really sets aside his arguments with other critics and attempts to put forward an analysis of the 'Afro-American Folk Roots in Innovation• It would have improved this book immeasurably if he had started from this point and attempted to formulate something new, rather than rehashing his own previous work. Unfortunately even here there are moments where he assumes • tac very points he needs to establish to build his argument. For the reader interested in these questions there is much here which is stimulating and informative, However any reader is likely to find much that is Me orient book was of it The original book was of its time, and particularly reflected arguments about black national. ism and the then politics of the us octalist workers farty. This time the material conditions are reflected in the weary scrapping with figures of the past, failure to connect with more recent developments and the paler version of the politics which moved its predecessor. The latter is still apparently available on import - if you want a version of this argument, why not have the one with the vitality?
Defend Public
by a US-based writer. However Outlook