Jazz Diasporas: Race, Music, and Migration in Post-World War II Paris

The author discusses the performance of authenticity and its limiting effects on both American and French musicians-a barrier that is challenged through the collaborative nature of jazz, which provides a sonic and physical space to negotiate sound, identity, and meaning. The author addresses, examines, and extends this theme while introducing the reader to the multiple meanings embedded in jazz performance and consumption and the overarching questions of ownership, authenticity, and musical meaning-issues and questions that go beyond the scope of this book. Jazz Diasporas not only provides a wonderful set of case studies situated within post-WWII Paris, but the author's discussion of authenticity, community, collaboration, meaning, and performance manifested through jazz diasporas also provides a theoretical framework for exploring ever-changing and always-moving sounds and the communities that compose, perform, and consume them.