"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
You can listen to the playlist here.
While jazz is not central to the narrative of Rules of Civility, the music and its various formulations are an important component of the book’s backdrop.
On the night of January 16, 1938, Benny Goodman assembled a bi-racial orchestra to play jazz to a sold-out Carnegie Hall--the first jazz performance in the hallowed hall and one which is now famous for bringing jazz (and black performers) to a wider audience. I am not a jazz historian, but for me the concert marks something of a turning point in jazz itself--from the big-band, swing-era sound that dominated the 1930s (and which the orchestra emphasized on stage that night) towards the more introspective, smaller group styles that would soon spawn bebop and its smoky aftereffects (ultimately reaching an apogee with Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue in 1957). For it is also in 1938 that Coleman Hawkins recorded the bebop antecedent "Body & Soul" and Minton’s Playhouse, one of the key bebop gathering spots, opened in Harlem. By 1939, Blue Note Records was recording, and Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk were all congregating in New York City. From 1935-1939, Goodman himself was stepping out of the big-band limelight to make more intimate improvisational recordings with a quartet including Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton.
My assertion of this as a turning point (like most such assertions) is rough, inexact and misleading, but it helps give shape to an evolution and bring into relief two ends of a jazz spectrum. On the big-band front, the power of the music naturally springs from the collective and orchestration. In numbers like "Sing, Sing, Sing," the carefully layered, precisely timed waning and waxing of rhythm and instrumentation towards moments of unified musical ecstasy simply demand that the audience collaborate through dance, cheers, and other outward expressions of joy. While in the smaller groups of bebop and beyond, the expressive power springs more from the soloist and his personal exploration of the music, his instrument, and his emotional state at that precise moment in time. This inevitably inspires in the listener a cigarette, a scotch, and a little more introspection. In a sense, the two ends of this jazz spectrum are like the public/private paradox of Walker Evans’s subway photographs (and of life in the metropolis itself.)
If you are interested, I have created an playlist of music from roughly 1935-1945 that spans this transition. The playlist is not meant to be comprehensive or exact. Among other items, it includes swinging live performances from Goodman’s Carnegie Hall Concert as well as examples of his smaller group work; there are precursors to bebop like Coleman Hawkins and some early Charlie Parker. As a strange historical footnote, there was a strike in 1942–1944 by the American Federation of Musicians, during which no official recordings were made. As such, this period at the onset of bebop was virtually undocumented and thus the records of 1945 reflect something of a culmination of early bebop rather than its starting point. The playlist also reflects the influence of the great American songbook giants (Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Hart, the Gershwins), many of whom were at the height of their powers in the 1930s. --Amor Towles
Listen to the playlist
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. In a jazz bar on the last night of 1937, watching a quartet because she couldn't afford to see the whole ensemble, there were certain things Katey Kontent knew:- The location of every old church in Manhattan- How to sneak into the cinema- How to type eighty words a minute, five thousand an hour, and nine million a year- and that if you can still lose yourself in the first chapter of a Dickens novel then everything is probably going to be fine.By the end of the year she'd learned:- How to launch a paper airplane high over Park Avenue- How to live like a redhead- How to insist upon the very best- That the word 'yes' can be a poison- and the Rules of Civility.That's how quickly New York City comes about - like a weathervane - or the head of a cobra. Time tells which. For fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, this a witty, elegant fairytale of New York, set in 1938. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781444708875
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9781444708875
Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. The first novel by the author of The Gentleman of Moscow, Rules of Civility is a witty, elegant fairytale of late 30's New York for fans of Breakfast at Tiffany's and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Seller Inventory # B9781444708875
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. In stock ready to dispatch from the UK. Seller Inventory # mon0000278110
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Book Description Softcover. Condition: New. In a jazz bar on the last night of 1937, watching a quartet because she couldn't afford to see the whole ensemble, there were certain things Katey Kontent knew. By the end of the year she'd learned - how to launch a paper airplane high over Park Avenue, how to live like a redhead, and how to insist upon the very best. Seller Inventory # DADAX1444708872
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 368 pages. 7.76x5.12x0.98 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __1444708872