Such Melodious Racket: The Lost History of Jazz in Canada, 1914-1949

Such Melodious Racket traces, for the first time, the introduction, dissemination and early development of jazz in Canada. Beginning with the appearances in vaudeville of a pioneering New Orleans ensemble, the Creole Band, in 1914, and concluding with Oscar Peterson?s celebrated US debut at Carnegie Hall in 1949, the book documents the activities both of the Americans who brought this audacious new music to Canada? the legendary Jelly Roll Morton not least among them? and of the Canadians who soon took jazz for their own. This fascinating study is based on extensive archival research, as well as interviews with more than seventy musicians? many now in their seventies or eighties? and includes numerous rare and wonderful photographs.