{"product_id":"9781587294051","title":"Jazz Country: Ralph Ellison in America","description":"Horace Porter is the chair of African American World Studies and professor of English at the University of Iowa. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eStealing Fire: The Art and Protest of James Baldwin\u003c\/i\u003e and one of the editors of \u003ci\u003eCall and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition.\u003c\/i\u003e The first book to reassess Ralph Ellison after his death and the posthumous publication of\u003ci\u003eJuneteenth,\u003c\/i\u003e his second novel, \u003ci\u003eJazz Country: Ralph Ellison in America\u003c\/i\u003e explores Ellison's writings and views on American culture through the lens of jazz music. Horace Porter's groundbreaking study addresses Ellison's jazz background, including his essays and comments about jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker. Porter further examines the influences of Ellington and Armstrong as sources of the writer's personal and artistic inspiration and highlights the significance of Ellison's camaraderie with two African American friends and fellow jazz fans—the writer Albert Murray and the painter Romare Bearden. Most notably, \u003ci\u003eJazz Country\u003c\/i\u003e demonstrates how Ellison appropriated jazz techniques in his two novels, \u003ci\u003eInvisible Man\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eJuneteenth.\u003c\/i\u003e Using jazz as the key metaphor, Porter refocuses old interpretations of Ellison by placing jazz in the foreground and by emphasizing, especially as revealed in his essays, the power of Ellison's thought and cultural perception. The self-proclaimed “custodian of American culture,” Ellison offers a vision of “jazz-shaped” America—a world of improvisation, individualism, and infinite possibility.","brand":"University of Iowa Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47137876410608,"sku":"9781587294051","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781587294051_p0.jpg?v=1763799206","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781587294051","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}