Blowin' the Blues Away. Travis A. Jackson

      Acknowledgments

      Although the cover and title page indicate that this book has one author, it is in fact the result of a wide-ranging series of relationships—with musicians, colleagues, friends, and family—spanning a life, several cities, and three academic institutions. Indeed, the number of intellectual and spiritual gifts I have received over that time and in those places has left me with an obligation to reciprocate that I will fulfill gladly, though many of my return gifts, sadly, will be prestations to the universe rather than to those who shared with me their time and their perspectives, who let me into their worlds, and who gave me their support.

      In particular, it saddens me that neither Mark Tucker, one of my stalwart supporters during my time at Columbia University and afterward, nor James Williams, who saw potential in my work and opened doors for his fellow Tennessean, lived to see this book published. Both of them, prematurely felled by cancer, were the kinds of people, as the cliché goes, one doesn’t meet every day. Eminently skilled and widely esteemed in their respective fields, they both exhibited a capacious humanity, trying always to make the world a better place for those around them. I doubt that any of this book’s merits would be what they are without their profound influence.

      Equally important are the musicians who, in sometimes only fleeting conversations, made observations or shared insights that turned my head just enough to make me see things in fresh and productive ways. I mention most of them by name throughout this book, listing them prominently in chapters 2 and 4. Bruce Barth, Peter Bernstein, Antonio Hart, Sam Newsome, Leon Parker, and Steve Wilson were especially helpful. They invited me into their homes and to their recording sessions and their gigs, even after my fieldwork was done. Like James Williams, they had little to nothing to gain from me, but they offered me nearly everything via their candid, thoughtful responses and their friendship. To this day, seeing them perform on my returns to New York City or when they are touring as leaders or sidemen remains a revelatory delight for me.

      In addition to the musicians, my scholarly interlocutors have contributed immensely to the style and substance of this book. At the University of Michigan I had the pleasure of sharing ideas about music making and scholarship with a broad range of individuals affiliated with the School of Music, the American Culture Program, the Atlantic Studies Initiative, and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. In particular, the research support provided by former dean of the School of Music, Paul Boylan, and by senior vice-provost for Academic Affairs, Lester P. Monts, was crucial in this project’s early stages. My colleagues in Music History and Musicology, the School of Music, and the Music in the United States of America project office—including Naomi André, Gregory Barnett, Judith Becker, James Borders, Evan Chambers, Mark Clague, David Crawford, Hugh de Ferranti, Joseph Lam, Beth Levy, Stefano Mengozzi, Marcello Piras, Gillian Rodger, Louise Stein, Amy Stillman, Steven M. Whiting, and Roland John Wiley—provided as nurturing an environment as any junior professor might have desired. Likewise, my conversations with varied performance faculty—Gerald Cleaver, Ellen Rowe, Ed Sarath, and the late Donald Walden—helped to keep me anchored in the particulars of music making even as I made my way, again, through the broad and varied literature on jazz, improvisation, and American culture. I am also grateful to the Julie and Parker Hall Endowment for Jazz and American Popular Music at the University of Chicago, whose support made it possible for me to use Jack Vartoogian’s photograph of Steve Wilson on this book’s cover. Beyond there, Paul A. Anderson, Santiago Colás, Frances Aparicio, Kevin Gaines, Frank Gunderson, Sandra Gunning, Martha S. Jones, Marlon Ross, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Lucia M. Suárez, and Penny M. Von Eschen were among my favorite interlocutors in the broader university community. A number of people who were graduate students during those years have also contributed significantly to this work. Among them are Tamar Barzel, John Behling, Kate Brucher, Charles Gentry, Mark Kirschenmann, Caroline Kovtun, LaTissia Mitchell, Shani Mott, Michal Rahfaldt, Matthew Shippee, Wilson Valentín-Escobar, and Carla Vecchiola. I am particularly indebted to Ryan Snyder Ananat and Stephanie Heriger, whose research assistance in two critical periods freed me to concentrate on writing.

      Still, my experience at Michigan owed its particular luster to the polish provided by three special colleagues. Richard Crawford, who also served as Mark Tucker’s mentor, warmly welcomed me from the beginning of my campus visit in 1997. His sage guidance and his unflappable (and sometimes unflattering) humor were a constant during my time in Ann Arbor and have continued since my departure in 2003. He was the person who introduced me to Samuel A. Floyd Jr. and set me on the path to publishing this book in the Music of the African Diaspora series. Even more, it is through Crawford’s influence as well as Tucker’s that I learned about the constant work that good writing requires. I’m still trying to emulate his example, but he’s pushed me farther than I thought I could go. Albin J. Zak III

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