Dreams in Double Time: On Race, Freedom, and Bebop

In Dreams in Double Time Jonathan Leal examines how the musical revolution of bebop opened up new futures for racialized and minoritized communities. Blending lyrical nonfiction with transdisciplinary critique and moving beyond standard Black/white binary narratives of jazz history, Leal focuses on the stories and experiences of three musicians and writers of color: James Araki, a Nisei multi-instrumentalist, soldier-translator, and literature and folklore scholar; Raúl Salinas, a Chicano poet, jazz critic, and longtime activist who endured the US carceral system for over a decade; and Harold Wing, an Afro-Chinese American drummer, pianist, and songwriter who performed with bebop pioneers before working as a public servant. Leal foregrounds that for these men and their collaborators, bebop was an affectively and intellectually powerful force that helped them build community and dream new social possibilities. Bebop's complexity and radicality, Leal contends, made it possible for those like Araki, Salinas, and Wing who grappled daily with state-sanctioned violence to challenge a racially supremacist, imperial nation, all while hearing and making the world anew.

Author: Jonathan Leal
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 08/08/2023
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.12lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.63d
ISBN13: 9781478019985
ISBN10: 1478019980
BISAC Categories:
- Music | Genres & Styles | Jazz
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | African American & Black Studies

About the Author
Jonathan Leal is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern California and coeditor of Cybermedia: Explorations in Science, Sound, and Vision.