Contenu du sommaire : Play it again, Sim…
| Revue |
Revue française d'études américaines  |
|---|---|
| Numéro | no 5, hors série, 2001 |
| Titre du numéro | Play it again, Sim… |
| Texte intégral en ligne | Accessible sur l'internet |
- Sim Copans
- Avant-Propos - Bernard Vincent p. 3-5
La voix de Sim
- « Play it again, Sim » : Sim Copans, ambassadeur de la musique américaine en France - Michel Oriano p. 6-15
- « Play it again, Sim » : Sim Copans, ambassadeur de la musique américaine en France - Michel Oriano p. 6-15
Sim's Voice
- “The Voice of America”: an Interview with Sim Copans, November 19, 1993 - Hilary Kaiser p. 16-27
- Un orage braille sur Los Angeles : racisme et invention musicale dans la Californie des années quarante - Denis-Constant Martin p. 28-37
In 1947, the blues singer and guitarist Aaron “T Bone” Walker recorded “Call It Stormy Monday.” That song became a great success and was subsequently taken up by many other performers. Its simple lyrics describe the humdrum week of an ordinary Black person, with the music creatively combining the main Afro-American rhythms of the 1930s and 1940s. The work is innovative because of this synthesis. It (indirectly) denounces the living conditions of Afro-Americans in California and depicts the disillusionment of those who dreamed of an affluent society free of racism. In this sense, it expresses, although through a different medium, the same feelings found in Chester Himes' early novels. “Call It Stormy Monday” convincingly exemplifies the use of the love metaphor in the rendering of social relations —a frequent occurrence in the popular songs of many countries. - Les limites de la réception savante du jazz en France : `ibLa Revue musicale`/ib, 1920-1939 - Nicole Fouché p. 38-52 All things considered, one may claim that, during the 1920s and 1930s, La Revue musicale, a serious (and very Parisian) musical publication became aware of the importance of jazz for the French musical elite (made up of connoisseurs, critics and musicians). Well-known professional musical critics —Henry Prunières, André Cœuroy, Arthur Hoerée, Hugues Panassié and others — expressed the view that jazz was indeed a new combination of music, rhythm and life, but they eventually failed in their effort to understand it because of certain cultural barriers : jazz and Negro cultural values, jazz and improvisation.
- “The Voice of America”: an Interview with Sim Copans, November 19, 1993 - Hilary Kaiser p. 16-27
Articles and Essays
- Subversive Reeducation? Jazz as a Liberating Force in Germany and Europe - Berndt Ostendorf p. 53-71
La musique afro-américaine est entrée en Europe en deux vagues successives : l'une au lendemain de la Première Guerre mondiale, l'autre après la Seconde. À chaque fois, l'accueil qui lui fut réservé se caractérisa par un mélange d'hostilité profonde et de plaisir intense. Le présent texte cherche à montrer que la musique née du jazz impliqua une rupture radicale par rapport aux règles de représentation et aux habitudes de réception propres à la culture musicale occidentale. Il ne s'agissait pas en l'occurrence d'un nouveau cas d'emprunt sélectif à telle forme existante ; on avait affaire à une mutation musicale paradigmatique (décrite par Ishmael Reed dans Mumbo Jumbo) – à un affrontement entre cultures musicales dissemblables, voire antithétiques, voué par la suite à avoir des répercussions considérables. Bien qu'issu des « bas-fonds », le jazz répondit plus aux prophéties culturelles sophistiquées du Futurisme ou aux attentes avant-gardistes du Modernisme que n'importe quel autre art traditionnel. Cette musique nouvelle se retrouva en phase avec le surréalisme, le primitivisme, le radicalisme démocratique, le multiculturalisme, le cosmopolitisme urbain. Elle promettait de moderniser, de libérer, de renouveler, de faire advenir une nouvelle façon d'être dans le monde – tout cela en même temps. Mais elle donna à ces aspirations modernistes hautement culturelles une tournure résolument vernaculaire, une sorte de camouflage culturel, qui accéléra la subversion « par le bas » des mœurs culturelles européennes.
- Subversive Reeducation? Jazz as a Liberating Force in Germany and Europe - Berndt Ostendorf p. 53-71
Articles et essais
- La réinterprétation du jazz : un phénomène de contre américanisation dans la France d'après-guerre (1945-1960) - Ludovic Tournès p. 72-83 The success of jazz in France in the 1950s resulted from both pro-American sentiment following the Liberation and, paradoxically, Cold War anti-Americanism, which was then in full swing. This ambivalence illustrates the complexity of certain acculturation-linked phenomena whereby the imported object is sometimes reinterpreted by the host country, the latter then transforming it into a symbol of resistance to the cultural invaders. Anthropologists have defined this process as “counter-acculturation.” The history of jazz in France can be looked at from such a viewpoint, since French acculturation of American jazz was marked by a specific form of intellectualization : After welcoming it as an object of admiration in the 1930s, the French used it during the Cold War to show the superiority of a dismantled Europe over a dominating America. This process will be referred to here as “counter-Americanization.”
- Le jazz : modernité, modernisme, identité - Éric Gonzalez p. 84-96 Since the 1910s, jazz has been the soundtrack of modernity. In view of the long and rich history of this art form, the aim of this paper is to study the connections between black musics, cultures and identities that critics such as LeRoi Jones, Ralph Ellison and Paul Gilroy have brought to light. Jazz musicians' multifaceted and plural status in particular provides an interesting synecdoche of the transatlantic transactions which have been the mainspring of western culture.
- Le jazz au rendez-vous du cinéma : des Hot Clubs à la Nouvelle Vague - Gilles Mouëllic p. 97-110 When one thinks about the relationship between jazz and cinema, only one film immediately comes to mind —Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1957). The collaboration between Louis Malle and Miles Davis in that movie marked the beginning of a brief love affair between film and Afro-American music. Long before jazzmen were acknowledged as real creators in the United States, a few French film directors showed remarkable audacity and clear-headedness : Miles Davis, John Lewis, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, one after the other, became film musicians. This encounter was the result of hard work : Jean Cocteau, as early as the 1920s, but above all Hugues Panassié and Charles Delaunay, a few years later, had committed themselves to promoting “true jazz,” in particular that of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. After Louis Delluc and his “cinéphilie,” Paris became the birthplace of another passion : jazzophilia. With the Liberation, young Parisians started celebrating jazz in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Jacques Becker's Rendez-vous de juillet, and some time later the movies directed by Roger Vadim and Louis Malle, evinced an unfailingly good taste regarding the music produced by black Americans. In a much less conspicuous way, the film directors of the “Nouvelle Vague” were in turn influenced by jazz : a new conception of music had nurtured, in a more underground way, a new approach to film making.
- La réinterprétation du jazz : un phénomène de contre américanisation dans la France d'après-guerre (1945-1960) - Ludovic Tournès p. 72-83
Le petit arpent de Sim
- Le petit arpent de Sim - p. 111-123
- Le petit arpent de Sim - p. 111-123
