Author

Contributions

  • Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., editor - Contributor
  • Devlin, Paul, 1980- editor - Contributor

Publication

2016 - The Library of America, New York (State)

Language

English

Word Count

262,250 words, Guess

Page Count

1,049 pages

Identifiers

and 1 more

Classifications

  • DDC814
  • LCCPS3563.U764 A6 2016
  • LCCPS3563.U764A6 2016

Alternate Titles

  • Albert Murray, collected essays & memoirs
  • Collected essays and memoirs

Description

In his 1970 classic The Omni-Americans, Albert Murray (1916-2013) took aim at protest writers and social scientists who accentuated the "pathology" of race in American life. Against narratives of marginalization and victimhood, Murray argued that black art and culture, particularly jazz and blues, stand at the very headwaters of the American mainstream, and that much of what is best in American art embodies the "blues-hero tradition" - a heritage of grace, wit, and inspired improvisation in the face of adversity. Murray went on to refine these ideas in The Blue Devils of Nada and From the Briarpatch File, and all three landmark collections of essays are gathered here for the first time, together with Murray's memoir South to a Very Old Place, his brilliant lecture series The Hero and the Blues, his masterpiece of jazz criticism Stomping the Blues, and eight previously uncollected pieces.

Subjects

Series Statement

  • The library of America -- 284
  • Library of America -- 284.

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