Blues Mamas and Broadway Belters

Black Women, Voice, and the Musical Stage

Masi Asare (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

304 Seiten

2024
Duke University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4780-2673-0 (ISBN)

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In Blues Mamas and Broadway Belters, songwriter, scholar, and dramatist Masi Asare explores the singing practice of black women singers in US musical theatre between 1900 and 1970. Asare shows how a vanguard of black women singers including Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Pearl Bailey, Juanita Hall, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Diahann Carroll, and Leslie Uggams created a lineage of highly trained and effective voice teachers whose sound and vocal techniques continue to be heard today. Challenging pervasive narratives that these and other black women possessed “untrained” voices, Asare theorizes singing as a form of sonic citational practice-how the sound of the teacher’s voice lives on in the student’s singing. From vaudeville-blues shouters, black torch singers, and character actresses to nightclub vocalists and Broadway glamour girls, Asare locates black women of the musical stage in the context of historical voice pedagogy. She invites readers not only to study these singers, but to study with them-taking seriously what they and their contemporaries have taught about the voice. Ultimately, Asare speaks to the need to feel and hear the racial history in contemporary musical theatre.

Masi Asare is Assistant Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University and a Tony Award–nominated Broadway songwriter and dramatist.

Warming Up ix
Note on Phonetic Transcription xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction. Citing the Vocal-Possible 1
1. Vocal Color in Blue: Learning the Song with Blueswomen, Shouters, and Belters 24
2. Beyond the Weary-Bluesy Mammy: Listening Better with Midcentury Character Divas 64
3. "A Little Singer on Broadway": Exercising American Glamour with Golden-Age Starlets 106
4. Secrets of Vocal Health: Voice Teachers and Pop Vocal Technique 162
Playoff 202
Appendix: More Exercises for Voice Practice 211
Notes 215
Bibliography 253
Index 271

Erscheinungsdatum	24.09.2024
Reihe/Serie	Refiguring American Music
Zusatzinfo	18 illustrations
Verlagsort	North Carolina
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	544 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik
	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-4780-2673-1 / 1478026731
ISBN-13	978-1-4780-2673-0 / 9781478026730
Zustand	Neuware