Introduction. Vamping ’til Ready

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface ix
4. Introduction. Vamping ’til Ready 1
5. Movement I. Three Ways of Looking at a Yardbird: Charlie Parker and the Theorization of Jazz Improvisation in the Work of Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka 23
6. Movement II. Black Is, Black Ain’t: Violence, Black Masculinity, and the Novel as Democratic Symbol 49
7. Movement III. Cutting Session: Baldwin as Prizefighting Intellectual, Baldwin as Improvising Intellectual 89
8. Movement IV. Improvising over the Changes: Improvisation as Intellectual and Aesthetic Practice in the Transitional Poems of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka 125
9. Coda 151
10. Acknowledgments 161
11. Notes 163
12. Reference List 189
13. Index 197