This course will explore the history, interconnections, and simultaneous flourishing of four distinct music communities that inhabited and shaped downtown New York: Euro-American experimentalists; an African American jazz-based avant-garde; blues and folk revivalists; and Lower East Side rock groups. The primary focus will be on the 1950s and 60s, although we will also cover subsequent developments. Much of the course will be devoted to understanding their points of convergence and divergence, especially in conversation with broader currents of the time (e.g., the Civil Rights Movement and related notions of freedom, shifting youth subcultures, and avant-garde aesthetics). We will read about and listen to recordings of a wide variety of musicians, identify aesthetic and cultural trends, and study the local industry that supported them. |