Reviews for Jazz modernism

The average rating for Jazz modernism based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-04-23 00:00:00 Eric Baierl Like only a small handful of books, Appel's work connects the great movements of the early 19th century together with big leaps and unimagined connections. All too often, scholars end up in their little niches, but Appel connects the niches in insightful ways. His arguments about modernism are perhaps less the point than his way of making the brilliance of the artists he chooses come alive with new meanings. This is a work that brings in big ideas, which would otherwise be off-putting and erudite for most people, and gets into how those ideas play out in the genius of great artists. Anyone with an interest in how different artistic paths really do cross each other will find this an interesting read.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-06-25 00:00:00 John Woody A curiosity. Appel attempts, with mixed success I think, to link the discourses of a number of 20th century arts, with jazz at the center. It seems he wants to write about the things he loves as if he were a jazzman playing a solo, with repeating ideas as riffs, flights of fancy, and a few slightly jarring quotations from unexpected sources. It's rather quaint and old-fashioned in its decidedly Modern outlook and tone -- no impenetrable academic jargon here -- and quite undisturbed in its Modern Art worldview: polyglot but decidedly Western Culture-centric. I didn't know anyone was allowed to write "serious" art criticism this way anymore. Maybe the serious critics don't think it's very serious! Didn't finish it.