The social construction of a music Mecca
‘Goin’ home’, New Orleans and international New Orleans jazz revivalism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v8i1.29Keywords:
connoisseur tourism, identity, Ken Colyer, music Mecca, New Orleans, revivalism, serious leisure, traditional jazzAbstract
This article examines the interrelations between song, music genre and social context with reference to the interrelations between music, place and identity, in the case of the social representation of the city of New Orleans as a music Mecca. It argues that the metaphor and mythology expressed in the lyrics of Ken Colyer’s ‘Goin’ Home’ (1953) have been pivotal in the social construction of a jazz genre rooted in place and identity and sets forth a ‘trajectory’ approach that places the song in the context of its composition, recording, and aftermath, with particular reference to relevant popular music studies literature and the ‘serious leisure’ perspective within the sociology of tourism.
References
Atkinson, Connie Xeanah. 1996. ‘Shakin’ Your Butt for the Tourist: Music’s Role in the Identification and Selling of New Orleans’. In Dixie Debates: Perspectives on Southern Cultures, ed. Richard H. King and Helen Taylor, 150–64. London: Pluto Press.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1995. Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Bielderman, Gerard. 2007. Ken Colyer Discography (incorporating the Crane River Jazz Band), 11th ed. Zwolle, Netherlands: Bielderman.
Blesh, Rudi, and Harriet Janis. 1950. They All Played Ragtime: The True Story of an American Music. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Bloomfield, T. 1993. ‘Resisting Songs: Negative Dialectics in Pop’. Popular Music 12/1: 13– 31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000005328
Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Borer, Michael. 2010. ‘From Collective Memory to Collective Imagination: Time, Place and Urban Redevelopment’. Symbolic Interaction 33/1: 96–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ si.2010.33.1.96
Carter, William. 1991. Preservation Hall: Music from the Heart. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Charters, Samuel B. 1963 [1958]. Jazz New Orleans, 1885–1963: An Index to the Negro Musicians of New Orleans. Rev. ed. New York: Oak Publications.
Colyer, Ken. 1952/1953. ‘Letters from New Orleans’. Ken Colyer website. Available at: http://www.kencolyer.org.
—c. 1960. New Orleans and Back. York: Arthur Brooks and Ken Pratt.
—1992 [1970]. New Orleans and Back. 2nd ed. Kent: Ken Colyer Trust.
—2009 [1989]. When Dreams are in Dust: The Path of a Jazzman. London: Ken Colyer Trust.
Connell, John, and Chris Gibson. 2003. Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203448397
Decca. 1963. ‘Sleevenotes’. London Trad Scene—The ‘50s’. Decca Ace of Clubs, Mono ACL 1154.
Deffaa, Chip. 1993. Traditionalists and Revivalists in Jazz. Rutgers: State University of New Jersey.
Dixon, Willie. 2008. Chess Records and Chicago Blues: The Roots of Rock. History Fair documentary.
Ekins, Richard. 2005. ‘Louis Nelson, 1967’. 504/La Croix Records, CD91, booklet notes: 1–8.
—2007. ‘Dan Pawson: A Tribute’. 504/La Croix Records, CD93, booklet notes: 1–16.
—2009. ‘Bob Wallis on Authenticity and the New Orleans Jazz Revival in Britain’. Just Jazz 138 (October): 22–27.
—2010. ‘Traditional Jazz and the Mainstreaming of Authenticity: The Case of British Traddy Pop (1959–1963)—a Grounded Theory Approach’. Popular Music History 5/2: 125– 50.
—2011. ‘The Rediscovery and Resurrection of Bunk Johnson—a Grounded Theory Approach: A Case Study in Jazz Historiography’. Grounded Theory Review 10/3: 27–54.
—2012. ‘Authenticity as Authenticating—The Case of New Orleans Jazz Revivalism: An Approach from Grounded Theory and Social World Analysis’. Popular Music History 7/1: 24–52.
Ekins, Richard, and Dave King. 2006. The Transgender Phenomenon. London: Sage.
Finnegan, Ruth. 1998. Tales of the City: A Study of Narrative and Urban Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Freud, Sigmund. 1900. The Interpretation of Dreams. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume IV and V (1900–1901). London: Hogarth.
—1964 [1925]. ‘Formulations Regarding the Two Principles of Mental Functioning’. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XII, 13– 21. London: Hogarth.
—1964 [1940]. ‘Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence’. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXIII, 271–78. London: Hogarth.
Frith, Simon. 1988. ‘Playing with Real Feeling—Jazz and Suburbia’. In Music for Pleasure: Essays in the Sociology of Pop, 45–63. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gendron, Bernard. 1995. ‘“Mouldy Figs” and Modernists: Jazz at War (1942–1946)’. In Jazz Amongst the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard, 31–56. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity.
Glaser, Barney. 1978. Theoretical Sensitivity: Advances in the Methodology of Grounded Theory. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.
Glaser, Barney, and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine.
Godbolt, Jim. 1989. A History of Jazz in Britain, 1950–1970. London: Quartet Books.
Hall, C. M., and B. Weiler, eds. 1992. Special Interest Tourism. New York: Wiley.
Hall, Roger Lee. 2010. ‘The True Story of “Goin’ Home”: From Bohemia to Boston’. American Music Preservation.com, New England Music. Available at: http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/GoinHome.htm.
Hardie, Daniel. 2002. Exploring Jazz: The Origin and Evolution of the New Orleans Style. San Jose: Writers Club Press.
Hazeldine, Mike, comp. and ed. 1993. Bill Russell’s American Music. New Orleans: Jazzology Press.
Jarvis, B. 1985. ‘The Truth is only Known by Guttersnipes’. In Geography, the Media and Popular Culture, ed. J. Burgess and J. R. Gold, 96–122. London: Croom Helm.
Ken Colyer Trust. 1988–2010. Ken Colyer Trust Newsletter/Magazine.
Krims, A. 2007. Music and Urban Geography. London: Routledge.
Laing, Dave. 2006. ‘Review of George McKay, Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain’. Popular Music History 1/2: 227–31.
Lay, Jill. 2003. ‘Goin’ Home—Great Expectations?’ Just Jazz 63 (July): 21–24.
Marquis, Don. 2005. In Search of Buddy Bolden: First Man of Jazz, rev. ed. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.
McDonald, Chris. 2006. ‘“Rock, Roll and Remember?”: Addressing the Legacy of Jazz in Popular Music Studies’. Popular Music History 1/2: 125–45.
McKay, George. 2003. ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee: New Orleans Style Jazz and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1950s Britain’. Popular Music 22/3: 261–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0261143003003180
—2005. Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/9780822387282
Mead, G. H. 1932. The Philosophy of the Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Melly, George. 1984. ‘Ken Colyer and the First Traditional Jazz Band’. http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=PYxok6qb6M4, from ‘Whatever Happened to Bill Brunskill?’. Dir. Peter Newington; script by George Melly. Thames Television.
Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moore, Hilary. 2007. ‘Ken Colyer and the Trad Jazz Movement: Class, Authenticity and the Nostalgic Imagination’. In Inside British Jazz: Crossing Borders of Race, Nation and Class, 37–65. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Newton, Francis. 1961. The Jazz Scene. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Plummer, Ken. 1995. Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds. London: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203425268
Pointon, Mike, and Ray Smith. 2010. Goin’ Home: The Uncompromising Life and Music of Ken Colyer. London: Ken Colyer Trust.
Price, Barry. 2010. ‘My Journey through Life as a Ken Colyer Fan’. Ken Colyer Trust Magazine (Spring): 5.
Prus, Robert. 1996. Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research: Intersubjectivity and the Study of Human Lived Experience. New York: State University of New York Press.
—1997. Subcultural Mosaics and Intersubjective Reality: An Ethnographic Research Agenda for Pragmatizing the Social Sciences. New York: State University of New York Press.
Ramsey, Jr., Frederick, and Charles Edward Smith, eds. 1939. Jazzmen. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company.
Rossiter, P. 1955. ‘The Revivalists’. In Jazzbook 1955, ed. Albert J. McCarthy, 4–64. London: Cassell & Company.
Russell, Bill. 1994. New Orleans Style, compiled and edited by Barry Martyn and Mike Hazeldine. New Orleans: Jazzology Press.
Smith, Charles Edward. 1939a. ‘NEW ORLEANS, “Callin’ our chillun home”’. In Jazzmen, ed. Frederic Ramsey. Jr. and Charles Edward Smith. New York: Harcourt Brace.
—1939b. ‘Land of Dreams’. In Jazzmen, ed. Frederick Ramsey, Jr. and Charles Edward Smith, 265–85. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Smith, Michael. 1991. New Orleans Jazz Fest: A Pictorial History. Gretna: Pelican.
Souther, Jonathan Mark. 2006. New Orleans on Parade: Tourism and the Transformation of the Crescent City. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.
Stagg, Tom, and Charlie Crump. 1973. New Orleans—the Revival: A Tape and Discography of Negro Traditional Jazz Recorded in New Orleans or by New Orleans Bands, 1937–1972. Dublin: Bashall Eaves.
Stanonis, Anthony J. 2006. Creating the Big Easy: New Orleans and the Emergence of Modern Tourism, 1918–1945. Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Stebbins, Robert. 1982. ‘Serious Leisure: A Conceptual Statement’. Pacific Sociological Review 25: 251–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1388726
—1995. The Connoisseur’s New Orleans. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press.
—2007. Serious Leisure: A Perspective for our Time. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine/Transaction.
Stokes, Martin. 1994. ‘Introduction: Ethnicity, Identity and Music’. In Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, ed. Martin Stokes, 1–27. Oxford: Berg.
Stotesbury, Bill. 2010. ‘The New Orleans Pilgrimage Across the Years’. Ken Colyer Trust Magazine (Spring): 9–10.
Suhor, Charles. 2001. Jazz in New Orleans: The Postwar Years through 1972. London: The Scarecrow Press and Rutgers—State University of New Jersey.
Taylor, Helen. 2001. Circling Dixie: Contemporary Southern Culture through a Transatlantic Lense. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Thomas, W. I. 1923. The Unadjusted Girl. Boston: Little Brown.
Urry, John. 2002. The Tourist Gaze, 2nd ed. London: Sage.
Wearing, Stephen, Deborah Stevenson and Tamara Young. 2010. Tourist Cultures: Identity, Place and the Traveller. London: Sage.
Websites
Basin St. Station—Cultural Crossroads of New Orleans: http://www.basinststation.com
Ken Colyer website: www.kencolyer.org
Baudrillard, Jean. 1995. Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Bielderman, Gerard. 2007. Ken Colyer Discography (incorporating the Crane River Jazz Band), 11th ed. Zwolle, Netherlands: Bielderman.
Blesh, Rudi, and Harriet Janis. 1950. They All Played Ragtime: The True Story of an American Music. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Bloomfield, T. 1993. ‘Resisting Songs: Negative Dialectics in Pop’. Popular Music 12/1: 13– 31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000005328
Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Borer, Michael. 2010. ‘From Collective Memory to Collective Imagination: Time, Place and Urban Redevelopment’. Symbolic Interaction 33/1: 96–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ si.2010.33.1.96
Carter, William. 1991. Preservation Hall: Music from the Heart. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Charters, Samuel B. 1963 [1958]. Jazz New Orleans, 1885–1963: An Index to the Negro Musicians of New Orleans. Rev. ed. New York: Oak Publications.
Colyer, Ken. 1952/1953. ‘Letters from New Orleans’. Ken Colyer website. Available at: http://www.kencolyer.org.
—c. 1960. New Orleans and Back. York: Arthur Brooks and Ken Pratt.
—1992 [1970]. New Orleans and Back. 2nd ed. Kent: Ken Colyer Trust.
—2009 [1989]. When Dreams are in Dust: The Path of a Jazzman. London: Ken Colyer Trust.
Connell, John, and Chris Gibson. 2003. Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203448397
Decca. 1963. ‘Sleevenotes’. London Trad Scene—The ‘50s’. Decca Ace of Clubs, Mono ACL 1154.
Deffaa, Chip. 1993. Traditionalists and Revivalists in Jazz. Rutgers: State University of New Jersey.
Dixon, Willie. 2008. Chess Records and Chicago Blues: The Roots of Rock. History Fair documentary.
Ekins, Richard. 2005. ‘Louis Nelson, 1967’. 504/La Croix Records, CD91, booklet notes: 1–8.
—2007. ‘Dan Pawson: A Tribute’. 504/La Croix Records, CD93, booklet notes: 1–16.
—2009. ‘Bob Wallis on Authenticity and the New Orleans Jazz Revival in Britain’. Just Jazz 138 (October): 22–27.
—2010. ‘Traditional Jazz and the Mainstreaming of Authenticity: The Case of British Traddy Pop (1959–1963)—a Grounded Theory Approach’. Popular Music History 5/2: 125– 50.
—2011. ‘The Rediscovery and Resurrection of Bunk Johnson—a Grounded Theory Approach: A Case Study in Jazz Historiography’. Grounded Theory Review 10/3: 27–54.
—2012. ‘Authenticity as Authenticating—The Case of New Orleans Jazz Revivalism: An Approach from Grounded Theory and Social World Analysis’. Popular Music History 7/1: 24–52.
Ekins, Richard, and Dave King. 2006. The Transgender Phenomenon. London: Sage.
Finnegan, Ruth. 1998. Tales of the City: A Study of Narrative and Urban Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Freud, Sigmund. 1900. The Interpretation of Dreams. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume IV and V (1900–1901). London: Hogarth.
—1964 [1925]. ‘Formulations Regarding the Two Principles of Mental Functioning’. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XII, 13– 21. London: Hogarth.
—1964 [1940]. ‘Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence’. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXIII, 271–78. London: Hogarth.
Frith, Simon. 1988. ‘Playing with Real Feeling—Jazz and Suburbia’. In Music for Pleasure: Essays in the Sociology of Pop, 45–63. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gendron, Bernard. 1995. ‘“Mouldy Figs” and Modernists: Jazz at War (1942–1946)’. In Jazz Amongst the Discourses, ed. Krin Gabbard, 31–56. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity.
Glaser, Barney. 1978. Theoretical Sensitivity: Advances in the Methodology of Grounded Theory. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.
Glaser, Barney, and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine.
Godbolt, Jim. 1989. A History of Jazz in Britain, 1950–1970. London: Quartet Books.
Hall, C. M., and B. Weiler, eds. 1992. Special Interest Tourism. New York: Wiley.
Hall, Roger Lee. 2010. ‘The True Story of “Goin’ Home”: From Bohemia to Boston’. American Music Preservation.com, New England Music. Available at: http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/GoinHome.htm.
Hardie, Daniel. 2002. Exploring Jazz: The Origin and Evolution of the New Orleans Style. San Jose: Writers Club Press.
Hazeldine, Mike, comp. and ed. 1993. Bill Russell’s American Music. New Orleans: Jazzology Press.
Jarvis, B. 1985. ‘The Truth is only Known by Guttersnipes’. In Geography, the Media and Popular Culture, ed. J. Burgess and J. R. Gold, 96–122. London: Croom Helm.
Ken Colyer Trust. 1988–2010. Ken Colyer Trust Newsletter/Magazine.
Krims, A. 2007. Music and Urban Geography. London: Routledge.
Laing, Dave. 2006. ‘Review of George McKay, Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain’. Popular Music History 1/2: 227–31.
Lay, Jill. 2003. ‘Goin’ Home—Great Expectations?’ Just Jazz 63 (July): 21–24.
Marquis, Don. 2005. In Search of Buddy Bolden: First Man of Jazz, rev. ed. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.
McDonald, Chris. 2006. ‘“Rock, Roll and Remember?”: Addressing the Legacy of Jazz in Popular Music Studies’. Popular Music History 1/2: 125–45.
McKay, George. 2003. ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee: New Orleans Style Jazz and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1950s Britain’. Popular Music 22/3: 261–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0261143003003180
—2005. Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/9780822387282
Mead, G. H. 1932. The Philosophy of the Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Melly, George. 1984. ‘Ken Colyer and the First Traditional Jazz Band’. http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=PYxok6qb6M4, from ‘Whatever Happened to Bill Brunskill?’. Dir. Peter Newington; script by George Melly. Thames Television.
Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moore, Hilary. 2007. ‘Ken Colyer and the Trad Jazz Movement: Class, Authenticity and the Nostalgic Imagination’. In Inside British Jazz: Crossing Borders of Race, Nation and Class, 37–65. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Newton, Francis. 1961. The Jazz Scene. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Plummer, Ken. 1995. Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds. London: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203425268
Pointon, Mike, and Ray Smith. 2010. Goin’ Home: The Uncompromising Life and Music of Ken Colyer. London: Ken Colyer Trust.
Price, Barry. 2010. ‘My Journey through Life as a Ken Colyer Fan’. Ken Colyer Trust Magazine (Spring): 5.
Prus, Robert. 1996. Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research: Intersubjectivity and the Study of Human Lived Experience. New York: State University of New York Press.
—1997. Subcultural Mosaics and Intersubjective Reality: An Ethnographic Research Agenda for Pragmatizing the Social Sciences. New York: State University of New York Press.
Ramsey, Jr., Frederick, and Charles Edward Smith, eds. 1939. Jazzmen. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company.
Rossiter, P. 1955. ‘The Revivalists’. In Jazzbook 1955, ed. Albert J. McCarthy, 4–64. London: Cassell & Company.
Russell, Bill. 1994. New Orleans Style, compiled and edited by Barry Martyn and Mike Hazeldine. New Orleans: Jazzology Press.
Smith, Charles Edward. 1939a. ‘NEW ORLEANS, “Callin’ our chillun home”’. In Jazzmen, ed. Frederic Ramsey. Jr. and Charles Edward Smith. New York: Harcourt Brace.
—1939b. ‘Land of Dreams’. In Jazzmen, ed. Frederick Ramsey, Jr. and Charles Edward Smith, 265–85. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Smith, Michael. 1991. New Orleans Jazz Fest: A Pictorial History. Gretna: Pelican.
Souther, Jonathan Mark. 2006. New Orleans on Parade: Tourism and the Transformation of the Crescent City. Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press.
Stagg, Tom, and Charlie Crump. 1973. New Orleans—the Revival: A Tape and Discography of Negro Traditional Jazz Recorded in New Orleans or by New Orleans Bands, 1937–1972. Dublin: Bashall Eaves.
Stanonis, Anthony J. 2006. Creating the Big Easy: New Orleans and the Emergence of Modern Tourism, 1918–1945. Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Stebbins, Robert. 1982. ‘Serious Leisure: A Conceptual Statement’. Pacific Sociological Review 25: 251–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1388726
—1995. The Connoisseur’s New Orleans. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press.
—2007. Serious Leisure: A Perspective for our Time. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine/Transaction.
Stokes, Martin. 1994. ‘Introduction: Ethnicity, Identity and Music’. In Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, ed. Martin Stokes, 1–27. Oxford: Berg.
Stotesbury, Bill. 2010. ‘The New Orleans Pilgrimage Across the Years’. Ken Colyer Trust Magazine (Spring): 9–10.
Suhor, Charles. 2001. Jazz in New Orleans: The Postwar Years through 1972. London: The Scarecrow Press and Rutgers—State University of New Jersey.
Taylor, Helen. 2001. Circling Dixie: Contemporary Southern Culture through a Transatlantic Lense. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Thomas, W. I. 1923. The Unadjusted Girl. Boston: Little Brown.
Urry, John. 2002. The Tourist Gaze, 2nd ed. London: Sage.
Wearing, Stephen, Deborah Stevenson and Tamara Young. 2010. Tourist Cultures: Identity, Place and the Traveller. London: Sage.
Websites
Basin St. Station—Cultural Crossroads of New Orleans: http://www.basinststation.com
Ken Colyer website: www.kencolyer.org
Published
2014-02-07
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Ekins, R. (2014). The social construction of a music Mecca: ‘Goin’ home’, New Orleans and international New Orleans jazz revivalism. Popular Music History, 8(1), 29-45. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v8i1.29
