A People’s Music: Jazz in the GDR, 1945-1990 offers the first full history of jazz in East Germany, based on new and previously unexamined sources. Chronicling the experiences of jazz musicians, fans, and advocates as well as charting the numerous policies state socialism issued to manage this dynamic art form, this book offers a radical revision of scholarly views of jazz as a musical genre of dissent. Tracking developments in the production, performance, and reception of jazz decade by decade from the GDR’s beginning in the 1940s to its end in 1990, this book shows how members of the jazz scene were in constant engagement (and at times complicity) with state officials and agencies throughout the Cold War. From postwar rebuilding, to Stalinism and partition, to détente, Ostpolitik, and glasnost, to its acceptance as a national art form: A People’s Music shows in detail just how many lives jazz lived.
A People’s Music is available for purchase directly from Cambridge University Press and from Amazon.com, and is available in hardback, paperback, and eBook editions.