Kelsey Klotz: Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whitenes

Dr. Kelsey Klotz’s book, Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness, is scheduled to come out in January 2023 with Oxford University Press. Drawing on archival records, recordings, and previously conducted interviews, Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness listens closely for the complex and shifting frames of mid-century whiteness and white supremacy, and how they shaped the experiences of Brubeck, his critics, and his audiences.

This talk will introduce some of the ways in which critics created and promoted a musical language embedded in whiteness to describe Brubeck’s music and the impact it had on some communities of listeners. It will also explore how Brubeck’s approach to the civil rights movement was shaped by both his whiteness and his leadership of an integrated jazz quartet attempting to tour the South.

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