Hartt Music History Forum presents Christi Jay Wells

The Hartt Music History Forum welcomes Dr. Christi Jay Wells (Arizona State University) on Mon, Feb. 8, 2021 from 12:45 p.m. to 2 p.m.

In advance of their forthcoming book, Between Beats: The Jazz Tradition and Black Vernacular Dance, Dr. Wells will join us to discuss:

“Its Bite and Its Feeling”: The Quadroon Ball and Jazz’s New Orleans Plaçage Complex

This talk positions the quadroon balls of nineteenth century New Orleans as a critical generative source of, and a productive metaphor for, the assemblage of miscegenation fantasies that mark jazz as both seductive enough to excite our collective sense of subversion and quintessentially American enough to serve as “America’s classical music.” Building on Emily Clark’s analysis of quadroon balls’ imbrication within a feedback loop between narrative fantasy and lived experience, which she terms the “plaçage complex,” I demonstrate that the romanticization of New Orleans as jazz’s ostensible birthplace is rooted in discursive moves that long predate jazz itself.

Toward that end, I draw a through-line from the early nineteenth century genesis of quadroon balls through their mid-century growth in popularity and infamy—including the fantastical white-authored travel narratives that made them tourist destinations—and finally through the various ways they influenced both New Orleans's Storyville district (jazz’s ostensible birthplace) and representations of antebellum plantation life in New York City stage revues of the 1920's. This analysis draws uncomfortable yet necessary connections between jazz historical discourse—in particular its ubiquitous romanticization of nineteenth and early twentieth century New Orleans—and the discursive engines that both maintained white supremacist systems during the 1800s and remain active, if obfuscated, in the present. 

This talk is free and open to the broad campus community. It will be held virtually via Zoom. Please contact Dr. Karen Cook (kacook@hartford.edu) in advance to register.