Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture by Krin Gabbard


Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture
Title : Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0571211992
ISBN-10 : 9780571211999
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 272
Publication : First published October 28, 2008

A swinging cultural history of the instrument that in many ways defined a century The twentieth century was barely under way when the grandson of a slave picked up a trumpet and transformed American culture. Before that moment, the trumpet had been a regimental staple in marching bands, a ceremonial accessory for royalty, and an occasional diva at the symphony. Because it could make more noise than just about anything, the trumpet had been much more declarative than musical for most of its history. Around 1900, however, Buddy Bolden made the trumpet declare in brand-new ways. He may even have invented jazz, or something very much like it. And as an African American, he found a vital new way to assert himself as a man. Hotter Than That is a cultural history of the trumpet from its origins in ancient Egypt to its role in royal courts and on battlefields, and ultimately to its stunning appropriation by great jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Wynton Marsalis. The book also looks at how trumpets have been manufactured over the centuries and at the price that artists have paid for devoting their bodies and souls to this most demanding of instruments. In the course of tracing the trumpet’s evolution both as an instrument and as the primary vehicle for jazz in America, Krin Gabbard also meditates on its importance for black male sexuality and its continuing reappropriation by white culture.  

Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture Reviews

  • Rebecca

    This is a terrible book. It claims to be a history of the trumpet, jazz, and American culture, but it's actually a description of how masculine the trumpet is and the author's adventures with the trumpet. Honestly, the book is sexist. Every chapter the author mentions how the trumpet is a pure form of masculine expression. As a woman, it makes me feel left out, and that if I played the trumpet, it would be lesser than a male performer. Even the little section about the history of female trumpeters is sprinkled with comments like, "Although she is tall, slim, and attractive, Jensen is all business when she plays." (direct quote) Also, "When [she] plays, she devotes her energy to the music and not to making herself an erotic object" Meanwhile, in previous chapters, he praised the raw sexuality of male trumpeters.

    The last straw was at the end of the book, when he spends four pages summarizing the book, all about the masculitnity of the trumpet. Only one paragraph mentions women at all, and in it he says, "At this point, it becomes clear why women can be as successful as men when they play the trumpet." Okay, but his reasoning made me furious. "If a woman... rips through a phrase like Armstrong or Gillespie at his most intense, we might say that she is expressing the masculine side of herself." So a woman can't be a good trumpet player if she isn't in some way masculine. Sure.

    The book has issues outside of the sexism, though. It's poorly organized, with biographical chapters mixed in with chapters about the history and construction of the trumpet. Also, the author spends many chapters describing his trumpet practices and shopping. That's not what I wanted to read about.

    In summary, PLEASE don't buy this book. I've never regretted reading a book until now.

  • Ella Grace

    This book was so disappointing. I feel like there probably was a lot of valuable information in there but I couldn't even make it past the preface because of how blatantly and disgustingly sexist it was. How did this get published?? It's so frustrating as a female jazz trumpet player to feel not only completely left out but also objectified and belittled. In the preface alone he writes the following:
    The trumpet is "a good way to get women"
    The trumpet is "essential to masculine expression"
    Trumpet playing is "masculine and authoritative"
    Trumpet players have a "mine-is-bigger-than-yours attitude"
    Buddy Bolden "surely enjoyed the trumpet's surplus value as a clarion call to members of the female sex. And he was surely not the first or last man to discover the power of that call"
    The trumpet is "a symbol of manhood" and "essential to the presentation of manhood"
    "The young people most drawn to the jazz trumpet are male. For a pubescent boy becoming a man, the stirring, often subversive call of the jazz trumpet can be irresistible."

  • Djll

    Very disappointing. I play the same instrument (from an 'outsider' heuristic, I admit) and I was dismayed to apprehend the author's stultifyingly doctrinaire approach to the trumpet. Ho hum.