A People's Music

Jazz in East Germany, 1945–1990

Helma Kaldewey

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781108486187
• eBook ISBN: 9781108776233
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

A People's Music presents the first full history of jazz in East Germany, drawing on new and previously unexamined sources and vivid eyewitness accounts. Helma Kaldewey chronicles the experiences of jazz musicians, fans, and advocates, and charts the numerous policies state socialism issued to manage this dynamic art form. Offering a radical revision of scholarly views of jazz as a musical genre of dissent, this vivid and authoritative study marks 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, examining how members of the jazz scene were engaged with (and were sometimes complicit with) state officials and agencies throughout the Cold War. From postwar rebuilding, to Stalinism and partition, to détente, Ostpolitik, and glasnost, and finally to its acceptance as a national art form, Kaldewey reveals just how many lives jazz has lived.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Chronology
• List of Abbreviations
• Chapter 1 Jazz in Weimar and Nazi Germany, 1918–1945
• Chapter 2 Jazz in the Soviet Zone, 1945–1949
• Chapter 3 Jazz in the Founding Years of the GDR, 1949–1961
• Chapter 4 Jazz Behind the Wall, 1961–1971
• Chapter 5 The Rise of New Jazz, 1971–1979
• Chapter 6 “A National Treasure”: Jazz Made in the GDR, 1980–1990
• Archival Sources
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index