The first edition of There Was a Fire is a National Jewish Book Award Finalist
"Terrific and tragically obscure . . . I can hardly believe how good it is."-Eric Alterman, The Nation
This book is about the power of memory, the human need for narrative, and the ability of music to encode and deliver the two. It outlines the role of the Jews who came to America from Eastern Europe during the late 19th and 20th centuries and helped define the spirit of the American Dream: a concern for the average man and a penchant for tikkun olam, healing a shattered world. This is the story of how popular music made the ethical framework for 20th century America possible, where popular song led to personal freedom, and social justice was only a chorus away.
Newly revised and updated, the book includes the advent of Trump, Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, and streaming services such as Spotify and their impact on the Jewish experience and American Music History.
Language
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
ISBN-13
978-0-578-80069-1 (9780578800691)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Ben Sidran was a major force in the contemporary history of jazz and rock & roll, having played keyboards with or produced such artists as Steve Miller, Mose Allison, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Phil Upchurch, Tony Williams, Jon Hendricks, Richie Cole and Van Morrison. Though primarily renowned as a gifted pianist, composer, producer, among other music-related roles, Ben Sidran has also made a name for himself as a writer. Sidran's first book, Black Talk: How the Music of Black America Created a Radical Alternative to Western Literary Tradition (Da Capo Press), is based on his doctoral dissertation. Talking Jazz: An Oral History (Da Capo Press), published twenty-four years later, collects personal interviews with jazz greats such as Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins. His third literary endeavor, Ben Sidran: A Life in the Music (Unlimited Media), expresses his life-long affair with music and all its functions: as prayer, as community, as legacy, and as nothing but a party. He delves into the complex relationships between African-Americans and Jews, fathers and sons, history and hope, money and technology, ecstasy and transformation. His penultimate book, There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream, was a 2011 finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and remains a teaching text in Jewish Studies programs everywhere.
