The Sonic Gaze: Jazz, Whiteness, and Racialized Listening

Black and Creole thinkers argue that mainstream culture consumes sounds and images of Creole and Black people while ignoring critiques of the white consumption of black culture. T Storm Heter's book introduces the notion of the white sonic gaze and builds a phenomenological archive to demonstrate the bad habits of 'white listening' in American jazz history. It portrays six types of bad faith white listeners and connects critical race studies, music studies, philosophy of race, and existentialism.

Format: Hardback
Length: 206 pages
Publication date: 25 March 2022
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Black and Creole thinkers have raised a significant criticism regarding the mainstream, white-dominated culture's consumption of sounds and images of Creole and Black people in music, theater, and the white press, while often overlooking critiques of the white consumption of black culture. Interestingly, critiques of whiteness can be found not only in black literature and media but also within the blues, jazz, and spirituals that whites have listened to, loved, collected, and archived. This book proposes that whiteness is not merely a visual orientation but also a way of hearing, drawing inspiration from the existential writings of Frantz Fanon, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, W.E.B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, Lewis Gordon, Angela Davis, bell hooks, and Sara Ahmed. T Storm Heter introduces the concept of the white sonic gaze, which is explored through case studies and musical examples from the history of American jazz. The book constructs a phenomenological archive to illustrate the detrimental habits of 'white listening' by drawing from black journalism, the autobiographies of Creole musicians, and the lyrics and sonic content of early jazz music emerging from New Orleans. The book examines white listening orientations in various contexts, such as the plantation, vaudeville minstrel shows, and cabarets, and identifies six types of bad faith white listeners, including the white minstrel listener, the white savior listener, the white hipster listener, and the white colorblind listener. By connecting critical race studies, music studies, philosophy of race, and existentialism, this book aims to equip students with the tools to critique the phenomenology of whiteness and engage in decolonial listening.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781538162613