Bricktop

Bricktop

by: Bricktop w/Jim Haskins

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Hers is the candid, high-spirited story of a scrappy redhead colored girl from West Virginia and Chicago who combined her unerring eye for talent and chich with a uniquely American brashness and an eminently European sophistication to become the toast of two continents.

Negrophilia: Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s (Interplay)

by: Petrine Archer-Straw

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Black culture was very much in vogue in avant-garde Paris in the 1920s as white artists celebrated it as a means of escaping bourgeois values. At the same time, an emphasis on the "primitive" often reduced blacks to racist stereotypes. In this lively, highly accessible study, Archer-Shaw utilizes her background as an art historian and curator to discuss black life and its complex, often disturbing interaction with white European society. The focus on art (including painting, photography, fashion, and sculpture) distinguishes this book from other important works such as Michel Fabre's From Harlem to Paris (LJ 11/15/91), which concentrates on the literary scene, and Tyler Stovall's more general Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (LJ 12/96). Archer-Straw's book also differs from these works by devoting considerable attention to whites as well as blacks, including shipping heiress Nancy Cunard, art collector Paul Guillaume, and photographer Man Ray. Recommended for all collections with an interest in black culture and/or art. ~From Library Journal

A scholarly, zesty look at the racial thrills and tensions in a trend that affected dance, theater, music, sculpture, fashion.
~H. Scott Jolley, Travel & Leisure

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Paris Reflections: Walks through African-American Paris

by: Christiann Anderson, Monique Y. Wells

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Shack compactly illuminates the expatriate African American community of jazz musicians that thrived in the Montmartre district of Paris in the 20s and 30s and helped turn the 'city of lights' into the major jazz capital it remains today. The catalyst for this transformation was James Reese Europe, leader of the 'Harlem Hellfighters' troop regiment in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. These musicians and soldiers, despite indignities inflicted by the U.S. military, impressed Europeans with their jazz concerts, and later the Hellfighters became the most decorated military unit in the American forces. After the war, many of them stayed in France, which lacked the segregationist laws and customs that plagued them at home. Shack profiles the leading figures in this community, including Josephine Baker, Ada 'Bricktop' Smith, and Sidney Bechet. A brilliant account of an unsung chapter in American history. ~Booklist

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The Best of Django Reinhardt

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