The Inaudible Music: Jazz, Gender and Australian Modernity

This impressive new study by Australia's most distinguished jazz historian revises the place of modern music in Australian society and places jazz at the centre of the twentieth century cultural shift. Bruce Johnson shows how African-American popular music was the primary musical vehicle for Australian modernity and the advancement of women; how the culture was shaped by such innovations as the microphone, recordings and the film industry. His hidden history also revels the extraordinary impact achieved internationally by Australian musicians since the earliest days.

Dispersed among the chapters are interludes from Johnson's life as a 'common soldier in the trenches' of jazz—engaging and timely reminders to the reader of the jazz community and camaraderie that shares a common language around the world. A CD accompanying this book is available as part of Larrikin's Yesterday's Australia series—also called The Inaudible Music.

Bruce Johnson is Associate Professor of English at the University of New South Wales. He has written widely on popular music, cultural politics and contemporary fiction and is the author of the Oxford Companion to Australian Jazz (1987). He is an accomplished musician—he plays trumpet and flugelhorn—and established the Australian Jazz Archive, housed at ScreenSound Australia.