Body and soul - Jazz in the 1920s

This article examines the discursive framing of jazz. as it entered the musical mainstream. Voices in the contest to define the music turned to a body-centered discourse that highlighted jazz's alleged impact on the listener In doing so, observers not only responded to music's unique capacities among the arts but also engaged in a symbolic struggle to define the boundaries of the individual body, and with it, the body politic-a struggle whose stakes were magnified by ongoing social and cultural transformations.