Don't Deny My Name

Don't Deny My Name (which takes its title from a blues song) begins by laying out the case for the blues as constituting a body of literature, one that confronts the situation of African American migrants to the urban North and newer territories to the West. The essays that follow collectively provide a tour of the movement through classic jazz, bop, and the explosions of the free jazz era, followed by a section on R & B and Soul. The collection ends with a polemical essay about the hip hop phenomenon.