Politics

Abstract

Abstract After reform efforts waned, Angola returned to a decade of violence, chaos, and austerity. Nevertheless, jazz continued, retreating to the band room. As drug charges continued to sweep musicians into Angola from New Orleans, jazz shifted to more contemporary, adventurous styles. Chapter 3’s focus on politics follows a group of musicians who develop avant-garde jazz to think beyond the status quo. Despite the institution’s oppressive formal and informal rules in the 1960s, they helped define and articulate higher principles of music and radical politics. Primarily based on the testimony of saxophonist Charles Neville, the chapter follows the Nic Nacs to becoming the premier band at the prison with the addition of James Black, James Booker, and Leotha Brown. As a backdrop to jazz intellectualism, the chapter follows Neville and a dozen other prisoners of the 1960s to the cotton and cane fields, where music existed within violence and unpredictability.