Jump for Joy: Jazz, Basketball, and Black Culture in 1930s America (review)

By the late 1930s, swing dancers performed the "Lindy Hop," a style marked by improvised moves, physical separation between couples, and athletic "jump turns." They danced to "jump tunes," upbeat and hard-driving jazz rhythms. In those same urban dance halls—often as part of the same evening's entertainment—spectators cheered the precise fast breaks and leaping styles of professional basketball teams.

These developments all occurred within an African American milieu. Gena CaponiTabery envisions these innovations as part of a widespread movement. During the Depression decade, American culture celebrated life in the skies: air travel, skyscrapers, Superman. African Americans adopted this trend to their particular circumstances. The author argues that black dancers, musicians, and athletes "grabbed hold of something literally in the air—a cultural obsession with height, flight, and speed—and through their exploration and celebration they achieved a fundamental form of social, and eventually political, elevation." (xv)

One merit of Caponi-Tabery's work is its willingness to explore connections across African American popular culture. In analyzing public reactions to the heroics of athletes such as Jesse Owens and Joe Louis, she sees a surging racial pride and optimism in the future. Sport's African American aesthetic shaped all-black barnstorming basketball squads such as the New York Renaissance Five, later spurring such creative flourishes as jump shots and slam dunks. Black music and dance fostered that same sense of transcendence. Between 1937 and 1942, at least 135 records included the word "jump" in the title. "Jump blues" served as a bridge between older swing music and the next generation's rock and roll. Meanwhile, building off the traditions of the African diaspora, airborne dancers "jumped for joy"—not only casting off historic burdens, but also claiming a place in American life.

The author deserves further praise for contemplating links between culture and politics. Just as entertainers surpassed previous boundaries, she argues, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters signed a historic contract with the Pullman Company, and its leader A. Philip Randolph agitated for desegregated employment in wartime production. "On a broad scale," writes Caponi-Tabery, "African Americans were giving themselves cultural permission: authority to be part of the culture, and sometimes to excel." (137) Moreover, the victories of such black innovators shaped a broader, more optimistic mentality among a historically downtrodden people.

Jump for Joy is more a creative synthesis than an investigative monograph. It often relies on previously published scholarship. Deeper research into primary sources might have better explained the particular urban milieus that spawned this great enthusiasm for jumping, soaring, leaping beyond the constraints of Jim Crow America. But Caponi-Tabery forces scholars to consider intersections among sports, music, and dance, as well as their broader implications. She writes with clarity and enthusiasm, and she has identified an important moment in black public life. Her book is a vital contribution to the history of African American popular culture.