Robert O’Meally on the Influence of Jazz

Kurt talks with Robert O’Meally, Director ofthe Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University, about how jazz has shapedAmerican culture.

O’Meally is the editor of The Jazz Cadenceof American Culture. He’s the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of American Literature atColumbia University andthe author of Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday. Hislatest book, on the music essays of Ralph Ellison, titled Living with Music, will be published by ModernLibrary in May.