"Very Female, with the Allure of a Foreign Aura": Vocality, Gender, and European Exoticism in the US Careers of Alice Babs and Caterina Valente
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"Very Female, with the Allure of a Foreign Aura" : Vocality, Gender, and European Exoticism in the US Careers of Alice Babs and Caterina Valente. / Vad, Mikkel Kaas.
In: Journal of the Society for American Music, Vol. 15, No. 4, 2021, p. 424–446.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - "Very Female, with the Allure of a Foreign Aura"
T2 - Vocality, Gender, and European Exoticism in the US Careers of Alice Babs and Caterina Valente
AU - Vad, Mikkel Kaas
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - “How can America import ‘American’ jazz?,” asked the music editor of Good Housekeeping, George Marek, in 1956. Marek answered, “Singers, particularly if they are very female, give the home-grown music the allure of a foreign aura.” Taking these statements as a starting point, this article gives an account of the US careers of Alice Babs and Caterina Valente. Gender, class, and ethnicity were key elements in the US construction of Babs's and Valente's musical personae, which was especially heard in their vocality, with an emphasis on high-pitched vocal stylings, melismas, and “white” timbres to signify gender and European exoticism. The US careers of Babs and Valente show us that musical Americanness or Europeanness are not created separately on either side of the Atlantic. Their European identities were not created in Europe and then imported to the United States but were created in the process of transmission into the United States. Importantly, the article argues that race and ethnicity were used by musicians, critics, and listeners to position Babs and Valente as Europeans. Their whiteness was transposed in a US context and their stories tell us as much about US ideologies of whiteness as it does about European ethnicities.
AB - “How can America import ‘American’ jazz?,” asked the music editor of Good Housekeeping, George Marek, in 1956. Marek answered, “Singers, particularly if they are very female, give the home-grown music the allure of a foreign aura.” Taking these statements as a starting point, this article gives an account of the US careers of Alice Babs and Caterina Valente. Gender, class, and ethnicity were key elements in the US construction of Babs's and Valente's musical personae, which was especially heard in their vocality, with an emphasis on high-pitched vocal stylings, melismas, and “white” timbres to signify gender and European exoticism. The US careers of Babs and Valente show us that musical Americanness or Europeanness are not created separately on either side of the Atlantic. Their European identities were not created in Europe and then imported to the United States but were created in the process of transmission into the United States. Importantly, the article argues that race and ethnicity were used by musicians, critics, and listeners to position Babs and Valente as Europeans. Their whiteness was transposed in a US context and their stories tell us as much about US ideologies of whiteness as it does about European ethnicities.
U2 - 10.1017/S1752196321000304
DO - 10.1017/S1752196321000304
M3 - Journal article
VL - 15
SP - 424
EP - 446
JO - Journal of the Society for American Music
JF - Journal of the Society for American Music
SN - 1752-1963
IS - 4
ER -
ID: 379588876