EVENT CANCELLED: Everybody’s Doin’ It: Sex, Music & Dance in NYC 1840-1917

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED. PLEASE CHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR NEW DATE. In the seventy years before WWI, music, drink, dance, and sex mingled and thrived in the NYC underworld.  In this talk, musicologist, Dale Cockrell, explores the convivial meeting places where the big business of prostitution gave birth to new American music. Whether a single piano player or a small band, live music was a nightly feature in hundreds of spirited basement dives, dance halls, brothels, and concert saloons.  There men and women, and often multiple races, danced wildly to intoxicating music – to the horror of the moralistic elite.  This rollicking demimonde drove innovative new music, including ragtime and jazz, and the development of sexy new dance styles.

Dale Cockrell, a specialist in American popular music, is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at Vanderbilt University and a Research Associate of the Univertisy of the Free Sate (South Africa).