Hi, thank you for submitting your question to Answers.Google, I hope I
can provide the information you are seeking.
The first place to start is with the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/features/paris/
Paris in the period you refer to is a time of wild freedom, especially
for the younger people who have either just survived a terrible war or
who were luck enough to have been young enough to have just missed it
but old enough to have seen the terrible results.
Ezra Pound once called Paris of the 20?s the center of the world,
referring to art, music, and culture.
This saw the end of cubism and a kind of modernism based in Italian sensibilities.
Art in the 20?s was post-Cubist and dominated by Dada and nihilism
almost exactly during the time period you specify. A prime name to
drop would be Marcel Duchamp. Tristan Tzara would be the poet to read
or listen to.
Surrealism hit Paris like a storm just at the end of the period you
mention with The Manifesto of Surrealism (1924). At the very cutting
edge, you might have a character refer to Andre Breton who would lead
the surrealism school in the latter part of the 20?s.
Mountparnasse is where your characters would live or visit on their
cultural odyssey.
The art of the time was very much the precursor of that which we saw
in the 1960's but, instead of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Paris in
the 20?s was sex, booze, drugs, sex, jazz, and blues (probably sex
again.)
www.jazzscene.com says of this period:
?No other European city has been more of a home for Jazz than Paris.
Since the early 1920's when the music first appeared in the clubs and
variety theaters, Parisians have been engaged in a love affair with
Jazz.?
Names would include Nobel Sissle, Sidney Bechet, Bud Powell, Kenny
Clarke, and Dexter Gordon.
http://jazzscene.no/jazz/print/history.html
If you are including 1925 then you can?t leave out the sensational
Freda Josephine McDonald (stage name Josephine Baker) who was wildly
popular in Paris but didn?t arrive there until 1925.
www.virtualology.com/virtualmuseumofhistory/ hallofwomen/JOSEPHINEBAKER.NET/
womenshistory.about.com/ library/bio/blbio_baker_josephine.htm
All the reports seem to agree that she arrived on the Paris scene in
1925 but I couldn?t locate an exact date of arrival or for the opening
of her first show.
As for home-grown music, focus on Satie who was prominent and happened
to die in 1925.
Tristan Tzara
www.poemhunter.com/p/m/ poem.asp?poet=35098&poem=424812
www.virtualology.com/virtualmuseumofart.com/ museumofmodernart/TristanTzara.org/
Nobel Sissle
www.jass.com/sissle.html
Dexter Gordon
hotel.prosa.dk/~jes/dexter/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Gordon
Thank you again for turning to Answers.Google for help. I believe that
should give you plenty to work with. The year 1925 was pivotal in
Paris with many changes in the art and music scene occurring in that
year as you can tell from some of the dates I have listed. |
