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The Bitter but Beautiful Struggle: Improvisation and Imagination in New Orleans

George Lipsitz

Published: 2010-06-08

This article articulates how the art of improvisation has shaped the contours of Black culture in New Orleans, and the way it continues to be used to combat poverty, police brutality, neo-liberal plans for reconstructing the city to serve the interests of investors, and many other issues related to This article articulates how the art of improvisation has shaped the contours of Black culture in New Orleans, and the way it continues to be used to combat poverty, police brutality, neo-liberal plans for reconstructing the city to serve the interests of investors, and many other issues related to race, space, and power in New Orleans.

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So one of the things that improvisation has come to mean in the context of highly technological performance is that improvisation is the last claim to the legitimate presence of a human in the performance of music.

– Bob Ostertag