LENOX, Mass. — Lenox native John Gennari, Professor of English and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of Vermont, will launch his newest book, "The Jazz Barn: Music Inn, the Berkshires, and the Place of Jazz in American Life," at the Lenox Library on Oct. 18 at 2:00 p.m.

 

According to a press release:

 

In the 1950s, Stephanie and Philip Barber bought part the Wheatleigh estate, where they converted an old barn, an icehouse, and a greenhouse into an inn that could host musical performances and seminars. The Jazz Barn tells the story of the Music Barn and later, the Lenox School of Jazz on the "sun-bathed, verdant hillside in the Berkshire Mountains," to quote a Modern Jazz Quartet album cover. Dr. Gennari explores the premise that the locations where jazz is played and heard indelibly shape the music and its meanings.

 

The book includes photographs by Clemens Kalischer (1921-2018), whose works will be on exhibit in the Lenox Library's Welles Gallery. Kalischer's images of musicians in the Jazz Barn and the surrounding fields meld well with Gennari's thesis of the importance of place to the music.