From preface to the books of American Negro spirituals / An aesthetic of the cool: West African dance / Africa and the West Indies / Playing the blues / Africans, Europeans and the making of music / Ring shout! Literary studies, historical studies, and Black music inquiry / Heterogeneous sound ideal in African-American music / Impact of gospel music on the secular music industry / Flow, layering, and rupture in post industrial New York / "Keep to the rhythm and you'll keep to life" : meaning and style in African American vernacular dance / Lester Young and the birth of cool / On the Jazz musician's love/hate relationship with the audience / Characteristics of Negro expression / Stylin' outta the Black pulpit / A resistance too civilized to notice / Black and White truth about basketball / Hero of the blues / Michael Jordan leaps the great divide / Be like Mike? Michael Jordan and the pedagogy of desire / African-American festive style / From "strolling, jooking, and fixy clothes"