Asset Details
Do you wish to reserve the book?
Adapting The Jazz Singer from Short Story to Screen
Hey, we have placed the reservation for you!
By the way, why not check out events that you can attend while you pick your title.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place the reservation. Kindly try again later.
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
Adapting The Jazz Singer from Short Story to Screen
Do you wish to request the book?
Adapting The Jazz Singer from Short Story to Screen
Please be aware that the book you have requested cannot be checked out. If you would like to checkout this book, you can reserve another copy
We have requested the book for you!
Your request is successful and it will be processed during the Library working hours. Please check the status of your request in My Requests.
Oops! Something went wrong.
Looks like we were not able to place your request. Kindly try again later.
Journal Article
Adapting The Jazz Singer from Short Story to Screen
2017
Overview
The Jazz Singer grew from a moment of inspiration when author Samson Raphaelson saw Al Jolson perform in 1917. Raphaelson’s idea of a rising singer, Jack Robin, torn between sacred and secular, became in turn a short story, a play, a feature film, a novelization, and a radio play. With each new adaptation, the music evolved; the thread that binds together all of these stories is the jazz singer’s stock in trade—his songs. For Jolson and The Jazz Singer, these songs serve several functions: besides providing a unique snapshot of popular vaudeville melodies in the 1920s and beyond, the songs used in the various tellings of The Jazz Singer have a specific connection to Jolson, providing numerous opportunities to retell his (largely fictionalized) origin story with the very songs he had used to make it on Broadway in the first place. We might then consider The Jazz Singer a proto–jukebox musical, in which preexisting songs with a common thread or history become the basis for a new story. Making extensive use of archival documentation and addressing previously unexamined adaptations of the story, this article shows how each version of The Jazz Singer came to be a musical summary of Jolson’s life as a performer.
