ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the work of the little-known pianist, composer and bandleader Reginald Foresythe in the context of his unique critical location as a black-British musician within Anglo-American jazz culture and the African diaspora. Foresythe warrants attention for his highly influential yet neglected contribution to 1930s hot jazz during a crucial period in which the rapid proliferation and commodification of recorded jazz meant that it increasingly became the focus of searching critique. Firstly, Foresythe offers their opportunity to reconsider modernist concerns about the form and functions of jazz in social relations as expounded by the Frankfurt School theorist Theodor Adorno. Secondly, Foresythe offers their opportunity to develop broader transnational perspectives of jazz's modernity, one derived from his position within the spaces of movement which Paul Gilroy calls the Black Atlantic. Thirdly, the double consciousness suggested by such a figuring within the Black Atlantic is further complicated by Foresythe's sexualized performance as a decidedly camp figure in this arena.
