cover image Jazz Cleopatra Rose

Jazz Cleopatra Rose

Phyllis Rose. Doubleday Books, $22.5 (16pp) ISBN 978-0-385-24891-4

With the searching intellectuality that has distinguished her literary biographies, Rose ( Parallel Lives ) takes on what is for her a surprising subject: the life and work of American expatriate dancer, singer and entertainer Josephine Baker. Born in 1906 in St. Louis, Mo., Baker--whose roots were black and Native American--had endured the early departure of her father, abuse as a domestic servant in the homes of white people and the brutal East St. Louis race riots of 1917 before her childhood was over. The ethos of jazz--freedom--offered her a way out. Employed at 13 as a dresser for a touring black vaudeville show, Baker graduated into the chorus lines of other such troupes until recruited in 1925 to dance in a black revue to be launched in Paris. There her brilliantly uninhibited performances won her immediate and lasting fame (``Hips, stomach, and rump had never moved so violently''). Not simply the story of a complex and influential woman, this indispensable biography treats in full the two cultures--American and Continental--that formed Baker, and sets a new standard for critical studies of performing artists. Photos. First serial to Mirabella. (Oct.)