Book to feature local music history

photo by Bailey Porter

Kenneth Marcus, assistant professor of history at the University of La Verne, has been playing piano his entire life. Last month Marcus signed a contract for his book, "Musical Metropolis: Los Angeles and the Creation of a Music Culture" to be published next year. Marcus incorporates aspects of music into all of his history courses at ULV.

by Bailey Porter
Staff Writer

Assistant professor of history Kenneth Marcus recently signed a contract for his book "Musical Metropolis: Los Angeles and the Creation of a Music Culture" to be published December 2004.

The book, covering Los Angeles' musical history from 1880 to 1940, focuses on the role music played in the building and maintaining of communities in Los Angeles.

It follows the saga, as the town of 1,000 people transformed into a metropolis of two million and the second largest city in the country, Marcus said.

"I think that the issue of identity and community is a big theme in California studies, or western studies, and I think it's particularly important in Los Angeles," Marcus said.

Central to his research for the book are archival sources from such places as the Hollywood Bowl archives, the film and radio archives in Beverly Hills and the Huntington Library research archives in San Marino, Calif.

Interviews with musicians, administrators and conductors provide subsequent material, he said.

Marcus said the Hollywood Bowl is the true symbol of Los Angeles, which encompasses the essence of the music that brought Angelinos across class and race boundaries to come together for a common interest in music.

Marcus, who moved to Southern California as a senior in high school, finds he has some leverage for researching this book in how he identifies himself in Los Angeles as both an insider and an outsider.

"I have the outsider's fascination with Los Angeles and the insider's awareness of some of the archives I can go to, and the people I can talk with," he said.

The music genre Marcus largely discusses in his book is art, or classical music, however he also looks at a cross section of music.

Chapters are devoted to the individual institutions or forms of music that were accessible through theater, radio or dance during the 60 year period.

Marcus' love of music is surely not absent from the interest and drive he has for completing such an undertaking.

"I've been involved in music just about all my life," Marcus said.

For about 20 years, Marcus studied piano with teachers, and he has spent the rest of the time perfecting his relationship with the instrument on his own. He and plays the guitar. He also sings.

A favorite experience that Marcus has as a musician was during a solo piano performance in high school. He received a standing ovation from his peers for the piece that he composed himself.

"That was just an electric feeling just to communicate this music I'd come up with," he said.

Along with having recorded CDs and performing concerts in such venues as the chain bookstore Borders, Marcus always incorporates music into his classes.

"I find it's a way of sparking interest in a topic or strengthening an understanding of a topic," he said.

Putting music into historical context is something that was like an open door for him to explore, since most historians do not focus on music as an important element in the formation of people's lives.

Marcus believes music has been a defining factor throughout history.

In a U.S. history course he is teaching this semester, Marcus asks students to consider the role that jazz music played in the defining of the 1920s as the "Jazz Age."

"Ken has really brought the concept of interdisciplinary learning into the classroom," said Richard Gelm, professor of political science.

"It's a great example of what the University of La Verne is trying to achieve in our interdisciplinary emphasis," Gelm said.

In 2000, Marcus published another book that is far from his current research.

His first book focused on the government of early modern Germany and the patterns he found to explain the ways that top officials of the government succeeded or failed at their administrations.

He has written numerous articles on music patronage in early modern Europe and California.