The Performance of Authenticity: The Making of Jazz and the Self in Autobiography

Abstract

out the book this concept, deriving from postcolonial theory, recurs). The fourth chapter is an inquiry into the abiding polarization between the aesthetic principles, language, and behavioral system characterizing the two adversarial branches of local jazz. Through the prism of Bourdieusian field theory with its emphasis on intra-field struggles for positions, competing hierarchies, and symbolic violence, the overall account of the jazz scene in which authenticity is at stake is rather disheartening. Despite citing selfcritical voices in both camps, Havas suggests that the ethnicized conflict by and large prevents musicians from expressing mutual respect or engaging in musical collaborations and exchanges across generic boundaries. It is interesting, however, that no reference is made to how the domestic jazz culture’s ethnic other, the Jewish minority, has been participating in this “black-and-white” dynamic after the resuscitation of jazz in the 1960s. The last and fifth chapter, titled “Othering Whiteness: Permanence and Change in Romani Musicians’ Jazz Habitus,” is dedicated to the musical socialization of Roma jazzists, the educational and symbolic role of family, kinship, and tradition whereby not only careers but also cultural meanings and identities are formed. Havas points out that, as with African American musicians, Roma jazzists’ socialization is inherently musical, and their aesthetic judgments are inherently social. The homology between jazz’s racial origins and Roma’s crucial status in modern Hungarian jazz is explored in great depth, detail, and nuance. Havas’s monograph is of great importance for scholars in cultural sociology, musicology, and jazz studies for his synthesis of diverse theoretical perspectives that help illuminate an expansive historical and ethnographic material. We must moreover welcome his erudition and analytic skills brought to bear on an internationally barely known jazz diaspora in a small semi-peripheral country like Hungary. However, his neglect to address the universally serious issues of gender in jazz and include such acclaimed women artists as Nikoletta Szőke, the late Juli Fábián, or Orsi Urbán – all of them vocalists – is unfortunate. Nonetheless, Havas’s love of Hungarian jazz, its innovators and virtuosos (György Szabados, Mihály Dresch, Gyula Babos, Béla Szakcsi Lakatos, Kálmán Oláh, Ferenc Snétberger, to name a few), lesser-known talents, and promising new hybrids with world music shines through the text. To spark international interest in this scene and this history is an additional benefit of his book.