Jazz PerspectivesPub Date : 2015-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17494060.2015.1125938
Sven Bjerstedt
{"title":"Swedish Stories? Culturally Dependent Perspectives on Jazz Improvisation as Storytelling","authors":"Sven Bjerstedt","doi":"10.1080/17494060.2015.1125938","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17494060.2015.1125938","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article is based on my Ph.D. empirical study which includes extensive qualitative interviews with fifteen Swedish jazz improvisers regarding their views on the term ‘storytelling’ as a metaphor in the field of jazz improvisation. Through comparisons with American literature on jazz music, this article points to a number of interesting relations between “American” and “Swedish” storytelling in jazz. While the notion of authenticity emerges as central to both American and Swedish jazz, the results from the Swedish interviews point to interesting interrelations between two aspects of authenticity: tradition-authenticity and self-authenticity.","PeriodicalId":39826,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17494060.2015.1125938","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60104311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jazz PerspectivesPub Date : 2015-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17494060.2015.1125939
G. Solis
{"title":"Timbral Virtuosity: Pharoah Sanders, Sonic Heterogeneity, and the Jazz Avant-garde in the 1960s and 70s","authors":"G. Solis","doi":"10.1080/17494060.2015.1125939","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17494060.2015.1125939","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Pharoah Sanders is best known for recording a handful of meditative, cosmologically-inclined free jazz classics from the 1960s and 1970s, including “The Creator Has a Master Plan.” This article looks at the reasons for these recordings' popularity at the time, arguing that the key to understanding these works can be found in Sanders's use of timbral variation as a formal element. In considering what I call “timbral virtuosity” in Sanders's work, this article discusses the relationships that such a focus allows us to more clearly see between avant-garde jazz, fusion, and contemporaneous popular music from rock to soul.","PeriodicalId":39826,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17494060.2015.1125939","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60104320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jazz PerspectivesPub Date : 2015-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17494060.2015.1132510
O. Gazit
{"title":"Sound at First Sight: Jam Sessions and Immigrants in Brooklyn, New York","authors":"O. Gazit","doi":"10.1080/17494060.2015.1132510","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17494060.2015.1132510","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay examines the incorporation of immigrant musicians in a jazz jam session in Brooklyn, New York. Migration scholars define incorporation as a dialectical process in which hosts and immigrants negotiate established social boundaries between “us” and “not us.” While the social dynamics of jam sessions have intrigued scholars since the 1950s, the interactions between immigrants and American-born musicians in jazz jam sessions have not been studied. Drawing on ethnographic participation as a bass player in a weekly jam session in Brooklyn, I analyze the ways musical competence is used to establish and negotiate social boundaries between immigrants and hosts. Ultimately, I argue that jam sessions privilege incorporation, allowing immigrant musicians to cross, blur and shift social boundaries between themselves and their American-born peers.","PeriodicalId":39826,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17494060.2015.1132510","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60104326","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jazz PerspectivesPub Date : 2015-01-02DOI: 10.1080/17494060.2015.1132554
Kristin McGee
{"title":"The Girls in the Band","authors":"Kristin McGee","doi":"10.1080/17494060.2015.1132554","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17494060.2015.1132554","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39826,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17494060.2015.1132554","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60104373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jazz PerspectivesPub Date : 2014-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17494060.2015.1088361
Chris Robinson
{"title":"Miles Davis Quintet Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1; Miles Davis Quintet Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2; Miles at the Fillmore. Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3","authors":"Chris Robinson","doi":"10.1080/17494060.2015.1088361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17494060.2015.1088361","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39826,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17494060.2015.1088361","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60104270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jazz PerspectivesPub Date : 2014-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17494060.2015.1089975
Ken Prouty
{"title":"Letter from the Editor","authors":"Ken Prouty","doi":"10.1080/17494060.2015.1089975","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17494060.2015.1089975","url":null,"abstract":"During the course of its existence, many articles in Jazz Perspectives have engaged in forceful critiques and re-examinations of jazz’s history and practice; in fact, this might be seen as something of a running theme in the pages of the journal, to constantly question the ways we engage with and understand what jazz is. The boundaries of jazz have perplexed musicians, critics, scholars, and audiences since the earliest days of the music. Be it the symphonic strains of George Gershwin and Paul Whiteman, the electric fusion of Miles Davis and his collaborators, or the saccharine stylings of Kenny G, jazz people have never been reluctant to espouse opinions on what jazz is, or more to the point, what jazz is not. In magazine articles, internet forums, Facebook posts, and Twitter feeds, the debate about where jazz ends and begins rages on. Scholars too have participated in these debates for many years. To give one recent example, in the 2012 book Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and its Boundaries, editors David Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett, and Daniel Goldmark presented a series of essays that spotlight these issues, calling into question the utility of jazz’s boundaries, be they boundaries of sound, culture, community, or history. The boundaries of the music have been, as the editors of Jazz/Not Jazz note, “fiercely guarded and very difficult to define.” Given recent debates over jazz’s identity, history, and place in society, it is clear that this process persists to this day. Scholarship in jazz often must by necessity engage with such issues, particularly when examining music and issues which might be considered at the “margins” of the genre. In this issue of Jazz Perspectives, we feature works that continue in this spirit, exploring topics that problematize the effort to clearly define jazz vas-a-vis popular music, or classical forms. The three articles in this issue all speak to this permeability of boundaries. Brian Felix’s essay on Wes Montgomery’s collaborations with producer Creed Taylor engages in a critical discussion of the fault lines between jazz and popular forms, be it in terms of musical practice, critical reception, or audience taste. Felix examines Montgomery’s “pop” recordings of the late 1960s, with a particular emphasis on his 1967 album A Day in the Life, a recording that represents (by virtue of its title, named for Montgomery’s version of the Beatles track of the same name) the nexus of discourses of pop and jazz, and of art and commerce. Montgomery and","PeriodicalId":39826,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17494060.2015.1089975","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60104284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jazz PerspectivesPub Date : 2014-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17494060.2015.1090047
J. Alberts, Alex D. Stein, Barry Harris
{"title":"About the Contributors","authors":"J. Alberts, Alex D. Stein, Barry Harris","doi":"10.1080/17494060.2015.1090047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17494060.2015.1090047","url":null,"abstract":"Jim Alberts studied the double bass at the University of Michigan (BM ‘93, MM ‘95) and played the double bass professionally. He has an MFA in musicology from Brandeis University, where he also worked toward the Ph.D. In addition, he has a degree in library and information science from the University of Maryland. He undertook graduate coursework in ethnomusicology and helped develop and lead undergraduate projects on jazz research at Cornell University, where he was the assistant music librarian from 2003 to 2010. He is currently a cataloger in the Recorded Sound Section of the Library of Congress, specializing in jazz, classical, and non-Western materials.","PeriodicalId":39826,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17494060.2015.1090047","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60104290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jazz PerspectivesPub Date : 2014-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17494060.2015.1083784
Brian M. Felix
{"title":"Wes Montgomery's A Day In The Life: The Anatomy of a Jazz-Pop Crossover Album","authors":"Brian M. Felix","doi":"10.1080/17494060.2015.1083784","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17494060.2015.1083784","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Wes Montgomery was one of the few jazz musicians in the mid-1960s to achieve crossover success in the popular marketplace. Like other jazz artists at the time, the guitarist chose to pack his albums with interpretations of current pop hits. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, Montgomery embraced a savvy producer, Creed Taylor, who molded the overall sound of his recordings for maximum impact in the pop marketplace. Their partnership did indeed yield several commercially successful albums during this time period, the most popular of which was the 1967 release A Day In The Life. The primary purpose of this article is to examine this album and parse the reasons for its commercial success. Through detailed musical analysis of A Day In The Life, we can see the creation of the new genre of “jazz-pop,” one that was viable in the popular marketplace at a time when traditional jazz was marginalized. Furthermore, Wes Montgomery’s A Day In The Life represents a seminal example of modern crossover jazz, making detailed understanding of this work crucial to a jazz historiography that has, in recent years, been expanded to include more commercialized forms.","PeriodicalId":39826,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17494060.2015.1083784","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60104658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jazz PerspectivesPub Date : 2014-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17494060.2015.1088355
S. Reichling
{"title":"Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall","authors":"S. Reichling","doi":"10.1080/17494060.2015.1088355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17494060.2015.1088355","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39826,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17494060.2015.1088355","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60104709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}