{"title":"1939 Ferriday archtop: A dream guitar","authors":"P. Johanis","doi":"10.1558/jazz.v9i2.30279","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v9i2.30279","url":null,"abstract":"In 2015, the Canadian author is gifted a mystery guitar made in London, August 1939. The article tracks down its origin and story, which is interwoven with the development of the early jazz scene in England.","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"16 1","pages":"194-220"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67543632","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}
{"title":"The impact of (jazz) festivals: An Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded research report","authors":"Emma Webster, G. McKay","doi":"10.1558/JAZZ.V9I2.29783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JAZZ.V9I2.29783","url":null,"abstract":"Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE Festivals are an essential part of the jazz world, forming regularly occurring pivot points around which jazz musicians, audiences, and organizers plan their lives. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the purpose of this report is to chart and critically examine available writing about the impact of jazz festivals, drawing on both academic and ‘grey’/cultural policy literature in the field. The review presents research findings under the headings of economic impact; socio-political impact; temporal impact and intensification and transformation of experience; creative impact – music and musicians; discovery and audience development; place-making; the mediation of jazz festivals; and environmental impact. It concludes with a set of recommendations for future research, which identifies gaps in the field. To accompany the review, a 100-entry 40,000 word annotated bibliography has also been produced, which is accessible online.","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"9 1","pages":"169-193"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67543829","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}
{"title":"Silent revolutions: An exploration of 1941, Jimmie Blanton’s ‘forgotten’ year","authors":"Matthias Heyman","doi":"10.1558/JAZZ.V9I2.30202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JAZZ.V9I2.30202","url":null,"abstract":"Normal 0 21 false false false EN-GB JA X-NONE Jimmie Blanton (1918-1942), best known for his tenure with Duke Ellington between 1939 and 1941, is by many considered to be one of the most influential bassists in jazz history. He has been widely studied, resulting in a paradigmatic depiction of his life and music. But a closer look reveals that all studies on Blanton focus on a single year, from November 1939 and November 1940, of his six-year career as a performer. Thus, a paradox is born. While many believe to profoundly understand Blanton’s music through the writings that abound, many of its aspects remain ‘hidden’, and only a partial and unnuanced narrative of this musician surfaces. Using 1941, Blanton’s final year with Ellington, as a case study, I will unravel the reasons, several of which are extra-musical, behind this period’s omission and detail its far-reaching consequences, which continue to pervade literature on the bassist to this day.","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"9 1","pages":"145-168"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67543545","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}
{"title":"‘We try to have the best’: How nationality, race and gender structure artists’ circulations in the Paris jazz scene","authors":"Myrtille Picaud","doi":"10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.28344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.28344","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how international circulations of jazz artists in the Parisian jazz scene are structured by hierarchies based on the artists’ nationalities, gender and ‘race’. To do so, the author first describes which artists are showcased in the capital’s clubs and festivals in terms of gender, nationality and country of residence. This shows that the well-known venues in Paris book (male) American rather than French or other artists, and that their added symbolic value is simultaneously economic. Finally, the article centres on how the artists are presented in two specific festivals, revealing that even though ‘otherness’ and value are constructed along racial and gendered divides, they are also informed by artists’ nationality. Indeed, the dominant position of the United States and the opposition between the Western world and the global South are strongly dramatized within jazz in France, which shows some proximity to the ‘world music’ scene.","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"126-152"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67539253","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}
{"title":"Tom Pickering: Jazz on the periphery of the periphery","authors":"M. Boden","doi":"10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.29128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.29128","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the initial encounter with jazz by Tom Pickering, and documents his musical development until the first Australian Jazz Convention in 1946. The AJC is a useful demarcation in time: the broad division in Australian jazz, which still exists, between those pursuing more traditional styles and those focused on modern styles (bebop and beyond) can be traced to this event. Through the examination of the early career of Pickering, the cultural transfer of jazz is explored. I argue that given the sociological environment, scarcity of materials and sheer enthusiasm for the American models, Australian jazz has at its core a distinctive sound that is nevertheless closely related to its American roots. Pickering represents the typical encounter and pursuit of jazz in Australia during the first half of the twentieth century: a teenage introduction to dance music and hot music, experimentation with instrumental performance given little to no tuition, appropriation of the music by imitation of recordings individually and within a group setting, and the relentless consumption of all available information connected to the art form. By taking Pickering as a case study, I will demonstrate the initial period of exposure and appropriation that is common to many Australian jazz musicians, which was crucial in the formation of an Australian jazz sound. Through the dissection of the developmental processes of a typical Australian jazz musician in the former half of the twentieth century, this article sheds new light on the identity of Australian jazz and demonstrates modalities concerning the international movement of musical form. Aside from Bruce Johnson’s work in The Inaudible Music and Timothy Steven’s study of The Red Onions Jazz Band, there is little documentation of the processes of appropriation of traditional jazz styles undertaken by Australian musicians. This paper explores the initial encounter with jazz by Tom Pickering, and documents his musical development until the first Australian Jazz Convention in 1946. The AJC is a useful demarcation in time: the broad division in Australian jazz, which still exists, between those pursuing more traditional styles and those focused on modern styles (bebop and beyond) can be traced to this event. Through the examination of the early career of Pickering, the cultural transfer of jazz is explored. I argue that given the sociological environment, lack of endemic culture, scarcity of materials and sheer enthusiasm for the American models, Australian jazz has at its core a distinctive sound that is nevertheless closely related to its American roots. Pickering represents the typical encounter and pursuit of jazz in Australia during the first half of the 20 th century: a teenage introduction to dance music and ‘hot’ music via radio and gramophone, experimentation with instrumental performance given little to no tuition, appropriation of the music by imitation of recordings individually and within a group","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"24 1","pages":"109-125"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67539308","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}
{"title":"Towards a history of jazz in Greece in the interwar era","authors":"Panagiota Anagnostou","doi":"10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.28405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.28405","url":null,"abstract":"The article examines the production, diffusion and reception of jazz in Greece in the interwar era. By examining various press articles, radio programmes and theatre booklets, it reveals unknown aspects of its history and brings into light forgotten sources of the past. It analyses issues of categorization, namely ‘modern’ and ‘popular’ music, the role of Greek theatrical composers, different musical circulations from France and Germany, as well as triangulation effects passing through Italy and Turkey. A certain attention is attributed to the term jazz and its meaning in interwar Greece and some interpretation of its relative oblivion is attempted.","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"54-74"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67539110","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}
{"title":"Paulo Moura’s Hepteto and Quarteto: ‘Sambajazz’ as ‘Brazilogical popular instrumental improvised music’","authors":"Cliff Korman","doi":"10.1558/JAZZ.V10I1-2.28347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JAZZ.V10I1-2.28347","url":null,"abstract":"As with American and other well-documented global jazz iterations, the presence of jazz in Brazil may be seen in the context of a story that includes or even initiates from local, regional and national trends in popular and improvised music. This long and complex history seems to require a descriptive label that is more nuanced, and in fact, more based on an equivalency of contribution than the Americo-centric ‘Brazilian jazz’. Through a case study of Paulo Moura’s recordings of 1968–69, this article considers the transmission, appropriation, invention and circulation of musical style and language. Following the work of George E. Lewis and David Ake, the possibility of identifying and defining a particular Brazilian set of approaches to this process is contemplated.","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"153-187"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67539026","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}
{"title":"Steven Feld, Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. 328 pp. ISBN 978-0-8223-5148-1 (hbk), 978-0-8223-5162-7 (pbk). $84.95/$23.95.","authors":"Panagiota Anagnostou","doi":"10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.29434","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.29434","url":null,"abstract":"Steven Feld, Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. 328 pp. ISBN 978-0-8223-5148-1 (hbk), 978-0-8223-5162-7 (pbk). $84.95/$23.95.During his first visit to Accra in October 2004, Steven Feld met Nii Noi Nortey, who happens to be a sculptor, but also an instrument inventor and avant-garde multi-instrumentalist. This encounter was the first connection with the Accra Trane Station band and the starting point of Five Musical Years in Ghana. These years spent in Accra led Feld to develop a multimedia project: a book that includes several photographs, three documentary movies and ten CDs. All that material helps the reader to explore Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra both as a 'diasporic dialogue' and a 'musical intimacy'.This project's originality lies in the hybrid methodology it proposes. This is made possible by Feld's mastery of academic tools, allied to filming and recording techniques. Feld offers a detailed ethnography, combined to musical analyses, enhanced by life stories and his participation as a musician. Feld was trained in anthropological film-making in Santa Fe and Paris, where he followed the teaching of Jean Rouch, which is visible in his own shooting style.Feld continues to deepen the concept of 'acoustemology' he firstly introduced during his research at Bosavi rainforest (Papua New Guinea) in the 1980s. Acoustemology, as part of a sensory anthropology, is 'the agency of knowing the world through sound' (49); it is about sound as a way of sensuous knowing, that is to say about the world felt, performed and embodied through sound. A similar concept could also be applied to pictures, drawings, paintings, odours or tastes. Feld's successful response to the challenge of acoustemology is not only to assemble audio-visual and textual material; it lies also in the fact that he succeeds to perform his knowledge within the Accra Trane Station band, and exchange subjectivities through sounds.Furthermore, he ably avoids another centrism by intentionally choosing an African urban standpoint, and by questioning his own interpretation during hours of discussion, where local views conflict with his own. Indeed, according to Feld, the most important part of the project is its dialogism. The montage of the three films, realized by Feld and his faithful editor Jeremiah Ra Richards, was thus the result of these feedback and 'dialogic editing' methods.Feld opts for performed 'intervocability' rather than academic contextualization, and tries to offer a non-European understanding of jazz cosmopolitanism, explicitly criticizing the still-dominant history of jazz. Cosmopolitanism is the key concept in Feld's critical approach. He tends to understand the desire for expansive agency and unravel it in its complexity. He emphasizes the voices and perspectives of the musicians with whom he collaborated during these five years, in order to overcome a certain kind of romanticism that permeates the idea tha","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"188-191"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67539734","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}
{"title":"Editorial: The Global Circulations of Jazz","authors":"S. Dorin","doi":"10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.29354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v10i1-2.29354","url":null,"abstract":"Every night, somewhere in the world, three or four musicians will climb on stage together. Whether the gig is at a jazz club, a bar, or a bar mitzvah, the performance never begins with a note, but with a question. The trumpet player might turn to the bassist and ask, 'Do you know \"Body and Soul\"'?-and from there the subtle craft of playing the jazz repertoire is tested in front of a live audience.Faulkner and Becker (2009)The history of jazz has often been built around the idea of a 'jazz tradition' of essentialist inspiration. This history brought together different musical genres, different places, different styles and multiple socio-historical contexts in an evolutionary progression, as shown by Scott DeVeaux (1991). However, the history of jazz can also be regarded as a multiplicity of stories, sometimes parallel, sometimes divergent, with different branches, linked to various places and social worlds in which jazz was listened to and played. In places such as Sweden, Greece, France, India, Brazil or Portugal, to name a few, local musicians and audiences developed different, and even competing, definitions of jazz. Musicians, when climbing up on stage, have, almost everywhere, to develop the knowledge of a 'repertoire', that is to say a song reservoir-jazz standards-in order to make jazz music together, as Faulkner and Becker put it (2009).Early works on the development of jazz in the United States, from its origins in New Orleans to the present day were followed by more specific studies focused on national stories, such as in Great Britain, France, Italy and Sweden. Taking into account the transnational character of jazz, and especially its developments in non-Western cultural areas, remained limited in the Anglo-Saxon academic world for both scientific and geopolitical reasons. On the one hand, a majority of jazz scholars come from North American or European academic traditions, while local systematic studies of popular music have developed in many countries in Latin America, Asia and South Africa. On the other hand, the mapping of cultural exchanges tends to flourish with the rise of formerly dominated cultural areas.One should not, however, conclude that this transnational jazz movement has been independent. Far from it, the weight of creative industries majors such as Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment- let alone Viacom and Time Warner-is increasing and still contributes significantly to defining the conditions for the circulation of cultural forms (Hesmondhalgh and Born 2000; Hesmondhalgh 2007, 2012). Contrary to common opinion, musical forms do not circulate spontaneously, but require the establishment of distribution networks, the work of cultural actors, and the involvement of public institutions or private organizations. Therefore the international dissemination of music, including jazz, did not happen by itself, as Pierre Bourdieu points out regarding the circulation of ideas (Bourdieu 1999).In this issue, we will l","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"4 1","pages":"5-12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67539724","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}
{"title":"Cooling down jazz: Making authentic Swedish jazz possible","authors":"M. V. Kan","doi":"10.1558/JAZZ.V10I1-2.27179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JAZZ.V10I1-2.27179","url":null,"abstract":"IntroductionJazz was understood as one of the most American of phenomena in the interwar era in Sweden. The notion of jazz was so closely linked with the nation-state of the US and racial ideas about African Americans that the Swedish public had difficulties regarding a Swedish performance of jazz as authentic. Nevertheless, a possibility for an authentic performance of Swedish jazz was constructed after the Second World War in which ideas of race connected to black and white bodies played an important role. This article discusses different ways in which a Swedish performance of jazz was positioned in relation to the jazz tradition in the United States. This connection was being made in the Swedish jazz press in the early 1950s, a period on which this article focuses. This article also explores how ideas of authenticity that were closely linked to notions of race were dealt with in the Swedish reception of jazz. I will pay close attention to the ways in which issues of race and nationality were central to notions of authenticity in jazz in Sweden2 and how these affected the possibility of a Swedish jazz production.First I have to clarify that my aim is not to define what 'authentic' jazz really is, but rather I'm interested in how a Swedish public dealt with notions of authenticity in relation to Swedish jazz-whether by using this specific word or implying it in various other ways. By authenticity here I mean a set of qualities that the music and musicians were regarded to possess that would make their actions accepted as jazz by a public consisting of critics, record buyers and many other jazz enthusiasts. Furthermore, this text is not about musically determining whether or not a certain music is 'African American'; it is, rather, about how race has been highly influential in contemporaneous thoughts about whether Swedish musicians were thought to be able to play jazz.To analyse specific racial aspects of Swedish thoughts on jazz I use the concept of the racial imagination, as Ronald Radano and Philip Bohlman have postulated it, to theorize this way in which the 'other' is constructed. Their definition is as follows: 'we define \"racial imagination\" as the shifting matrix of ideological constructions of difference associated with body type and color that have emerged as part of the discourse network of modernity' (Radano and Bohlman 2000: 5). The racial imagination is thus the way in which people think of differences between people based on race. This process of a discursive construction of difference connects ideas of characteristics to bodily characteristics that form the imagination. This ideology is at the centre of analysis here.Race, however, is not the only focus of analysis. In his study of cultural criticism, Paul Gilroy addresses ethnic absolutism and argues that race, and more specifically the division into black and white, cannot be understood separately from the frames of the nation-state and ethnicity: 'These colours support a speci","PeriodicalId":40438,"journal":{"name":"Jazz Research Journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"35-53"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67539133","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}