Jazz Research Roundtable
March 30, 2016: Allen Lowe: "WAM,
BAM: White American Music, Black American Music: The Restless and
Revolutionary Tradition (sic) and the Spirit of Static Change: Deep
Sources"
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On March 30, 2016 Allen Lowe will present a Research Roundtable entitled: WAM,
BAM: White American Music, Black American Music: The Restless and
Revolutionary Tradition (sic) and the Spirit of Static Change: Deep
Sources.
Jazz's
biggest problem is, I think, complacency. Hence a lot of its
conservative reaffirmation of certain kinds of 'traditional' values. Yet
the music has survived by virtue of its paradoxically revolutionary
traditionalism - it's ability to look at its past (and the past, really,
of all American music) through the slightly distorting yet transforming
lens of sonic variation, out of deeply African and African American
sources altered, even as they changed internally, by the pressures of
white, Euro-American economic hegemony. The result is a Creolization of
certain kind of sonic habits, black to the core yet never shy about
their borrowings from both outsiders and insiders. Hence this talk:
We
will play a series of recordings illustrating aspect of varying styles
of black American music from the years 1900-1950, and discuss the ways
in which they both fit into and deviate from conventional ideas of this American sonic heritage.
Allen Lowe is a historian and saxophonist whose latest CD project, Mulatto Radio: A Jew At Large in the Minstrel Diaspora has
been called a work of "genius" by John Szwed. In the past he has
recorded with Julius Hemphill, David Murray, Matthew Shipp, Roswell
Rudd, Doc Cheatham, Ursula Oppens, and others. Loewe has written several
books on jazz, rock and roll, and the blues, and is currently working
on a history of country music. He is also a mastering and restoration
engineer.
The roundtable will take place in the Dana Room of the John Cotton Dana Library, Rutgers University-Newark at 7PM.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
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Tuesday, March 29, 2016
USA: Jazz Research Roundtable - Allen Lowe: "WAM, BAM: White American Music, Black American Music Mar 30th 7:00 pm, John Cotton Dana Library
