Sound of the Break: Jazz and the Failures of Emancipation
Bridget R. Cooks, Graham Eng-Wilmot
Abstract: This article analyzes four musical works written for the commemorative centennial year of the Emancipation Proclamation, 1963: We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, featuring the vocalist Abbey Lincoln; Duke Ellington’s theatrical production My People; John Coltrane’s “Alabama”; and Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam.” This diverse set of songs expresses the contradiction of Black life and death in America during the modern civil rights movement. Within the structure of each musical piece is a tension described as “the break” in which resistance to the disavowal of Black suffering and the demand for true freedom is performed. The analysis of such breaks helps explain the tenuous position of Black performers in this moment, the precipice they navigated onstage in 1963, as well as a larger tension that undergirded the Black freedom struggle: namely, the impulse to celebrate liberation against a cognizance of its failure to materialize in any substantive form.
The impact of (jazz) festivals: An Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded research report
Emma Webster
University of East Anglia
George McKay
University of East Anglia
Abstract: 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.
Birth and Evolution of Jazz as Effects of Cultural Transfers
Stefano Zenni
Abstract: The mission of this essay, based on the book Storia del jazz. Una prospettiva globale [The History of jazz in a global perspective] by Stefano Zenni (Storia del jazz. Una prospettiva globale. Viterbo: Stampa Alternativa, 2012), is to treat cultural transfer in jazz as an example of complex influences caused through migration and forced migration. The paper will show how jazz evolved from such complex transfer, considering different layers of cultural interaction through geographical, economical and musical forces. This complex transfer is still in place in more recent developments of the music due to its productive nature. What interests us here is to understand how those forces one century ago produced a new music, which, moreover, was immediately perceived by contemporaries as something innovative, breaking the traditional rules of music.
“Do not fear mistakes – there are none”: The Mistake as Surprising Experience of Creativity in Jazz
Alessandro Bertinetto
Università degli Studi di Udine / University of Udine, Department of Humanities and the Cultural Heritage – DIUM, Faculty Member
Abstract: Like pianist Kenny Barron, who once said that, “if you do not make mistakes, you do not play jazz” (cf. Rüedi, 2001; p.53), Miles Davis claimed: “When they make records with all the mistakes in, as well as the rest, then they’ll really make jazz records. If the mistakes aren’t there, too, it ain’t none of you” (Walser, 1995; p.176). However, countless sources (including webpages and books) credit Miles with the following sentence as well: “Do not fear mistakes – there are none”. Both claims seem to be wrong. Moreover, they are jointly inconsistent.(…)
Improvisation and Jazz: Implications for International Practice-1995-International Journal of Music Education
David Elliott
New York University, Music and Performing Arts, Faculty Member
(Front Matter of DMA Dissertation) Developing Collective Musical Personae: A Toronto-Based Study of the Performance Practices of Stable Jazz Groups
Ian Sinclair
University of Toronto, Music, Graduate Student
Artistry in Jazz Education
An essay on Jazz Education and Stan Kenton’s involvement. From the Tantara CD, “Horns of Plenty, Volume 3”
Terry Vosbein
Washington and Lee University, Music, Faculty Member
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