Jazz Studies

Focal Points in Collective Free Improvisation

by Clement Canonne

To be published in Perspectives of New Music
Draft only

A Model for Collective Free Improvisation

by Clement Canonne

Co-authored with Nicolas B. Garnier
Published in the Proceedings of Mathematics,Computation and Music Conference (2011).

ECOS DO JAZZ-BAND: ILUSTRAÇÕES PORTUGUESAS (1922-1930)

by Manuel Pedro Ferreira

in: A Dança e a Música nas Artes Plásticas do Século XX, coord. Margarida Acciaiuoli e Paulo Ferreira de Castro, Lisboa: Edições Colibri / IHA / CESEM, 2012, pp. 75-105

The jazz-band in the 1920s through the eyes of Portuguese artists and writers: dance context, musical style, choice of... more The jazz-band in the 1920s through the eyes of Portuguese artists and writers: dance context, musical style, choice of instruments and race stereotypes. The change in the perception and representation of jazz identity, c. 1925. Artistic strategies and social critique in the drawings of Bernardo Marques: from Art-Deco to Grosz-influenced Expressionism.

Song of the Bass Clarinet

by Jeff Klooger

Folkhögskolan som musikaliskt förmak

by Erik Nylander

Published in "Två sidor av samma mynt Folkbildning och yrkesutbildning vid de nordiska folkhögskolorna Lundh Nilsson & Nilsson red. 2011 Nordic Academic Press

The RHIZOME Project

by Martin E. Rosenberg

_The RHIZOME Project_ (1988-91; @1991), co-authored with Tom I. Ellis, and created in Hypercard. _RHIZOME_ was a critical thinking hypertext which offered creative as well as rhetorical and logical heuristics for the writing of a range of undergraduate essays. It was available at numerous writing programs in the early 1990's, and several articles were generated to explain its theoretical as well as pedagogical implications. Two other programmers, Stuart Selber, and Johndan Johnson-Eiola, worked briefly on the interface in 1991.

The RHIZOME Project was an experiment in instructional software to use the decision-tree environment of hypertext to... more The RHIZOME Project was an experiment in instructional software to use the decision-tree environment of hypertext to model specific sequential (as in narrative and logic) and non-sequential (as in creative and associative) thought strategies to help students write academic and creative essays. It was available at numerous writing programs in the early 1990's, including U Michigan, UC Berkeley, ASU, University of Illinois and Carnegie Mellon U. Comprised of separate "stacks" each modeling a specific heuristic, these stacks included:
1. Jazzwriting--a non-linear and recursive environment for generating and then exfoliating ideas in response to an automated or self-initiated prompt. Designed with the composing practices of BeBop jazz musicians in mind (improvisation/composition/improvisation), it offered recursive access to strategies for the improvisation of thoughts, and guided students to explore their more formal elaboration according to the rules of rhetoric, which was then linked to another "stack called:
2. Brainstorming--a non-linear, yet also sequential cluster of rhetorical heuristics: "Narrative," "Description," "Definition," "Comparison/Contrast," "Argument,"--each of which consitituted a "stack" which contained a sequence of prompts (often based on challenging heuristics such as Kenneth Burke's Pentad, for Narrative) to help expand the range of implications of ideas generated spontaneously in Jazzwriting. It was also possible to "jump" randomly or deliberately from one to the other of these heuristics, so that five separate threads of thought might be developed from the initial Jazzwriting responses. All five of these stacks then were projected into the next stack:
3. Arguprompt--which guided students through a series of prompts that would generate positions, assumptions, arguments and evidence, objections and replies to those objections, in such a way that each prompt generated a paragraph in sequence. At any point in the process of "inventing" and "arranging" an argument, the user could highlight and then export a particular assertion into another "stack" called:
4. Enthymemes--which would, through the use of dialog boxes, center that assertion into the form of an Enthymeme, which would then prompt the student to respond to a few questions. Answering these additional questions would then trigger the hypertext program to translate the Enthymeme into a formal syllogism; and then offer the opportunity to translate that socratic syllogism into a Toulmin unit of logic, with assumptions and grounds for those assumptions. Furthermore, from Arguprompt, the students could access another stack called:
5. Style--which would offer students exercises to work on semantics, grammar and syntax.
As the student progressed through the sequence of four distinct environments, or worked exclusively with just one of them, the student could export generated text to a word processing program for further engagement with the processes of invention, arrangement and style.

Informed by the specific practices of jazz musicians and composers, the behavior of bifurcating systems in non-equilibrium thermodynamics described by Ilya Prigogine, as well as the non-linear models from philosophy exemplified by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari and their concept of the rhizome, the project was an application of the theories explored in my theoretical dissertation: _Being and Becoming: Physics, Hegemony, Art and the Nomad in the Works of Ezra Pound, Marcel Duchamp, Samuel Beckett, John Cage and Thomas Pynchon_ (1989). This project was followed by an online real-time text-based virtual reality classroom of multiple rooms with functional tools at the Media Lab MOO called _MER's Fungal Palace_ (1996), with which I taught several graduate seminars linked to seminars at other universities (1996-8); and _Chess RHIZOME_, an exploratory hypermedia database to explore the contradictory epistemological implications of the metaphor of chess across all disciplinary formations (1998).

“’A MÚSICA AGORA É O JAZZ’: O Jazz como palco de resistência em Portugal, entre 1971 e 1973”

by Pedro Cravinho

Colóquio Internacional Música Discurso e Poder
Universidade do Minho, Março 2011

“A música agora é o jazz” é o título do panfleto que circulou no 3º Festival Internacional de Jazz de Cascais (FIJC),... more “A música agora é o jazz” é o título do panfleto que circulou no 3º Festival Internacional de Jazz de Cascais (FIJC), em 1973. Entre 1971 e 1973, no contexto do Estado Novo e no cenário da guerra colonial/independência realizaram-se em Portugal os primeiros FIJC. Estes eventos, configuram um espaço de resistência política e contestação à guerra colonial, explorado por músicos no palco e vivenciados pelos milhares de jovens presentes. Neste estudo parto da dedicatória de Charlie Haden aos movimentos de libertação de Angola, Moçambique e Guiné-Bissau, e da referência à liberdade feita por Roland Kirk, formuladas no decorrer das suas actuações nos FIJC, para proceder à análise do alcance social e político da música Jazz, em Portugal, nos primeiros anos da década de 1970. Na verdade, o Jazz, no contexto dos FIJC, parece ter propiciado a criação de um palco de luta política, possibilitando a identificação de jovens com um modelo de sociedade alternativo ao regime autocrático vigente.
Com este artigo, pretendemos reflectir sobre o papel do Jazz, enquanto prática social à escala do palco (Stokes, 1997) e como potenciador da experiência de realidades possíveis, ou seja, para lá do que nós pensamos e já experimentámos (Turino, 2008).

“Gosto de Jazz porque gosto da verdade”: o Clube Universitário de Jazz, a contestação e o discurso alternativo ao meio “jazzístico” em Portugal, entre 1958 e 1961

by Pedro Cravinho

Performa ’11 – Encontros de Investigação em Performance
Universidade de Aveiro, Maio de 2011

In 1958, a group of university students established in Lisbon the Clube Universitário de Jazz (University Jazz Club)... more In 1958, a group of university students established in Lisbon the Clube Universitário de Jazz (University Jazz Club) (CUJ), with the aim to disseminate Jazz music. The CUJ’s life was very short as the Public Security Police sealed it, in 1961. CUJ started its activity during a period of great social expectation, related to the possibility to change the dictatorial regime, installed in Portugal since 1933. Portugal was preparing what was supposed to be a process of “free elections” and some prior forbidden activities were now allowed. Within this context CUJ became an alternative to the broadcasting of jazz in Portugal using it as a discourse of liberty, specially regarding the status of the Portuguese colonies in Africa. To achieve this aim CUJ published the first Portuguese jazz magazine, organized “jam-session’s”, concert’s and phonograph meetings followed by collective discussion. These activities were carried out by a core group of individuals, including its founder, Raul Calado, who’s main propose was to present a non canonical musical repertoire, usually excluded from the public sphere for political reasons (Jazz, Kwela, and other African sonorities). Using the contribution of Lawrence Grosseberg based on an understanding of the binomial hegemony/resistance as a "transformative practice", giving rise to bilateral relations and changes, (Grossberg, 1996), I will reflect on the actions of resistance carried out by CUJ, configuring Jazz as the discourse of truth in a period of censorship and repression, and its impact on university students who have attended institutions such as the Casa dos Estudantes do Império (House of the Empire’s Students). This paper will explore further the role of jazz as an experience of "human relations ideals", capable to provide new social realities that are not yet accessible (Turino, 2008).

Educated Jazz: What happened when Jazz 'went to college'

by Philip Rice

Written for History of Jazz at Westminster Choir College Spring 2011. Instructor was Dr. Marshall Onofrio

Survey of philosophical and practical implications of the introduction of jazz into collegiate music curriculums. Survey of philosophical and practical implications of the introduction of jazz into collegiate music curriculums.

Negotiating Primitivist Modernisms: Louis Armstrong, Robert Goffin, and the Transatlantic Jazz Debate

by Daniel Stein

Hearing, Seeing, and Writing Thelonious Monk: Toward a Theory of Changing Iconotexts

by Daniel Stein

The Performance of Jazz Autobiography

by Daniel Stein

All That Jazz Was: Remembering the Mainstream Avant-Garde

by Aram Sinnreich

Review essay in "American Quarterly," 2005.

Jazz is American. Jazz is black. Jazz is local and global, traditional and avant- garde, a universal mother tongue and... more Jazz is American. Jazz is black. Jazz is local and global, traditional and avant- garde, a universal mother tongue and the most hermetic in-joke in cultural history. Jazz is all of these things and none of them. Jazz is impossible to pin down. Jazz is power.

Or was, at least.

Autobiojazzographie. Jazzman. Chroniques et anecdotes autour d'une passion, de Stanley Péan. Mémoire d'encrier, 192 p. Jazzman. Chroniques et anecdotes …

by Yan Hamel

Les prises de position jazzistiques de Jean-Paul Sartre

by Yan Hamel

Dans  MONTANDON, Frédérique et Aude LOCATELLI (dir.). Réflexions sur la socialité de la musique, Paris, L’Harmattan, coll. « Logiques sociales/musiques et champ social », 2007, p. 185-199.

Insecurity, professional sociability, and alcohol: Young freelance musicians' perspectives on work and life in the music profession

by Melissa Dobson

Psychology of Music, 39(2), 240-260 (2011).

Performing your self? Autonomy and self-expression in the work of jazz musicians and classical string players

by Melissa Dobson

Music Performance Research, Special Issue: Music and Health, 3(1), 42-60 (2010).

Hogan, E. (2010) '‘Earthly, sensual, devilish’: Sex, ‘race’ and jazz in post-independence Ireland' Jazz Research Journal 4 (1) :57-79

by Eileen Hogan

This article examines racialized and sexualized constructions of jazz in Ireland in the post-independence era. Drawing... more This article examines racialized and sexualized constructions of jazz in Ireland in the post-independence era. Drawing on newspaper coverage and Government debate from 1920 to 1938, I argue that the broadcasting service and the dance halls represented key sites of formation of Irish national identity, which was based upon gendered productions of space and place. The nation-building project was premised upon the idealization of a rural, sanitized moral landscape. In this period, fears of foreign cultural corruption and the liberalization of sexual mores were articulated through intensive campaigning, led by the Catholic elite and largely supported by the state, against jazz music which was seen as a cultural import that threatened Irish cultural identity and the nation.

Espera e surpresa na improvisação jazzística: o solo de Coleman Hawkins em Body and Soul

by Guilherme Maximiano

Jazz and Emergence--Part One: From Calculus to Cage, and from Charlie Parker to Ornette Coleman: Complexity and the Aesthetics and Politics of Emergent Form in Jazz

by Martin E. Rosenberg

Published December, 2010, in _Inflexions: A Journal of Research-Creation_ Vol. 4, pp 183-277 http://www.senselab.ca/inflexions/volume_4/n4_rosenberghtml.html
(html and pdf.)

This two-part essay inquires into the history of jazz from Be-Bop composing practices of the 1940’s, to the... more This two-part essay inquires into the history of jazz from Be-Bop composing practices of the 1940’s, to the development of Free Jazz in the 1960’s, in terms of the concepts of “complexity” and “emergence” in physics and cognitive science. Thus, it continues my past attempts at cross-disciplinary investigations, which drift from the relationship between complex systems and art into the realm of philosophy, by addressing the transgressive and yet inevitably complicitous nature of avant-garde art and its posture towards dominant cultural formations.

Much of my early work on the avant-garde demonstrates how Deleuze and Guattari ground the concepts of nomadology and micro-political aesthetics to a great extent in the discourses of complex systems in physics and cognitive science, as those discourses have evolved throughout this century, but especially since the 1960’s. Since the late 1980’s, I have argued, along with Manuel Delanda, that many other concepts such as the refrain, multiplicities, territorialization and de-territorialization, difference and repetition—recently discussed by Deleuzean scholars with reference to music--also share these grounds. We need to justify this venture into the careful forging of alliances among scientific disciplines, the philosophy of science and contemporary aesthetic philosophy, in order to reflect on the following five main lines of inquiry (or what Deleuze and Guattari would call “lines of [conceptual] flight”) traversing the realms of science, philosophy and jazz aesthetics:

How do assumptions about duration or time shape the very different creative processes in classical and jazz music? I refer specifically to the western tendency to spatialize time since the 17th Century when both calculus, and standard music notation with even temperament and bars and time signatures, emerged.

How dependent are John Cage’s compositions, by foregrounding the interdependence of music and noise, upon a carefully considered deconstruction (in the Derridean sense) of the calculus of music notation dominant since those 17th Century innovations in contrapuntal composition. We will then notice how he adopts models of music notation that look uncannily similar to phase space diagrams of such complex irreversible processes as attractor states in thermodynamics.

How did the Be-Bop composing practices of Charlie Parker and others engage directly in the calculated yet spontaneous deconstruction of spatialized time, in order for new, hybrid processes of musical expression to emerge? Reminiscent of Bergson’s stages of “creative evolution,” these processes, enable song structures, as the vehicles for improvisation, as well as the conceptual/linguistic musical content (harmony, melody and rhythm) of those songs, to evolve into increasingly subtle and abstract forms at breath-taking speed.

How may we identify processes of de-territorialization and re-territorialization, and the iterative, emergent or self-organizing nature of the refrain (and of harmonic rhythm generally), as central to an understanding of the micro-political motivations of an aesthetic? We will also see how a shift from the model of calculus to the model of phase space in conceptualizing the nature of duration enables us to theorize, and visualize, the crucial role of systemic bifurcations: in both complex processes from physics (and cognitive science in Part Two), and in jazz.

How one might define Ornette Coleman's theorization of “Free Jazz,” in terms of a distributed form of musical expression (called "Harmelodics"), as an evolutionary extension of the line of conceptual flight opened up by Be-Bop composing practices. Other artists also embraced the distributed nature of jazz performances, involving the maximum freedom in juxtaposing independent and sometimes contrasting melodic, harmonic and rhythmic materials, to reach for a full realization of performative freedom.