Jazz

Jazz

1. What is Jazz?

   • From 1954, Oxford Companion to Music: Jazz is an American Negro type of dance music, muuch syncopated. Originated in Southern States, Includes lot of noise from various kinds of percussions andwind instruments played with very loud tone. The Saxophone generally take a prominent part.

2. From Keeping Time (1999): Not Only a Virtuosic Art Form but a Social Practice of Great Historical Significance: it gave rise to understandings about Culture, Race, Gender, Nation, The Body, Creativity, Tradition, Individuality, Cooperation and Continuity.

3. BLACKNESS OF EARLY JAZZ: Direct result of Slave Trade Along West Coast of Africa

   • But Not Only Black or White! Says Jelly Roll Morton on "Spanish Tinge"

4. Jazz as Change & Revolution

   • Jazz as Anti-Commercial and Anti-Capitalist
     • But as Democratic
   • As Process of Identity Formation
     • Sidney Bechet: "White People, they Don't Have Memory that Needs to Understand It..."
       • A problem of establishing and confronting the "Black" category in the identity of Jazz?
         • Not Simply Black & White!
   • Jazz is Restless. It Won't Stay Put"
     • Sydney Becket: "Not Spritiruals or Blues or Ragtime BUT Everyone Putting something together All at Once, Each one Putting Somehting Over the Other
   • As America's Classical Music
     • Alternative Discourse to Western Art Music
       • Wynton Marsalis: What is Jazz? and Isn't? Neoclassicist view on Standards; Jazz and The Academy
         • As Music of the New (Black)American Middle Class
     • As Art Form
       • No Longer New, or Experimental, Endured the Test of Time

5. Jazz as a Method

   • As IMPROVISATION
     • Impro or Compo?
       • Is Total Freedom Achievable or Desirable?
         • Scripts, Unwritten Rules, Format, Conventions
           • Elements of the Script: Combo Setup / Texture /Form/ Rhythm

6. Born in US Late C19th

   • Post-War American Black Musicien Most Prominent Creator of Jazz