Theorising performance, performing theory: Jacques Derrida and Ornette Coleman at the Parc de la Villette

Abstract

On the evening of 1 July 1997, Jacques Derrida made an appearance on stage during a concert by the celebrated African American free jazz saxophonist, Ornette Coleman. Derrida’s attempts to read from a pre-prepared text, as Coleman responded on his saxophone, were interrupted by loud boos and catcalls from the audience. After a few moments, Derrida left the stage, having failed to complete his peroration. By means of a close reading of the text of his aborted intervention, this article argues that Derrida in fact had something very significant to contribute to debates about the nature of improvised jazz performance. More specifically, Derrida’s intervention constitutes an important attempt to challenge and rethink long-held assumptions about the apparently spontaneous, unmediated, and hence supposedly ‘primitive’ nature of improvised jazz performance. In so doing, he was attempting to deconstruct a long tradition of phonocentric, ethnocentric, even racist assumptions that have characterised much jazz criticism, from its origins to the present day.