Jazz Studies Research Articles

Congo Square and the Second Line

In New Orleans, Louisiana, nearly every occasion is marked with a celebratory parade, most famously the Mardi Gras processions that seemingly take over the city during Carnival Time. But throughout the year, jazz funerals and parades known as "second lines" fill the Backatown neighborhoods of New Orleans with the jubilant sounds of brass band music. Despite this, and the rapidly growing body of well-researched and well-meaning literature by "new jazz studies" scholars, the second line culture that derives from Congo Square remains excluded from jazz history courses the world over in favor of a single text that provides an "easier read" for undergraduate students. The resulting texts provide incomplete surveys that do little to correct previously held assumptions about jazz and are now deeply embedded within American culture, serving as an indoctrinating canon that limits the brass band's role and its practitioners within the jazz tradition. Those scholars that do mention brass bands—past or present—spend little time discussing them. This article highlights these oversights and problematizes the monolithic narrative proliferating jazz texts today. Herein, I will discuss the New Orleans second line culture and its relevance to shifting narratives about jazz history in relation to Congo Square and its historical implications: what is Congo Square, what about it is missing from the jazz narrative, accepting practitioner's beliefs and social actions as proof, and why it is crucial that we (scholars/educators) implement practitioners' beliefs and community and new jazz studies scholarship to create a better, more nuanced picture of jazz as a whole.

Trends of modern Ukrainian jazz music in Germany in the XXI century (on the example of Tamara Lukasheva’s creativity)

Statement of the problem. European jazz art of the 21st century continues to develop the trends that were formed in world jazz in the last third of the 20th century. Among them is the interaction with musical ideas of folklore of various peoples of the world, as well as rock music. As a result of this process, such phenomena as ethno-jazz, fusion, and funk and there experimental types were formed, which is found a wide distribution in the territory of Ukraine and provided many opportunities for the disclosure and popularization of the national musical culture. Scientific interest is seen in the study of trends in its development not only within the country, but also abroad, in particular in Germany, where Ukrainian jazz musicians come to. In modern jazzology, the topic of the Jazz and Ukrainian folklore interaction has been studied to some extent, as well as the theme of interaction between jazz and academic music. Some features of the activities of Ukrainian jazzmen in Ukraine and abroad, including T. Lukasheva, are revealed in interviews with musicians, popular science articles, as well as reviews of albums or concerts. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to reveal the genre-stylistic specificity of T. Lukasheva’s work in the context of Ukrainian jazz music making in Germany in the 21st century. A set of scientific methods, such as historical-genetic, comparative, interpretive and analytical, contributed to the disclosing the theme of the article. The novelty of the research topic is connected with almost complete lack of its researching in the national jazz studies. Research results and conclusion. T. Lukasheva’s work is in line with the trends that emerged in Ukrainian jazz at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: ethno-jazz, funk, fusion in there experimental forms. The individualization of her author’s style took place in Germany, where she revealed herself not only as a virtuoso vocalist and pianist, but also as a talented composer and arranger. This was manifested in the compositions that were performed in the concerts at the Stadtgarten and were considered in the study. They confirm the opinion that the artist masterfully owns her voice, demonstrates a variety of vocal techniques, embodies a wide variety of artistic images. The musician has a wide vocal range of three octaves, non-standard harmonic thinking and a sense of musical time, which allows her to freely feel herself in improvisational solos and in other sections of the form where complex meter and rhythm meet. It is indisputable that one of the leading driving forces in jazz is a creative personality, who must have leadership qualities, bright charisma, musical intelligence, and attract like-minded musicians. All these qualities are fully characteristic of Tamara Lukasheva.

RIPM Jazz Periodicals

RIPM Jazz Periodicals, a collaborative effort between the Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS) at Rutgers University and RIPM Partner and Participating Libraries, offers a unique collection of historical primary source jazz periodicals. With a focus on rare and hard-to-find content, the database has grown from 105 to 138 titles, spanning 350,000 citation records and 204,000 full-text pages. The product’s strength lies in exclusive content and the readability and quality of its scans. However, user experience challenges arise from the complexity of search functions. Despite minor drawbacks, continuous updates and plans for additional content highlight the product’s commitment to improvement. While there are no direct competitors, related products in the RIPM series cover different historical periods and geographic regions.

Gender and jazz research in Spain

During the last two decades, the little jazz research that has been conducted in Spain has focused on examining both flamenco jazz, as the most important contribution of Spanish culture to jazz, and sociocultural meanings of jazz development, mainly from a political and historical perspective. This period has also coincided with a significant development in jazz studies outside of the United States, and a key juncture for gender and feminist studies in Spain that concurred with the emergence of fourth-wave feminism. Spanish gender research in music has traditionally focused on written music, paying scant attention to jazz, although popular music is slowly becoming a significant focus of research. Far from seeing this as a drawback, we propose that the underdevelopment of knowledge production is an opportunity for a feminist-inspired overview, and a re-reading of jazz cultures and jazz research in Spain as we ‘listen’ for the relationships between gender and jazz as interdisciplinary fields of research. The article concludes that Spain presents fertile ground for a comprehensive exploration of its own jazz culture as research here strives to find its own voice.

The changing face of my jazz photographic practice

This article is a reflection on my jazz photography practice and how it has changed with my involvement in academic research after becoming actively involved in the Jazz Studies cluster at the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research (BCMCR), Birmingham City University and starting a close collaboration with jazz scholar Dr Pedro Cravinho. My practice evolved from photographing musicians playing at gigs to visualising the jazz scene and musicians from a different perspective which includes aspects of their off-stage lives. Through our discussions and common interests in the local jazz scene(s), Cravinho and I began developing a research process in which photography is the visual driver but is underpinned by Pedro’s rigorous academic input. Our collaboration is built on my documentary photography practice and Pedro’s ethnomusicological research background.

Introduction to the special issue

Both jazz studies and gender studies are relatively new academic disciplines. Both originated in the twentieth century, and neither were taken seriously by academia at large until nearly the twenty-first century. Since that point gender in jazz, and gender in relation to jazz, has been playing catch up to the rest of the field. However, in the second decade of the twenty-first century gender and jazz as an area of serious research has been slowly gathering pace, with an increasing number of publications on a variety of topics. This has been helped along by the rise of #MeToo, We Have Voice, Safer Spaces in Music and other similar movements promoting an a increase in awareness of gender dynamics and music, and the use and abuse of power structures, both personal and institutional. This special issue examines some of the many topics revolving around jazz and gender, in particular moving beyond the performance and performers of jazz to examine the support networks of programmers, journalists and the audience.

The Jazz Diaspora: Challenging Perspectives for 21st-Century Jazz Education Methodologies

Abstract: Until the late 20th century, global narratives of jazz were limited. However, more recently, as the field of New Jazz Studies has gained a strong foothold in academia, the need for a more critical understanding of diasporic jazz studies within the academy is now timely. This study examines the jazz diaspora and the growth of New Jazz Studies. A literature synopsis of jazz diaspora and New Jazz Studies scholarship serves as a reference for further investigation and practical application within jazz education settings that are discussed in the final sections of the article. As an example of the jazz diaspora, Australian jazz musician Graeme Bell is presented as an instructive case study for his contribution to establishing the Australian jazz style. Accordingly, the study of Bell is used as an example for suggesting a rethinking of jazz education through the lens of the jazz diaspora.

Реализация программы «История эстрадной музыки» в эстетическом воспитании подростков

The article proves the necessity of implementing the program "History of Pop Music" in the aesthetic education of teenagers, which allows to form not only aesthetic perceptions, feelings, taste, attitude, but also to form spiritual values associated with mercy, love, patriotism, dignity, etc. Its main components are described: motivational, emotional, informational, cognitive, creative components in the study of jazz and rock music. Modules for the study of pop music art in extracurricular activities are proposed.

The Shitposting of Jazz to Come: Virtual Communities, Internetworks, and the Dank Jazz Meme

ABSTRACT This article is a virtual ethnography of an online community of jazz fans and musicians that engage in the consumption and dissemination of internet memes about jazz. It argues that internet memes are not, or are not merely, trivial funny images shared online – that memes matter in the social study of jazz. I explore the position of memes in the contemporary jazz milieu, finding them to play an active role in a variety of community functions including evaluating authenticity, enculturating members, and interacting with familiar and unfamiliar individuals on- and offline. They are a window into the discursive practices of jazz communities, a credible pathway of jazz pedagogy, and possess genuine artistic credentials, bringing them within the remit of jazz practice itself. Jazz memes are what I call internetworks, an ontological and aesthetic term that projects them into the future of jazz and positions them firmly within its social gestalt. For ordinary jazz enthusiasts, memeing is a meaningful activity.

Scott Joplin in the Overworld: Super Mario's Rag-Inflected Score

Abstract A rolling banjo, walking bass, steel drum, and syncopated piano. What strange music to accompany your trials and tribulations throughout the Mushroom Kingdom. Eclecticism pervades the Mario franchise and manifests in its digital places, the ways players interact within them, and, indeed, the sounds emanating from them. Mario and his jumping adventures have long been in the hearts of players, the minds of scholars, and the ears of ludomusicologists. By engaging with Koji Kondo's scores for early Mario games, this article highlights an overlooked component in the iconic scores of early Super Mario games: ragtime music. Furthermore, this research contributes examples of African American and Latino musical creation and innovation to ludomusicological discourse. I argue that, as a means to connect, contextualize, and enhance Mario's movement with music, composer Koji Kondo draws from ragtime and early jazz styles because of their distinctive rhythmic qualities. His rag-inflected score establishes ragtime as fundamental to early Super Mario soundscapes. While a substantial ludomusicological body of literature focuses on the Western classical tradition in games, jazz-centered research is scarce. This cross-disciplinary research draws on a wide range of scholarly perspectives from jazz studies and ludomusicology, including work by Andrew Schartmann, Edward Berlin, Ingrid Monson, Neil Lerner, David Butler, and Charles Hiroshi Garrett. As game audio is indispensable in facilitating a player's sense of verisimilitude of Mario's imaginative and, at times, nonsensical worlds, an inquiry into how jazz participates in this unique audiovisual relationship is long overdue.

“Hard” or “Soft”

Recent research has shown that the shape, timbre, and intensity of a sound influence the perception of its timing at the micro level of rhythm. In this case study of contemporary Norwegian jazz, we investigate to what extent jazz musicians intentionally use sonic features to shape the micro level of rhythm in their performances. First, we provide an overview of existing research into microrhythm in jazz and auditory perception studies. Then we present results from interviews with five expert jazz musicians about how playing techniques and sound qualities of specific instruments are utilized to influence the perception of timing. We also analyze two selected performances by the musicians to explore the effects of interaction between sonic features and timing in a musical context. The article concludes by discussing the results in the context of findings from empirical research into microlevel auditory perception regarding the perceptual center of sounds (P-center) and auditory stream segregation. The study demonstrates the need to move related research beyond the temporal domain, and to cultivate a more holistic approach to what constitutes groove in jazz and related genres. Keywords: timing, microrhythm, intensity, timbre, sound shape, P-center, stream segregation

Resounding Relations

Habit has primarily been considered along seemingly divergent trajectories, either as a mechanism that limits creativity or as a transition of imagination into embodied activity (Elizabeth Grosz (2013) ‘Habit today: Ravaisson, Bergson, Deleuze and us’, Body & Society 19(2&3): 217–39). An interplay of these two aspects is clearly seen in music improvisation, in which performances unfold through well-honed patterns of technique and processes of listening and learning. Yet while the development of good habits is considered essential to performance within distinct cultural traditions or stylistic genres, little attention has been devoted to identifying the types of habits needed for engagement in cross-cultural performance settings. This paper broadens the scope of habits typically explored within jazz studies and music pedagogy, conceptualizing habit in a way that resonates across contemporary Australian jazz and Yolŋu manikay (public ceremonial song) from Australia’s Northern Territory. We emphasize the relational dimensions of habit as they form a foundation for community formation through performance, involving processes of imitation and evocation, and learning through participation. Through this heuristic braiding of habits in jazz and manikay, we argue that habits of musical performance both locate performers within distinct traditions while allowing freedom to innovate. This dynamic allows for the elevation of these traditions within new contexts and relationships.

Collision in new music. Cross-border perspectives in the study, research and manifestation of jazz

I start with the inclusion of jazz in the category of new music in the transition phenomenon from Romanticism to the polystylism of the 20th century and until contemporary times. The work Collision in new music. Cross-border perspectives in the study, research and manifestation of jazz aims to identify some of the general approaches regarding the scientific investigation of jazz in universities around the world, study methods, means of promoting jazz musicians, etc. The work will also bring several personal opinions from some Romanian musicians on the study and research of jazz abroad: pianist Ion Baciu Jr. (Sweden), trombonist Robert Cozma (Germany), trumpeter Emil Bîzgă (U.S.A.) and others.

How “The Kid from Red Bank” Came to Newark

Institute of Jazz Studies Archivist Elizabeth Surles reports on the acquisition, conservation, and processing of the Count Basie family papers and artifacts. She details select notable items in the collection and emphasizes portions of the collection of particular interest to jazz researchers.

Manifesto

The editorial board of Jazz Research Journal collectively authored this statement over a number of months in 2021 and 2022. We consider it a necessary and long overdue intervention into the field of jazz studies. The statement describes the jazz studies we want to see.

Jazzing: New York City's Unseen Scene

Jazzing: New York City's Unseen Scene

Beyond a Lush Life: Representation and Performativity at America's [Only] Queer Jazz Festival

Beyond a Lush Life: Representation and Performativity at America's [Only] Queer Jazz Festival

Creating and Sustaining an All-Ages Jam Session in Salt Lake City: slcJAMS, Salt Lake City, United States

Creating and Sustaining an All-Ages Jam Session in Salt Lake City: slcJAMS, Salt Lake City, United States

Nocoastjazz

Nocoastjazz

Ship of Darkness: Jazz and/as Affect in the Global Cruise Industry

Ship of Darkness: Jazz and/as Affect in the Global Cruise Industry