The critical role of Europe in the music, personalities, and analysis of jazz

Transcultural Jazz: Israeli Musicians and Multi-Local Music Making studies jazz performance and composition through the examination of the transcultural practices of Israeli jazz musicians and their impact globally. An impressive number of Israeli jazz performers have received widespread exposure and worldwide acclaim, creating music that melds aspects of American jazz with an array of Israeli, Jewish and Middle Eastern influences and other non-Western musical traditions. While each musician is developing their own approach to musical transculturation, common threads connect them all. Unraveling and analyzing these entangled sounds and related discourses lies at the center of this study. This book provides broad insight into the nature, role and politics of transcultural music making in contemporary jazz practice. Focusing on a particular group of Israeli musicians to enhance knowledge of modern Israeli society, culture, discourses and practices, the research and analyses presented in this book are based on extensive fieldwork in multiple sites in the United States and Israel, and interviews with musicians, educators, journalists, producers and scholars. Transcultural Jazz is an engaging read for students and scholars from diverse fields such as: jazz studies, ethnomusicology, Jewish studies, Israel studies and transnational studies.

Remixing European Jazz Culture examines a jazz culture that emerged in the 1990s in cosmopolitan cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin, London, and Oslo – energised by the introduction of studio technologies into the live performance space, which has since developed into internationally recognised, eclectic, hybrid jazz styles. This book explores these oft-overlooked musicians and their forms that have nonetheless expanded the plane of jazz’s continued prosperity, popularity, and revitalisation in the twenty-first century – one where remix is no longer the sole domain of studio producers. Seeking to update the orthodoxies of the field of jazz studies, Remixing European Jazz Culture: incorporates electronic and digital performance, recording, and distribution practices that have transformed the culture since the 1980s; provides a more diverse and multifaceted cultural representation of European jazz and the contributions of a variety of performers; and offers an encompassing picture of the depth of jazz practice that has erupted through Northern Europe since 1989. With an expansion of international networks and a disintegration of artistic boundaries, the collaborative, performative, and real-time improvisational process of remixing has stimulated a merging of the music’s past and present within European jazz culture.

The Routledge Companion to Diasporic Jazz Studies recognizes the proliferation of jazz as global music in the 21st century. It illustrates the multi-vocality of contemporary jazz studies, combining local narratives, global histories, and cultural criticism. It rests on the argument that diasporic jazz is not a passive, second-hand reflection of music originating in the US, but possesses its own integrity, vitality, and distinctive range of identities. This companion reveals the contradictions of cultural globalization from which diasporic jazz cultures emerge, through 45 chapters within seven thematic parts: • What is Diasporic Jazz? • Histories and Counter-Narratives • Making, Disseminating, and Consuming Diasporic Jazz • Culture, Politics, and Ideology • Communities and Distinctions • Presenting and Representing Diasporic Jazz • Challenges and New Directions The Routledge Companion to Diasporic Jazz Studies traces how cultural dynamics related to "race", coloniality, gender, and politics traverse and shape jazz. Employing a cross section of approaches to the study of diasporic jazz as eloquently showcased by the entries, this book seeks to challenge the dominant jazz narratives through championing a more all-encompassing, multi-paradigmatic alternative. Bringing together contributions from authors all over the world, this volume is a vital resource for scholars of jazz, as well as professionals in the music industries and those interested in learning about the cultural and historical origins of jazz.

Is Jazz Dead? examines the state of jazz in America at the turn of the twenty-first century. Musicians themselves are returning to New Orleans, Swing, and Bebop styles, while the work of the '60s avant-garde and even '70s and '80s jazz-rock is roundly ignored. Meanwhile, global jazz musicians are creating new and exciting music that is just starting to be heard in the United States, offering a viable alternative to the rampant conservatism here. Stuart Nicholson's thought-provoking book offers an analysis of the American scene, how it came to be so stagnant, and what it can do to create a new level of creativity. This book is bound to be controversial among jazz purists and musicians; it will undoubtedly generate discussion about how jazz should grow now that it has become a recognized part of American musical history. Is Jazz Dead? dares to ask the question on all jazz fan's minds: Can jazz survive as a living medium? And, if so, how?

Should we talk of European jazz or jazz in Europe? What kinds of networks link those who make it happen 'on the ground'? What challenges do they have to face? Jazz is a part of the cultural fabric of many of the European countries. Jazz in Europe: Networking and Negotiating Identities presents jazz in Europe as a complex arena, where the very notions of cultural identity, jazz practices and Europe are continually being negotiated against an ever changing social, cultural, political and economic environment. The book gives voice to musicians, promoters, festival directors, educators and researchers regarding the challenges they are faced with in their everyday practices. Jazz identities in Europe result from the negotiation between discourse and practice and in the interstices between the formal and informal networks that support them, as if 'Jazz' and 'Europe' were blank canvases where diversified notions of what jazz and Europe should or could be are projected.

The Jazz Age. The phrase conjures images of Louis Armstrong holding court at the Sunset Cafe in Chicago, Duke Ellington dazzling crowds at the Cotton Club in Harlem, and star singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. But the Jazz Age was every bit as much of a Paris phenomenon as it was a Chicago and New York scene. In Paris Blues, Andy Fry provides an alternative history of African American music and musicians in France, one that looks beyond familiar personalities and well-rehearsed stories. He pinpoints key issues of race and nation in France’s complicated jazz history from the 1920s through the 1950s. While he deals with many of the traditional icons—such as Josephine Baker, Django Reinhardt, and Sidney Bechet, among others—what he asks is how they came to be so iconic, and what their stories hide as well as what they preserve. Fry focuses throughout on early jazz and swing but includes its re-creation—reinvention—in the 1950s. Along the way, he pays tribute to forgotten traditions such as black musical theater, white show bands, and French wartime swing. Paris Blues provides a nuanced account of the French reception of African Americans and their music and contributes greatly to a growing literature on jazz, race, and nation in France.

As the first organic overview of the history of jazz in Europe and covering the subject from its inception to the present day, the volume provides a unique, authoritative addition to the musicological literature.

Founded in 1965 and still active today, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is an American institution with an international reputation. George E. Lewis, who joined the collective as a teenager in 1971, establishes the full importance and vitality of the AACM with this communal history, written with a symphonic sweep that draws on a cross-generational chorus of voices and a rich collection of rare images. Moving from Chicago to New York to Paris, and from founding member Steve McCall’s kitchen table to Carnegie Hall, A Power Stronger Than Itself uncovers a vibrant, multicultural universe and brings to light a major piece of the history of avant-garde music and art.

In the 1960s, as gentrification took hold of New York City, Jane Jacobs predicted that the city would become the true player in the global system. Indeed, in the 21st century more meaningful comparisons can be made between cities than between nations and states. Based on case studies of Melbourne, Austin and Berlin, this book is the first in-depth study to combine academic and industry analysis of the music cities phenomenon. Using four distinctly defined algorithms as benchmarks, it interrogates Richard Florida’s creative cities thesis and applies a much-needed synergy of urban sociology and musicology to the concept, mediated by a journalism lens. Building on seminal work by Robert Park, Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs, it argues that journalists are the cultural branders and street theorists whose ethnographic approach offers critical insights into the urban sociability of music activity.