The Anthropology of Music - Jazz: Beyond the Sound

The study of jazz has been part of ethnomusicology since the 1940s, contributing meaningfully to the discipline's core theories and methodologies. In turn, ethnomusicological studies have profoundly colored jazz scholarship at large. This article surveys the literature of jazz ethnomusicology and its place within the contemporary Western academy, arguing that jazz studies is increasingly interdisciplinary. I offer the sanguine conclusion that in fact this interdisciplinarity has been precisely the goal of ethnomusicologists since the 1960s, and that accomplishing it allows for a broader conversation to take place between jazz scholars of various sorts and between scholars and practitioners. This is particularly important because, as this article contends, jazz ethnomusicologists-more than most other specialists in the discipline--commonly work in settings in which jazz performance is accorded a place of high value.

The syllabus for semester one of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music "core" class, 2010. Instructors: Fink, Rees, Bourland.

2002

German-language reader; other authors include Christian Broecking, Wolfram Knauer, Ursel Schlicht, Ingrid Monson, George E. Lewis, Peter Niklas Wilson, Ekkehard Jost. English-language version attached.

Topics in Cognitive Science, 2012

The vast majority of experimental studies of music to date have explored music in terms of the processes involved in the perception and cognition of complex sonic patterns that can elicit emotion. This paper argues that this conception of music is at odds both with recent Western musical scholarship and with ethnomusicological models, and that it presents a partial and culture-specific representation of what may be a generic human capacity. It argues that the cognitive sciences must actively engage with the problems of exploring music as manifested and conceived in the broad spectrum of world cultures, not only to elucidate the diversity of music in mind but also to identify potential commonalities that could illuminate the relationships between music and other domains of thought and behavior.

Office Hours: Thursdays, 1:30-3:30, Goodspeed 314 or by appointment

The Cultural Study of Music is an anthology of new writings that will serve as a basic textbook on music and culture. Increasingly, music is being studied as it relates to specific cultures-not only by ethnomusicologists, but by traditional musicologists as well. Drawing on writers ...

2 0 1 0 3 10 9 8 7 6 5 I S B N 0 -8 1 0 1 -0 6 0 7 -8 T h e paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence o f P a p e r for Printed L i b r a r y Materials, A N S I Z . 3 9 . 4 8 -1 9 9 2 . Benin bronze statue on cover and title page courtesy of the M u s e u m of Natural History, Chicago. Photograph by Justine Cordwell and Edward D a m s . Material from the following has been quoted with the permission of the publisher: Louis Harap, Social Roots

Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media, and the Arts , 2004

This is an intro to the special issue that Richard A. Peterson and I co-edited for Poetics (Volume 32 / Issues 3-4). It featured contributions by Andy Bennett, Laura Clawson, Tia DeNora, Timothy J. Dowd, David Grazian, Jennifer C. Lena, Damon J. Phillips & David A. Owens, William G. Roy, and John Sonnett.

2014

It is common to talk of such things as Western culture, African culture, Oriental culture, etc. as though they described culturally coherent entities. If we look closely at the evolution of jazz in 20th century America, however, we see that this division between “the West and the Rest” is incoherent. For example, the idea that jazz is specifically American in character arose in propaganda during WWII and was not a result of cultural analysis. The idea of Western culture seems to be ideologically driven and is only loosely related to the details of cultural origin and practice.

2008

1998

Page 1. B. DESCHENES, TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF MUSIC LISTENING, IRASM 29 (1998) 2,135-153 135 TOWARD AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF MUSIC LISTENING BRUNO DESCHENES ...

The concepts associated with what English speakers recognize as music and dance are not shared cross-culturally. In some societies there are no general terms for music and dance; instead, specifi c names describe different performances that involve music and dance. In other societies the same word is used to refer to music-making, singing, dancing, and often to ceremony or ritual as well. Despite such differences, every social group has its music, and this music is somehow emblematic of a group's identity. This chapter explores how this observation can be explained from a cross-cultural perspective: What do music and dance do for human social groups? Why are music and dance so universally central to a group's self-defi nition?

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2006

We seem able to define the biological foundations for our musicality within a clear and unitary framework, yet music itself does not appear so clearly definable. Music is different things and does different things in different cultures; the bundles of elements and functions that are music for any given culture may overlap minimally with those of another culture, even for those cultures where "music" constitutes a discrete and identifiable category of human activity in its own right. The dynamics of culture, of music as cultural praxis, are neither necessarily reducible, nor easily relatable, to the dynamics of our biologies. Yet music appears to be a universal human competence. Recent evolutionary theory, however, affords a means for exploring things biological and cultural within a framework in which they are at least commensurable. The adoption of this perspective shifts the focus of the search for the foundations of music away from the mature and particular expression of music within a specific culture or situation and on to the human capacity for musicality. This paper will survey recent research that examines that capacity and its evolutionary origins in the light of a definition of music that embraces music's multifariousness. It will be suggested that music, like speech, is a product of both our biologies and our social interactions; that music is a necessary and integral dimension of human development; and that music may have played a central role in the evolution of the modern human mind.

This thesis examines the complex sociocultural dynamics that surround the concept of jazz theory from two broad perspectives: formalized or academic jazz theory, which emerged as a result of the formal institutionalization of jazz in the academy, and organic or intrinsic jazz theory, which first arose from African American music-making practices. This dichotomy does not suggest that the majority of jazz community members exist at the extremes of either of these two poles. Contrarily, most musicians tend to occupy the grey area somewhere in between. The aim of this study was to shed light on the complex and elusive intersection between formalized and organic approaches to jazz theory. Through an analysis of informal, formal, and virtual (internet-based) jazz music-learning environments, the results offer a thick description of the way in which notions of "jazz theory" affected the social lives of musicians, fostered racialized jazz identities, defined community boundaries, and influenced music-making practices. The paper includes a variety of case studies, such as Miles Davis' experience studying music at Julliard, an analysis of the first methodological theory books published for jazz students and educators, online forums where jazz students discuss music theory, and ethnographic data related to modern day jazz theory that I collected from nonacademic and academic jazz learning environments. Two theory-related books examined included George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept and David Baker's Jazz Pedagogy: A Comprehensive Method of Jazz Education for Teacher and Student. In both, the cultural contexts in which the works were created and how many students and educators misinterpreted or omitted elements that reflect the tabooed subject of race were considered. The study also relied on original ethnographic content collected during a field study at a Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop, a racially charged debate between two Aebersold camp attendees, a meeting with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, an interview with a 51-year-old African American jazz drummer and organic jazz theorist named Willie Smart, and a reflection on my experiences with an autodidactic African American saxophonist from Cincinnati, Ohio named Chuck Young. Overall, the paper elucidates the racialized and transcultural nature of the jazz community's music-learning environments, and examines the role in which jazz theory plays within them. Academic jazz educators may use insights from this essay to create curricula that include an increased cultural and racial competency as well as a greater awareness of approaches to jazz that are traditionally excluded. Jazz musicians, music historians, and jazz fans may benefit from the analysis of jazz theory as a social process.