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Sun Ra and John Coltrane: Critiquing Essentialism in the Discourse of Jazz Through Theories of Postethnicity and Transethnicity

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Sun Ra and John Coltrane: Critiquing Essentialism in the Discourse of Jazz Through Theories of Postethnicity and Transethnicity SUN RA AND JOHN COLTRANE: CRITIQUING ESSENTIALISM IN THE DISCOURSE OF JAZZ THROUGH THEORIES OF POSTETHNICITY AND TRANSETHNICITY BY NATHANIEL MASON MASTER’S THESIS Submitted to the department of North American Studies for the degree of MA North American Studies: Transnational America: Politics, Culture and Society Radboud University, Nijmegen. 17th August, 2015 ii ENGELSE TAAL EN CULTUUR Thesis Supervisor: Frank Mehring Second Reader: Mathilde Roza Title of document: Sun Ra and John Coltrane: Critiquing essentialism in the discourse of Jazz through theories of postethnicity and transethnicity Name of course: Master’s Thesis Date of submission: 17th August, 2015. The work submitted here is the sole responsibility of the undersigned, who has neither committed plagiarism nor colluded in its production. Signed Name of student: Nathaniel Mason Student number: s4464575 iii Abstract: Jazz has long been imbued with an essentialist discourse that perpetuates myths of racial and cultural purity, which serves to maintain boundaries between people where they need not necessarily lie and denies the formation of new identities. These racial divisions are still reified following a shift in focus from race to ethnicity, despite Jazz being a transnational music born through a confluence of many cultures, races and religions meeting in America as globalization developed. Two iconic Jazz musicians, Sun Ra and John Coltrane, offer counter arguments to this essentialism, whether racial or ethno-centric, through their philosophical views, religious/spiritual leanings and Avant-Garde music. Identifying these aspects, I apply the theories of postethnicity and transethnicity to the life, ideology and work of Sun Ra and John Coltrane in order to critique the long-standing discourse in Jazz, which places strong ethnic characteristics as defining elements of their identity, and thus their work. Key Words: Postethnicity Transethnicity John Coltrane Sun Ra Jazz Globalization Essentialism Transnationalism Avant-Garde iv Acknowlegements: I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Frank Mehring for the useful comments, remarks and engagement through the process of writing this master’s thesis. Furthermore I would like to thank Tim Wise and the late David Sanjek from my alma mater Salford University, for introducing me to the academic study of music during my Bachelors degree, as without their insight and encouragement I would not be able to write this thesis today. Also, I must thank my saxophone tutor Jan Kopinski whose wisdom and support spawned my love of Jazz, not to mention him being the first person to introduce me to both John Coltrane and Sun Ra. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and grandparents who have supported me throughout the entire process, both financially and emotionally. I will be grateful forever for your love and support. 1 Table of Contents 1. Introduction: ............................................................................................................2 2. The Signifyin(g) Country?:.....................................................................................7 2.1. Sun Ra and John Coltrane:..............................................................................8 2.2. Black Nationalism and Jazz:............................................................................9 2.3. Reformulating Essentialism into Cultural Practice: ...................................12 2.4. African-American Exceptionalism and The African-American Canon:...16 2.5. Depictions of Sun Ra and John Coltrane; the Avant-Garde Canon:.........23 2.6. Theoretical Solutions:.....................................................................................26 2.7. Jazz – The Classical Music of Globalization:...............................................31 2.8. Does It Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing?: ...................................34 3. Guided by A Love Supreme; John Coltrane’s Transethnic Vision: .................39 3.1. Mediation:........................................................................................................43 3.2. Philosophy: ......................................................................................................45 3.3. Religion/Spirituality: ......................................................................................48 3.4. Music:...............................................................................................................54 4. Space is the Race; Sun Ra’s Postethnic Vision: ..................................................63 4.1. Mediation:........................................................................................................68 4.2. Religion/Spirituality: ......................................................................................71 4.3. Mythology:.......................................................................................................76 4.4. Philosophy: ......................................................................................................80 4.5. History: ............................................................................................................83 4.6. Music:...............................................................................................................85 5. Conclusions: ...........................................................................................................95 Appendix I:.................................................................................................................99 Appendix II: .............................................................................................................102 Appendix III:............................................................................................................104 Bibliography and References:.................................................................................111 2 1. Introduction: Jazz music, forged in the heat of America’s south by displaced peoples of Africa, has long been tied to discourses concerning race and ethnicity. This has led to an emphasis on identifying “African” characteristics as the font from which Jazz is derived, with certain “European” elements adopted superficially. However, given that the most common source of Jazz’s inception links it to turn of the twentieth century New Orleans, a meeting point of cultures from across the globe and a site of simultaneous entries and exits, one can identify that the confluence of numerous cultures is in fact where Jazz gained its character or, if you will, essence. Once thought is given to this notion the idea that ethnic or racial features are defining becomes problematic, as it would rely on greatly simplified notions of what constitutes “African” against “European”. This manner of thinking also disregards not only the tremendous diversity within each perceived ethnic group, but also the influence of cultures outside of Jazz’s assumed binary influence. Furthermore, the influence of shared features (including musical elements), which existed concurrently for centuries before these different cultures encountered one another, becomes downplayed in our search for defining difference. Much of the research concerning Jazz has, until recently, resulted from a manner of thinking developed in the 1960s to 1970s that regards race and ethnicity as key parameters for analyzing the inspiration, delineation and manifestation of Jazz. Writers such as Frank Kofsky in his John Coltrane and the Jazz revolution of the 1960s, and Amiri Baraka in his Blues People purported the idea of an essential black spirit that has manifold implications expressed through Jazz. This notion is problematic in three ways; firstly, it relies on an essentialist reading of blackness based on an American exceptionalist-imbued model of West African culture, which acts as a synecdoche for all non-western European culture; secondly it fails to account for new or mixed formulations of race and ethnicity, which only downplays the role of cultural hybridity; and finally it offers but a distraction from the very real issue of a complicated class structure, under which race has become incorporated to further divide society. Counter-arguments to this manner of critical thinking have been offered, particularly by writers dealing with the increasing experimentation of Jazz musicians from the late 1950s to early 1970s, including John Litweiler’s The Freedom 3 Principle, Ekkehard Jost’s Free Jazz and Norman C. Weinstein’s A Night in Tunisia. There contrasting approaches to the new Avant-Garde Jazz idioms still however impose boundaries that rely on ascribing psychological traits to mask cultural difference/similarity, which ascribes the continuity and development of cultures by the maintenance of cultural traits passed through the generations. A prime example however may be Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s The Signifying Monkey, which critiques the idea of essential black nature, but still relies on overwhelming exceptionalism in its methods and places rigid boundaries on the very fluid notions of race and ethnicity. These manners of thinking lent themselves to the emergent Black Nationalist and Afrocentric strains of thought, but also spawned criticism of Jazz and it’s ties to Black Nationalism (such as the writings of Stanley Crouch and Ken Burn’s Jazz documentary series) as a reaction, adopting a more classicist framework that shunned the Avant-Garde for it’s deviation from an idealized Jazz tradition1, particularly in it’s focus on issues of race. The problematic
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