Digital Media and Jazz in the UK Thomas Gregory Sykes Thesis
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Jazz for the iPod Generation: Digital Media and Jazz in the UK Thomas Gregory Sykes Thesis submitted for the qualification of Doctor of Philosophy University of Salford School of Arts & Media Year of submission: 2013 Table of Contents Acknowledgements v Abstract vi Introduction 1 Research topic and rationale 1 Personal motivation and interest 3 Research questions 4 The iPod generation 5 Research methods 5 Thesis structure 6 Chapter 1 – Jazz, digital media and popular musicology: a literature review 11 Jazz in the UK: histories 12 Jazz in the UK: other writings 18 The ‘new jazz studies’ 22 New media and the internet 29 Digital networks and online communities 36 Music and the internet 37 Online research methods 45 Popular musicology and theory 47 Some theoretical approaches adopted from the literature 50 Chapter 2 – Probing the jazz audience: research methods 51 Doing research online 51 ‘Netnography’: a methodological approach 54 The ‘conventional’ jazz audience: festival surveys 56 i The jazz ‘community online’ 58 Online survey method 60 Interviews 62 Conclusion: using mixed methods 63 Chapter 3 – Contemporary jazz in the UK: key issues 65 Innovation in British jazz before 1980 67 Gender and sexuality of jazz musicians in Britain 73 Jazz and ‘Britishness’ 74 The contemporary scene: ‘postmodern jazz’ 77 The rebirth of British jazz during the Thatcher years 81 The growth of jazz in education 86 Jazz in popular culture and its cultural capital 90 The commercialisation of jazz 93 Jazz and broadcasting 96 Jazz as popular music in the 21st century 98 Conclusion: the continuing evolution of jazz in Britain and British jazz 102 Chapter 4 –From simulacra to social networking: digital media and music 107 ‘New’ media and technological determinism 109 Digital media 113 Digital music 115 Consequences of digitalisation for the music industries 118 Consequences of digitalisation for music audiences 125 Music fans and social networking 130 Possible futures for the music industries 135 Conclusion: digital optimism versus reality, and the jazz industry 139 ii Chapter 5 – Where music happens: communities and scenes 143 Communities and jazz communities 143 ‘Virtual’ communities 147 Online music discussions: a ‘sense of community’? 150 From online communities to scenes to ‘virtual scenes’ 152 ‘Virtual diasporas’ 157 Jazz scenes 158 Conclusion: communities, scenes and digital media 160 Local jazz scenes in the UK, offline and online 163 Semi-virtual scenes 165 Chapter 6 – Festivals and fans: sampling jazz audiences 167 UK jazz audience research after the 1980s resurgence 168 Arts participation and cultural ‘omnivores’ 171 A mixed picture 174 The ‘Taking Part’ surveys and audience comparison 177 Bourdieu and beyond 179 Jazz festival audiences 182 Case studies: two jazz festivals in northern England 184 Festival audience survey findings 188 The online survey and comparison with festival audience data 190 Ranked responses in the online survey 195 Knowing their fellow fans 203 Summary of survey findings: similarities and differences 204 Conclusion: sampling jazz audiences 205 Chapter 7 – Views from within: interviews with online respondents 209 The interviewees 211 Discussion of responses by theme 213 iii ‘Jazz scenes’ 213 ‘Community’ 215 ‘Identity’ 216 ‘Online jazz promotion’ 217 ‘Information/communication’ 220 ‘Social networking’ 223 Conclusion: local jazz scenes, online media and jazz musicians 224 Conclusion 226 1. Has the changing position of jazz in British culture since 1980 affected its audience? 227 2. Has digital media had the same impact on the dissemination of jazz as it has on mainstream popular music? 230 3. How is digital technology affecting jazz scenes in the UK? 232 4. Is there an ‘online community’ of jazz enthusiasts in Britain? 234 In what ways are digital media affecting the dissemination of jazz in Britain? Originality, outlook and the bigger picture 237 List of References 241 Appendix A: festival and online survey documentation 263 Appendix B: online survey results 273 Appendix C: interviews with festival directors 280 Appendix D: interview response data 282 Appendix E: transcripts of interviews 292 Appendix F: Sebastian Scotney e-mail communication 303 iv Acknowledgements Pursuing doctoral research while doing a substantial amount of teaching is a considerable undertaking, and I could not have managed it without the support and understanding of friends, family and colleagues. My main employer, the City of Liverpool College, has contributed towards the fees and supported my attendance at several conferences. I would like to thank my supervisors, Prof. George McKay and Prof. Tony Whyton, for their guidance and constructive feedback on my work. I am also indebted to Tony for inviting me to join the Rhythm Changes research team, which has provided a unique opportunity to work alongside and learn from a prestigious international group of jazz academics – something I did not expect when embarking on this programme but which has been an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Other members of academic staff at the University of Salford have been generous with both their time and thoughts, particularly Ben Halligan and the late Dave Sanjek. I have received valuable suggestions from academics I have met at conferences in various parts of Europe and the US, and gained unexpected insights as a result of discussing my research with my undergraduate students. I am grateful to the concert audience members who completed my surveys and the festival directors who allowed me to distribute them and be interviewed about their festivals, the online survey participants, and those volunteers who agreed to be interviewed about their jazz activities. Finally, I must thank my parents, Mary and Rod Sykes, for supporting me over many years throughout my musical and academic pursuits. v Abstract The central aim of this thesis is to address the research question: In what ways are digital media affecting the dissemination of jazz in Britain? Within this are four sub-questions: 1. Has the changing position of jazz in British culture since 1980 affected its audience? 2. Has digital media had the same impact on the dissemination of jazz as it has on mainstream popular music? 3. How is digital technology affecting jazz scenes in the UK? 4. Is there an ‘online community’ of jazz enthusiasts in Britain? The term ‘digital media’ suggests that geographical boundaries are irrelevant, but basing this project in the UK provides a focus for the research, both in terms of jazz as an established cultural form in Britain and in order to investigate British jazz audiences. Theoretical approaches from several disciplines are drawn upon, including cultural studies, new media studies, ethnomusicology, popular music studies and jazz studies. Research methods include surveys of audiences at selected jazz festivals in Britain using questionnaires along with interviews with the festival directors, online surveys, and interviews with jazz enthusiasts. The broad findings indicate that while jazz is one of many types of music available to contemporary audiences who may also listen to other genres, there are fans of particular styles choosing to attend certain live events – increasingly making use of digital media to find information and facilitate their decisions. Sites such as YouTube are popular with jazz audiences, and there are independent jazz record labels that use digital media effectively, unlike, according to some respondents, certain jazz musicians. Audiences (which include a significant proportion of musicians) are now using social networking sites to create online groups with shared musical interests, but this activity has not prevented jazz being essentially a music of live performance – and indeed may be helping to keep it live. vi Introduction This introductory chapter will explain the topic of research and rationale for pursuing it, including my own personal interest in the area. I will articulate the main research question and subsidiary questions stemming from the different strands of this study, explain the use of the term ‘the iPod generation’ in this context, summarise the research methods used, and discuss the content of each of the chapters. Research topic and rationale The general topic of this research is jazz in Britain and the ways in which it is being affected by digital communications technologies, which have rapidly grown in the form of the internet and virtual networks during the late twentieth century and early twenty-first. There is a substantial body of work about the evolution of these technologies and their impact on society and culture in the ‘industrialised’ (or ‘mediatised’) world, both theoretical and empirical- based, the latter having developed alongside new methods of ‘virtual ethnography’ in which the activities of users of such technologies may be studied ‘in the field’. There is also a large amount of literature on the effects of digital technology on the mainstream popular music recording industry, by journalists, technology commentators, the industry itself and critical scholars, focusing mostly on the loss of revenue supposedly caused by the illegal sharing of recorded music files online. Jazz as a broad genre has experienced varying degrees of success in the UK, and though considered lying somewhere between a popular music and an art music (for example, jazz is often studied culturally in a similar way to rock but its performance is still supported to some extent by arts funding) it has enjoyed two periods of relative popularity during the period that digital technologies have been widely available for recorded music and, more recently, communication (since around 1980). 1 The aim of this research is to investigate the impact of easily accessible digital technology and the internet on a ‘niche’ genre of music, particularly in terms of its dissemination to and between members of its audience, using jazz as a case study and the United Kingdom as a location. The nature of the internet necessarily implies an absence of geographical boundaries, but using the UK as my focus provides a framework within which to base my research, contextually and for practical reasons.