DOCSLIB.ORG

Values and Practices in Contemporary Improvised Music Author(S): David Borgo Source: Black Music Research Journal, Vol

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Values and Practices in Contemporary Improvised Music Author(S): David Borgo Source: Black Music Research Journal, Vol Negotiating Freedom: Values and Practices in Contemporary Improvised Music Author(s): David Borgo Source: Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 22, No. 2, (Autumn, 2002), pp. 165-188 Published by: Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1519955 Accessed: 23/07/2008 16:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cbmr. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org NEGOTIATINGFREEDOM: VALUES AND PRACTICES IN CONTEMPORARYIMPROVISED MUSIC DAVIDBORGO Freeimprovisation is not an action resultingfrom freedom;it is an action directedtowards freedom. -Davey Williams(1984, 32) A compromise between order and disorder, improvision is a negotiationbetween codes and their pleasurabledismantling. -John Corbett(1995, 237) During the last half century, an eclectic group of artists with diverse backgrounds in avant-garde jazz, avant-garde classical, electronic, popu- lar, and world music traditions have pioneered an approach to improvi- sation that borrows freely from a panoply of musical styles and traditions and at times seems unencumbered by any overt idiomatic constraints. Although a definitive history of this often irreverent and iconoclastic group would be impossible-or at least potentially misleading-to com- pile, this article highlights several values and practices that have been, and continue to be, negotiated within the contemporary improvising community. Freedom, in the sense of transcending previous social and structural constraints, has been an important part of jazz music since its inception. The syncopated rhythms and exploratory improvisations and composi- tions of jazz have consistently stretched the structures and forms of American music. The music has also provided a symbol and a culture of DAVIDBORGO recently joined the faculty of the University of California,San Diego, as an assistantprofessor in the CriticalStudies and ExperimentalPractices Program. He received a Ph.D. in ethnomusicologyfrom the Universityof California,Los Angeles, in 1999and pre- viously taught at JamesMadison University in Virginia.Borgo has been a professionalsax- ophonist for more than fifteen years and is currentlyat work on a book exploringthe rela- tionship between the emerging sciences of complexity and contemporaryimprovised music. 165 166 BMR Journal liberation to several generations of musicians and listeners, both at home and abroad. But when Ornette Coleman offered the jazz community Something Else in 1958, he galvanized an approach to freedom that has continued to inspire and inflame many in the jazz community.1 At that time, Coleman and other like-minded musicians began to explore performance practices that relied less on preconceived musical models and explicitly defined ensemble roles. For sympathetic musi- cians, critics, and audiences, the "freedom" implied by these new musi- cal approaches allowed for creativity unencumbered by the constricting harmonies, forms, and rigid meters of bebop and swing styles. It evoked a return to the collective practices and ideals evident in the earliest forms of jazz and pointed the way toward a more inclusive musical approach that could draw on insight and inspiration from the world over. To unsympathetic listeners, "freedom" resulted only in musical mayhem devoid of the swing, melody, and harmony that made traditional jazz music so vital and technically demanding. At approximately the same time that "freedom" was becoming a rally- ing point and a musical goal for many modern jazz musicians, improvi- sation resurfaced in the Euro-American "classical" tradition-after a cen- tury and a half of neglect-in the form of indeterminate, intuitive, and graphically designed pieces.2 Composers not only expanded the amount of real-time creative input demanded of performers, but they explored, in substantial numbers, the potential of improvisation on their own, in a sense conflating the act of creation and performance by removing the interpretive step from the accepted musical equation.3 Since these pioneering early years in both North America and Europe, an approach to improvisation drawing on these and other traditions has 1. The arrival of Ornette Coleman's quartet at the Five Spot in New York City in 1959 and his subsequent albums for Atlantic Records (The Shape of Jazz to Come and FreeJazz) further polarized early support and criticism for the music. See David Ake (2002) for a discussion of the many issues surrounding Coleman's New York arrival. 2. George Lewis (2003) focused on ways in which terms such as interactivity, indetermina- cy, intuition, and even happening or action have frequently been employed to mask the importance of improvisation in the arts. 3. Composers who have experimented with improvisation include Ugo Amendola, Larry Austin, Klarenz Barlow, Richard Barrett, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Alvin Curran, John Eaton, Robert Erickson, Jose Evangelista, Lukas Foss, Sofia Gubaidulina, Barry Guy, Jonathan Harvey, Charles Ives, Luigi Nono, Per Norgard, Pauline Oliveros, Harry Partch, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Giacinto Scelsi, Stefano Scodanibbio, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Morton Subotnik, and Frances-Marie Uitti, as well as the groups FLUXUS, II Gruppo di Improvisazione da Nuova Consonanza (GINC), KIVA (at University of California, San Diego), Musica Electronica Viva, New Music Ensemble (at University of California, Davis), and the Scratch Orchestra. Pioneering work by composers in the American "third stream," such as Gunther Schuller, George Russell, Bob Graettinger, John Lewis, and others, could be mentioned as well. Borgo * Negotiating Freedom 167 emerged in the contemporary music community. A variety of names have circulated at various times and in various locales to describe this musical practice, each with its own group of adherents and each with its own sematic shortcomings.4 The preferred terms tend to highlight the creative or progressive stance of the performers and the cutting-edge or inclusive nature of the music itself, for example, free or free-form, avant-garde, out- side, ecstatic, fire or energy, contemporary or new, creative, collective, spontaneous, and so on. Stylistic references (jazz, classical, rock, world, or electronic) are variously included or excluded, as are cultural or national identity markers (Great Black Music or British Free Improvisation). The primary musical bond shared among these diverse performers is a fasci- nation with sonic possibilities and surprising musical occurences and a desire to improvise, to a signficiant degree, both the content and the form of the performance. In other words, free improvisation moves beyond matters of expressive detail to matters of collective structure; it is not formless music making but form-making music. Musician Ann Farber explains: "Our aim is to play together with the greatest possible free- dom-which, far from meaning without constraint, actually means to play together with sufficient skill and communication to be able to select proper constraints in the courseof the piece, rather than being dependent on precisely chosen ones" (quoted in Belgrad 1997, 2). To define free improvisation in strictly musical terms, however, is poten- tially to miss its most remarkable characteristic-the ability to incorporate and negotiate disparate perspectives and worldviews. Jason Stanyek (1999, 47) asserts that free improvisation is above all "a fertile space for the enact- ment and articulation of the divergent narratives of both individuals and cul- tures." Improvisers have frequently joined together to form artist-run collec- tives aimed at exploring these divergent narratives and at establishing creative and financial control over the production and dissemination of their work.5Although the lifetime of these various collectives runs the gamut from 4. One treatment of the problems associated with categorizing such diverse musical approaches under a single, often misleading, heading is found in Such (1993, 15-29). 5. Important artist-run collectives in the United States have included the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago (which has continued to the present date), the Jazz Composer's Guild (organized by Bill Dixon shortly after his famed October Revolution in Jazz in 1964) and Collective Black Artists (CBA) in New York City, the Black Artists' Group (BAG) in St. Louis (the birthplace of the World Saxophone Quartet), and the Underground Musicians' Association (UGMA)
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Anthony Braxton Five Pieces 1975
    Anthony Braxton Five Pieces 1975 ANTHONY BRAXTON Five Pieces 1975 Arista AL 4064 (LP) I would like to propose now, at the beginning of this discussion, that we set aside entirely the question of the ultimate worth of Anthony Braxton's music. There are those who insist that Braxton is the new Bird, Coltrane, and Ornette, the three-in-one who is singlehandedly taking the Next Step in jazz. There are others who remain unconvinced. History will decide, and while it is doing so, we can and should appreciate Braxton's music for its own immediate value, as a particularly contemporary variety of artistic expression. However, before we can sit down, take off our shoes, and place the enclosed record on our turntables, certain issues must be dealt with. People keep asking questions about Anthony Braxton, questions such as what does he think he is doing? Since these questions involve judgments we can make now, without waiting for history, we should answer them, and what better way to do so than to go directly to the man who is making the music? "Am I an improviser or a composer?" Braxton asks rhetorically, echoing more than one critical analysis of his work. "I see myself as a creative person. And the considerations determining what's really happening in the arena of improvised music imply an understanding of composition anyway. So I would say that composition and improvisation are much more closely related than is generally understood." This is exactly the sort of statement Braxton's detractors love to pounce on. Not only has the man been known to wear cardigan sweaters, smoke a pipe, and play chess; he is an interested in composing as in improvising.
    [Show full text]
  • ANTHONY BRAXTON Echo Echo Mirror House
    VICTO cd 125 ANTHONY BRAXTON Echo Echo Mirror House 1. COMPOSITION NO 347 + 62'37" SEPTET Taylor Ho Bynum : cornet, bugle, trompbone, iPod Mary Halvorson : guitare électrique, iPod Jessica Pavone : alto, violon, iPod Jay Rozen : tuba, iPod Aaron Siegel : percussion, vibraphone, iPod Carl Testa : contrebasse, clarinette basse, iPod Anthony Braxton : saxophones alto, soprano et sopranino, iPod, direction et composition Enregistré au 27e Festival International de ℗ Les Disques VICTO Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville le 21 mai 2011 © Les Éditions VICTORIAVILLE, SOCAN 2013 Your “Echo Echo Mirror House” piece at Victoriaville was a time-warping concert experience. My synapses were firing overtime. [Laughs] I must say, thank you. I am really happy about that performance. In this time period, we talk about avant-garde this and avant-garde that, but the post-Ayler generation is 50 years old, and the AACM came together in the ‘60s. So it’s time for new models to come together that can also integrate present-day technology and the thrust of re-structural technology into the mix of the music logics and possibility. The “Echo Echo Mirror House” music is a trans-temporal music state that connects past, present and future as one thought component. This idea is the product of the use of holistic generative template propositions that allow for 300 or 400 compositions to be written in that generative state. The “Ghost Trance” musics would be an example of the first of the holistic, generative logic template musics. The “Ghost Trance” music is concerned with telemetry and cartography, and area space measurements. With the “Echo Echo Mirror House” musics, we’re redefining the concept of elaboration.
    [Show full text]
  • THE SHARED INFLUENCES and CHARACTERISTICS of JAZZ FUSION and PROGRESSIVE ROCK by JOSEPH BLUNK B.M.E., Illinois State University, 2014
    COMMON GROUND: THE SHARED INFLUENCES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF JAZZ FUSION AND PROGRESSIVE ROCK by JOSEPH BLUNK B.M.E., Illinois State University, 2014 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master in Jazz Performance and Pedagogy Department of Music 2020 Abstract Blunk, Joseph Michael (M.M., Jazz Performance and Pedagogy) Common Ground: The Shared Influences and Characteristics of Jazz Fusion and Progressive Rock Thesis directed by Dr. John Gunther In the late 1960s through the 1970s, two new genres of music emerged: jazz fusion and progressive rock. Though typically thought of as two distinct styles, both share common influences and stylistic characteristics. This thesis examines the emergence of both genres, identifies stylistic traits and influences, and analyzes the artistic output of eight different groups: Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis’s electric ensembles, Tony Williams Lifetime, Yes, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, and Soft Machine. Through qualitative listenings of each group’s musical output, comparisons between genres or groups focus on instances of one genre crossing over into the other. Though many examples of crossing over are identified, the examples used do not necessitate the creation of a new genre label, nor do they demonstrate the need for both genres to be combined into one. iii Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Part One: The Emergence of Jazz………………………………………………………….. 3 Part Two: The Emergence of Progressive………………………………………………….. 10 Part Three: Musical Crossings Between Jazz Fusion and Progressive Rock…………….... 16 Part Four: Conclusion, Genre Boundaries and Commonalities……………………………. 40 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….
    [Show full text]
  • Chick Corea Early Circle Mp3, Flac, Wma
    Chick Corea Early Circle mp3, flac, wma DOWNLOAD LINKS (Clickable) Genre: Jazz Album: Early Circle Country: US Released: 1992 Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz MP3 version RAR size: 1270 mb FLAC version RAR size: 1590 mb WMA version RAR size: 1894 mb Rating: 4.6 Votes: 677 Other Formats: AU ADX ASF VQF MP1 DMF AA Tracklist Hide Credits Starp 1 5:20 Composed By – Dave Holland 73° - A Kelvin 2 9:12 Composed By – Anthony Braxton Ballad 3 6:43 Composed By – Braxton*, Altschul*, Corea*, Holland* Duet For Bass And Piano #1 4 3:28 Composed By – Corea*, Holland* Duet For Bass And Piano #2 5 1:40 Composed By – Corea*, Holland* Danse For Clarinet And Piano #1 6 2:14 Composed By – Braxton*, Corea* Danse For Clarinet And Piano #2 7 2:34 Composed By – Braxton*, Corea* Chimes I 8 10:19 Composed By – Braxton*, Corea*, Holland* Chimes II 9 6:36 Composed By – Braxton*, Corea*, Holland* Percussion Piece 10 3:25 Composed By – Braxton*, Altschul*, Corea*, Holland* Companies, etc. Recorded At – A&R Studios Credits Bass, Cello, Guitar – Dave Holland Clarinet, Flute, Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Contrabass Clarinet – Anthony Braxton Design – Franco Caligiuri Drums, Bass, Marimba, Percussion – Barry Altschul (tracks: 1 to 3, 10) Engineer [Recording] – Tony May Liner Notes – Stanley Crouch Piano, Celesta [Celeste], Percussion – Chick Corea Producer [Original Sessions] – Sonny Lester Reissue Producer – Michael Cuscuna Remix [Digital] – Malcolm Addey Notes Recorded at A&R Studios, NYC on October 13 (#4-9) and October 19, 1970. Tracks 1 to 9 originally issued
    [Show full text]
  • Temporal Disunity and Structural Unity in the Music of John Coltrane 1965-67
    Listening in Double Time: Temporal Disunity and Structural Unity in the Music of John Coltrane 1965-67 Marc Howard Medwin A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music. Chapel Hill 2008 Approved by: David Garcia Allen Anderson Mark Katz Philip Vandermeer Stefan Litwin ©2008 Marc Howard Medwin ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT MARC MEDWIN: Listening in Double Time: Temporal Disunity and Structural Unity in the Music of John Coltrane 1965-67 (Under the direction of David F. Garcia). The music of John Coltrane’s last group—his 1965-67 quintet—has been misrepresented, ignored and reviled by critics, scholars and fans, primarily because it is a music built on a fundamental and very audible disunity that renders a new kind of structural unity. Many of those who study Coltrane’s music have thus far attempted to approach all elements in his last works comparatively, using harmonic and melodic models as is customary regarding more conventional jazz structures. This approach is incomplete and misleading, given the music’s conceptual underpinnings. The present study is meant to provide an analytical model with which listeners and scholars might come to terms with this music’s more radical elements. I use Coltrane’s own observations concerning his final music, Jonathan Kramer’s temporal perception theory, and Evan Parker’s perspectives on atomism and laminarity in mid 1960s British improvised music to analyze and contextualize the symbiotically related temporal disunity and resultant structural unity that typify Coltrane’s 1965-67 works.
    [Show full text]
  • SEED Ensemble & Guests: Celebrating the Music of Pharoah Sanders Live
    SEED Ensemble & guests: celebrating the music of Pharoah Sanders Live from the Barbican Start time: 8pm Approximate running time: 60 minutes, no interval Please note all timings are approximate and subject to change. This performance is subject to government guidelines. Arwa Haider examines SEED Ensemble’s influences and musical style. When London band SEED Ensemble emerged around four years ago, they were hailed as proof of thrilling new revolutions in the UK music scene, and among its jazz musicians – crucially repping its creative fluidity, and linking generations of inspiration across music and other art forms with 21st century youth culture. The talented instrumentalists in SEED Ensemble simultaneously play their parts in a range of other contemporary acts, and are led by composer, arranger and alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi, also a key figure in the outfits Kokoroko and Nerija. The combination of these elements and visions yields a sound that is expansive, musically adventurous, and excitingly immediate. They earned a Mercury Prize nomination for their brilliant 2019 debut album Driftglass, released on the seminal Jazz re:freshed label, and taking its name from a novel by the Black American sci-fi novelist and queer theorist Samuel R Delaney. Its tracks are enriched with personal experience – in particular, pan-African and Caribbean roots – political references and pop cultural hooks, creating an exploration of the undeniable issues in modern British society, as well as a spirit-soaring celebration of Black British experience. SEED Ensemble offer a lucid heads-up, that jazz is essentially ‘a community genre for everyone’ (as Kinoshi remarked in a Jazzwise interview), and that this latest explosion is deep-rooted, including the disparity of Black voices, and the presence of strong female leaders and collaborators.
    [Show full text]
  • Peter Johnston 2011
    The London School Of Improvised Economics - Peter Johnston 2011 This excerpt from my dissertation was included in the reader for the course MUS 211: Music Cultures of the City at Ryerson University. Introduction The following reading is a reduction of a chapter from my dissertation, which is titled Fields of Production and Streams of Conscious: Negotiating the Musical and Social Practices of Improvised Music in London, England. The object of my research for this work was a group of musicians living in London who self-identified as improvisers, and who are part of a distinct music scene that emerged in the mid-1960s based on the idea of free improvisation. Most of this research was conducted between Sept 2006 and June 2007, during which time I lived in London and conducted interviews with both older individuals who were involved in the creation of this scene, and with younger improvisers who are building on the formative work of the previous generation. This chapter addresses the practical aspects of how improvised music is produced in London, and follows a more theoretical analysis in the previous chapters of why the music sounds like it does. Before moving on to the main content, it will be helpful to give a brief explanation of two of the key terms that occur throughout this chapter: “free improvisation” and the “improvised music field.” “Free improvisation” refers to the creation of musical performances without any pre- determined materials, such as form, tonality, melody, or rhythmic feel. This practice emerged out of developments in jazz in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly in the work of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, who began performing music without using the song-forms, harmonic progressions, and steady rhythms that characterized jazz until that time.
    [Show full text]
  • Jazz and the Cultural Transformation of America in the 1920S
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s Courtney Patterson Carney Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Carney, Courtney Patterson, "Jazz and the cultural transformation of America in the 1920s" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 176. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/176 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. JAZZ AND THE CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA IN THE 1920S A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Courtney Patterson Carney B.A., Baylor University, 1996 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1998 December 2003 For Big ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The real truth about it is no one gets it right The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try1 Over the course of the last few years I have been in contact with a long list of people, many of whom have had some impact on this dissertation. At the University of Chicago, Deborah Gillaspie and Ray Gadke helped immensely by guiding me through the Chicago Jazz Archive.
    [Show full text]
  • Disability and Emigration; Worlds Apart – the Case of Marion Brown
    1 Disability in nineteenth century Scotland – the case of Marion Brown Abstract. The perception that people with disabilities increasingly became regarded as ‘other’ as the nineteenth century advanced is encouraged by the expansion of institutionalisation, particularly for those with mental impairments, but also for many people with sensory disablement. People with physical impairments were given less prominence in this trend although, as the medicalisation of disablement gained ascendancy, some of them experienced confinements of considerable duration. This paper recognises that many people with disabilities did not spend portions of their lives in institutions, but lived within the family structure and as part of their local community. It explores this experience through the writings of Marion Brown (1844-1916) who lived in Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire. She suffered from a variety of physical and sensory impairments of varying duration that are revealed in correspondence to relatives in Dunmore, Pennsylvania.1 Her letters reveal ways in which disablement was both ‘normal’ and marginalising, and they show how contentment and joy were juggled with yearning and apprehension. This paper offers an interpretation of the ways in which Marion Brown’s impairments were of submerged significance in a society ingrained to encountering a variety of economic and social vicissitudes, while on a personal level being the cause of frustration, unrealised aspiration, and impending loss of security. Keywords: disability, emigration, physical impairment, Sanquhar. The ease of identification of sources relating to charities and philanthropists, asylums and institutions, physicians and surgeons, educationalists and administrators, has resulted in the focus of the study of disability marginalising, if not excluding, people with disabilities, and their families and friends.
    [Show full text]
  • Music Outside? the Making of the British Jazz Avant-Garde 1968-1973
    Banks, M. and Toynbee, J. (2014) Race, consecration and the music outside? The making of the British jazz avant-garde 1968-1973. In: Toynbee, J., Tackley, C. and Doffman, M. (eds.) Black British Jazz. Ashgate: Farnham, pp. 91-110. ISBN 9781472417565 There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/222646/ Deposited on 28 August 2020 Enlighten – Research publications by members of the University of Glasgow http://eprints.gla.ac.uk Race, Consecration and the ‘Music Outside’? The making of the British Jazz Avant-Garde: 1968-1973 Introduction: Making British Jazz ... and Race In 1968 the Arts Council of Great Britain (ACGB), the quasi-governmental agency responsible for providing public support for the arts, formed its first ‘Jazz Sub-Committee’. Its main business was to allocate bursaries usually consisting of no more than a few hundred pounds to jazz composers and musicians. The principal stipulation was that awards be used to develop creative activity that might not otherwise attract commercial support. Bassist, composer and bandleader Graham Collier was the first recipient – he received £500 to support his work on what became the Workpoints composition. In the early years of the scheme, further beneficiaries included Ian Carr, Mike Gibbs, Tony Oxley, Keith Tippett, Mike Taylor, Evan Parker and Mike Westbrook – all prominent members of what was seen as a new, emergent and distinctively British avant-garde jazz scene. Our point of departure in this chapter is that what might otherwise be regarded as a bureaucratic footnote in the annals of the ACGB was actually a crucial moment in the history of British jazz.
    [Show full text]
  • A Month to Celebrate Jazz, Turned Tragic
    MUSIC FEATURES A Month To Celebrate Jazz, Turned Tragic April was a cruel month, but the jazz community is searching for signs of light April 30, 2020 · 7:02 AM ET NATE CHINEN Henry Grimes performs in New York in 2003. Grimes died on April 15 at the age of 84, of complications from coronavirus. Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images Amidst The Coronavirus Pandemic, A Month To Celebrate Jazz Turns Tragic : NPR In an alternate timeline, I know precisely how I would have spent the evening of April 17. The dynamic South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini had been booked for an album-release engagement at Dizzy's Club, the in-house nightclub at Jazz at Lincoln Center. I was looking forward to hearing his band in that room — not only because Makhathini's stateside appearances are few and far between, but also because the urgent, questing spirit of his music is something best experienced in person and in close quarters, as a form of communion. Here is how I spent the evening of April 17: At that point, one month into home quarantine, I had grown accustomed to the live stream as a plucky substitute for conventional performance. I was about to cue up one of those streams when I saw reports of the death of Giuseppi Logan, a multi-reedist who made his mark in free jazz. I'd just started writing Logan's obituary when my phone rang: A friend and fellow critic wanted to know whether I was working on an obit for the revered avant-garde bassist Henry Grimes.
    [Show full text]
  • Traditional Funk: an Ethnographic, Historical, and Practical Study of Funk Music in Dayton, Ohio
    University of Dayton eCommons Honors Theses University Honors Program 4-26-2020 Traditional Funk: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Practical Study of Funk Music in Dayton, Ohio Caleb G. Vanden Eynden University of Dayton Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/uhp_theses eCommons Citation Vanden Eynden, Caleb G., "Traditional Funk: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Practical Study of Funk Music in Dayton, Ohio" (2020). Honors Theses. 289. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/uhp_theses/289 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the University Honors Program at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Traditional Funk: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Practical Study of Funk Music in Dayton, Ohio Honors Thesis Caleb G. Vanden Eynden Department: Music Advisor: Samuel N. Dorf, Ph.D. April 2020 Traditional Funk: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Practical Study of Funk Music in Dayton, Ohio Honors Thesis Caleb G. Vanden Eynden Department: Music Advisor: Samuel N. Dorf, Ph.D. April 2020 Abstract Recognized nationally as the funk capital of the world, Dayton, Ohio takes credit for birthing important funk groups (i.e. Ohio Players, Zapp, Heatwave, and Lakeside) during the 1970s and 80s. Through a combination of ethnographic and archival research, this paper offers a pedagogical approach to Dayton funk, rooted in the styles and works of the city’s funk legacy. Drawing from fieldwork with Dayton funk musicians completed over the summer of 2019 and pedagogical theories of including black music in the school curriculum, this paper presents a pedagogical model for funk instruction that introduces the ingredients of funk (instrumentation, form, groove, and vocals) in order to enable secondary school music programs to create their own funk rooted in local history.
    [Show full text]