HISTORICAL OVERVIEWS OF FIVE PARTNER COUNTRIES CONTENT Introduction 1 I HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAZZ IN BRITAIN 3 1 Origins 3 2 The development of a jazz culture 6 3 Emancipation and identities 16 4 British jazz today 20 4.1 Cultural policy 20 4.2 The media and jazz organisations 21 4.3 The formalisation of jazz education 22 4.4 Festivals 22 4.5 European links 23 4.6 The current situation 24 Sources 25 II HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAZZ IN AUSTRIA 29 1 From the beginnings to the end of World War II 29 1.1 Early developments 29 1.2 The National Socialist era 30 2 Postwar and the 1960s 31 2.1 The beginning of an independent jazz scene 31 2.2 Austrian jazz musicians abroad 33 2.3 Momentum from Graz and institutionalization 35 3 The late 1960s to the generational change of the late 1970s 36 3.1 The Vienna scene 36 3.2 The impact of the “Vienna Art Orchestra” and its leading soloists 38 4 Stylistic pluralism – the 1980s to the present 40 4.1 Stylistic trends in the 1980s 40 4.2 Ensembles and musicians in the 1990s 41 4.3 The young generation since 2000 43 Sources 45 III HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAZZ IN NORWAY 53 1 Starting out 53 1.1 Between authenticity and pastiche 53 1.2 Post WWII and the American influence 56 2 A new direction for jazz 59 3 Jazz and the national consciousness 63 Sources 66 IV HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAZZ IN THE NETHERLANDS 69 1 (African-)American music culture in the Netherlands, 1847–1919 70 2 Early dissemination of jazz in the Netherlands, 1919–1940 72 2.1 Jazz dance 72 2.2 Early jazz bands 73 2.3 Representation and reception 74 2.4 The profession of jazz 75 2.5 Organizing jazz: clubs, associations, and written media 77 2.6 Jazz in the colonized East Indies, 1919–1938 78 3 1940–1945 German occupation: restrictions 79 4 1945–1966: postwar years 80 4.1 Traditionalists and modern jazz 81 4.2 Organizing jazz: professionalization and institutionalization 82 5 1966–1980: factional struggles 83 5.1 Improvising musicians 83 5.2 Formal jazz education 84 6 1980–2000: jazz professionalism 85 7 Recent years: online 86 Sources 89 V HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAZZ IN DENMARK 97 1 Precursors and early jazz: 1891–1929 97 2 Jazz pedagogy and cultural radicals: 1930–1939 99 3 The Danish “golden age of jazz”: 1940–1945 101 4 Enter bebop and revival jazz: 1946–1959 103 5 The Montmartre era: 1959–1976 104 6 Jazz on the State budget and in the streets: 1976–1980s 105 7 Developments in Danish jazz since the 1980s 106 8 The “rytmisk music” in music education and jazz research in Denmark 107 9 The “homely” in Danish jazz 109 Sources 111 1 INTRODUCTION Tony Whyton, Project Leader Rhythm Changes: Jazz Cultures and European Identities is a 3-year transnational in- terdisciplinary research project which examines the inherited traditions and practices of European jazz cultures in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK. Rhythm Changes seeks to develop new insights into cultural exchanges and dynamics between different countries, groups and related media. The project has been funded as part of the Humanities in the European Research Area’s (HERA) theme, ‘Cultural Dynam- ics: Inheritance and Identity’, a joint research programme (JRP) funded by 13 national funding agencies to ‘create collaborative, transnational research opportunities that will derive new insights from humanities research in order to address major social, cultural, and political challenges facing Europe’. As part of a broad programme of research, Rhythm Changes developed a cross-discpli- nary approach to explore the cultural dynamics of jazz in different European settings. One project strand examined the canonicity, history and ideology of jazz in different national settings. Within this context, the international research team and partners de- veloped historical overviews of jazz in each of the five partner countries. The historical overviews presented here are not designed to be definitive or to offer comprehensive histories of jazz in each national setting; this would not only be beyond the scope of the project but would also serve to duplicate a number of research studies which focus specifially on the development of jazz in different national European contexts. Instead, the following overviews present key issues, trends and discursive moments which have served to shape the canonicity of jazz in each participating country. Each overview provides an account of how jazz has developed in different national set- tings and explores the changing relationship of jazz to arts policies and cultural infra- structures. Through these overviews, it is possible to determine similarities and dif- ferences between national contexts, as well as how interpretations of jazz history have differed over time and/or underpinned contrasting ideological positions. Through these historical overviews, I would encourage readers to think about jazz within and outside national contexts, both as music supported by cultural infrastructures and as a transnational music related to ongoing political change, cultural exchanges, and the movement of ideas beyond national borders and communities. 1 2 3 I HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF JAZZ IN BRITAIN1 Catherine Tackley and Peter J. Martin 1 Origins The history of jazz in Britain has often been considered as beginning in 1919 with the arrival of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. However, examination of British newspapers and magazines shows that the word ‘jazz’ was in general use and prior to this date some musical performances designated as such had taken place. The sheet music of some jazz compositions, including those of the ODJB, had been published in England since at least 1917, and as early as January 1918 the Dancing Times reported that… ‘A fearsome thing called “Jazz Music” has reached us from the other side of the Atlantic: it has been described as “syncopation runs riot”. What its effect will be, only time can show.’ (Jan- uary 1918: 126). Furthermore, to regard jazz in Britain as beginning in 1919 is to neglect the cultural and musical antecedents of the genre, and the history of African-American music. These earlier developments influenced the subsequent evolution of jazz in Brit- ain, and importantly, its reception by the public. Jazz was by no means the first American musical trend to be introduced in Brit- ain: choral groups such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers, as well as black and blackface minstrel troupes and individual performers, visited during the nineteenth century. Min- strel shows were extremely popular in Britain, as they were congruent with the humour and sentimentality of music hall entertainment, but also had an exotic appeal (Picker- ing 1986: 76). The popularity of minstrelsy culminated in a craze for the banjo in the 1880s, when black American banjoists performed, recorded and passed on their skills in Britain. They were accepted into the highest society: even members of the royal family learnt the banjo. However, minstrelsy also had the effect of establishing some unflattering black stereotypes which were to influence the reception of black performers and their music, including jazz, well into the twentieth century. Later black American performers who visited Britain, such as large numbers of solo banjo players, groups such as the Memphis Students, and all-black musical comedies such as Will Marion Cook’s In Dahomey (1903), often built upon the popularity of minstrelsy to ensure their success. Strong links between British and American theatrical promoters were already established through reciprocal transfer of entertainment between Broadway and Lon- don’s West End. Consequently, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most American musicians and musical trends were brought to Britain through theatrical channels. Imported theatrical entertainment not only brought American performers to Brit- ain, but also provided a direct insight into American life, albeit in a caricatured form. American and American-style revues were extremely popular in the early twentieth cen- tury, particularly those produced by Albert de Courville at the London Hippodrome. It was through revue shows that the British public became initiated into the latest Amer- 1 This article has been reprinted with permission by Catherine Tackley and Peter J. Martin and the editors of the Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World. 2 3 ican pre-jazz dances and music. De Courville’s show Hullo Ragtime! (1912) defined and popularized ragtime in Britain, and revues established orchestrated ragtime songs rather than solo piano ragtime as the standard manifestation of this genre in Britain. Piano ragtime was hardly represented at all in Britain until the mid-1920s, which helped to ensure that banjo-based groups such as the Versatile Four and Dan Kildare’s Clef Club Orchestra remained central to performances of pre-jazz syncopated music in Britain, reinforcing and perpetuating minstrel imagery. The content of revues was widely disseminated in Britain through the publica- tion of songs for the professional and domestic markets. The sheer scale of the music publishing industry and piano ownership at this time indicates that many people would have experienced jazz initially, or even exclusively (particularly outside the main cit- ies) through domestic music-making rather than live professional performance (Ehrlich 1989: 8, 1990: 91). However, it was often the imagery contained in lyrics of revue songs, rather than the standardised musical material, which meant that jazz developed a clear and consistent image in Britain before jazz bands became commonplace. The verb ‘to jazz’, meaning to dance, is encountered more frequently in early songs than the noun ‘jazz’ denoting a musical style.