Explore the music and mystique of Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Many others...
|
|
|
|
This course uses the approach of ethnomusicology to explore jazz music as African American culture and as an African American heritage music. A heritage music is defined as the traditional, classical music of a people group that is connected to the long history of the group and is an expression of the group’s ethnic/cultural identity. Langston Hughes drives home the connection between jazz and African
American identity by saying “but jazz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America” (The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” 1921). Students will engage a historical overview of the music in the historical context of the African American music tradition, understanding different styles of jazz and their evolution, understanding jazz music-culture with focus on major innovators in the music, all within the historical and cultural context of African America. Students will explore fundamental structures of the musics that are rooted in Africa including lineage systems, generational transmission, the connection of instruments to voice and language, connections between jazz improvisation and African American language, the connection between music and dance, and the music as Black American cultural code. We will explore the stylistic evolution of the music that was propelled by the changes in the improvisatory language of jazz innovators such as Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. We will also look at jazz vocals as integral in the development of the music. Students will read jazz musicians autobiographies, listen to and read oral history interviews, watch documentaries, engage with course guests and listen to live and studio recordings of the music with the goal of understanding the jazz music-culture through the lens of the artists who were/are tradition bearers.
To further understand the cultural context of jazz, students will explore how the music is a part of the Black revolutionary tradition, how it supported the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power and Black Arts Movements, and expressed ideologies that drove those movements forwards. The course content will also address other issues such as race and power in the US context in connection with the music and the term ‘jazz’, cultural appropriation and the impact of institutionalization in contemporary jazz education and venues that present jazz. This course will also address colonial constructs imposed upon the music through jazz journalism and certain realms of jazz scholarship and will also address contestations concerning the origination of the music within the context of inequitable race and power structures. The course might also include the transnational relationship through jazz between African America and other groups in the Black World, and information on the South African jazz tradition.
This course will also include robust listening. Attending pre-scheduled music performances is required. Readings will include the work of scholars of Black music, jazz musicians’ autobiographies, African American autobiographies, cultural iconography in Black American art and looking at contexts for the music and stylistic eras in African American literature and poetry. Readings may also draw from cultural studies, cultural anthropology, and Africana Studies, with the goal of gaining an emic/insider perspective of this music tradition.
American identity by saying “but jazz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America” (The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” 1921). Students will engage a historical overview of the music in the historical context of the African American music tradition, understanding different styles of jazz and their evolution, understanding jazz music-culture with focus on major innovators in the music, all within the historical and cultural context of African America. Students will explore fundamental structures of the musics that are rooted in Africa including lineage systems, generational transmission, the connection of instruments to voice and language, connections between jazz improvisation and African American language, the connection between music and dance, and the music as Black American cultural code. We will explore the stylistic evolution of the music that was propelled by the changes in the improvisatory language of jazz innovators such as Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. We will also look at jazz vocals as integral in the development of the music. Students will read jazz musicians autobiographies, listen to and read oral history interviews, watch documentaries, engage with course guests and listen to live and studio recordings of the music with the goal of understanding the jazz music-culture through the lens of the artists who were/are tradition bearers.
To further understand the cultural context of jazz, students will explore how the music is a part of the Black revolutionary tradition, how it supported the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power and Black Arts Movements, and expressed ideologies that drove those movements forwards. The course content will also address other issues such as race and power in the US context in connection with the music and the term ‘jazz’, cultural appropriation and the impact of institutionalization in contemporary jazz education and venues that present jazz. This course will also address colonial constructs imposed upon the music through jazz journalism and certain realms of jazz scholarship and will also address contestations concerning the origination of the music within the context of inequitable race and power structures. The course might also include the transnational relationship through jazz between African America and other groups in the Black World, and information on the South African jazz tradition.
This course will also include robust listening. Attending pre-scheduled music performances is required. Readings will include the work of scholars of Black music, jazz musicians’ autobiographies, African American autobiographies, cultural iconography in Black American art and looking at contexts for the music and stylistic eras in African American literature and poetry. Readings may also draw from cultural studies, cultural anthropology, and Africana Studies, with the goal of gaining an emic/insider perspective of this music tradition.
