The Metaphysics of Jazz

Young, James O.; Matheson, Carl

doi:10.2307/432091

Cited by 22 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…As Gabriel Solis points out, "It is problematic in the best of circumstances to suggest that a jazz performance, created through a dialogic, collaborative, improvisational process, might have a single author " (2004, 331). Scholarship on the work concept in jazz has tended to focus on the mainstream jazz practice of improvising over standards, with scholars variously considering jazz standards as works (Young and Matheson 2000); performances as works; recordings as works (Solis 2004); or whether jazz is a tradition without works (Kania 2008;2011). 45 This scholarship has tended to make only peripheral mention of the issue of composition in a jazz or creative music context, or composing for improvisers.…”

Section: The Work Concept In Jazz and Creative Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%

"A Lot of Different Streams": Questioning "Jazz" and Composing Beyond Genre

Lovell-Smith¹

2021

Preprint

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Many composers currently prominent in the jazz world draw upon multiple musical traditions or genres to create their work. The varied compositional activities of composers Nicole Mitchell, Tyshawn Sorey and Wayne Horvitz problematize attempts to classify their work as belonging to a single genre. Drawing on my interviews with these three composers and my analysis of selected works, I seek to understand how they conceptualize their compositional work and its relationship to the various musical traditions that have influenced them. Using Fabian Holt’s genre framework and George E. Lewis’s concept of the Afrological as critical tools, I propose that the work of these composers prioritizes spontaneity and agency, foregrounding process and transformation instead of a more fixed work concept, and claiming a mobility of practice that connects them strongly to the legacy of the AACM. I also use these concepts as ways to reflect on my own creative work developed throughout the DMA, and my relationship to the genre label of jazz. The creative portfolio developed as part of this research incorporates influences from multiple streams of music-making, particularly the traditions of jazz, creative music and Western classical music. The submitted works include Cerulean Haze, for jazz octet and 5-piece chamber ensemble (13:00); Sanctuary, a suite in three movements for 11-piece ensemble (18:49); “Noche Oscura” for 10-piece ensemble (6:48); “Moorings (Titahi Bay)” for chordless jazz quartet (6:00); “Jimmy,” “Nuevo Azul,” “Neither Here nor There” and “Metamorphosis” for improvising quartet. These works explore extended jazz and modal harmonic language; strategies for extending songform-derived compositional forms into larger, through-composed works; and varying degrees of notational specificity. The inclusion of improvisation is prioritized in each work.

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Section: The Work Concept In Jazz and Creative Musicmentioning

confidence: 99%

"A Lot of Different Streams": Questioning "Jazz" and Composing Beyond Genre

Lovell-Smith¹

2021

Preprint

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“…Quizás el ejemplo más palpable, cercano e intuitivo, en este sentido, en el ámbito de la cultura española sea el de la música flamenca, expresión musical que comparte con la música jazz muchas de las características constitutivas y propias de esta; por un lado, ambas son músicas de carácter transcultural, con un marcado carácter de discurso improvisado, y, por otro, ambas han transitado del ostracismo y la marginación que supone haber estado relegadas durante muchas décadas al ámbito más reducido de su producción, hasta convertirse en músicas universalmente aceptadas, apreciadas, consumidas y estudiadas. Con la inserción de la música jazz en el centro del polisistema musical de Occidente no solo se canoniza un género o estilo en el sentido de conjunto de exigencias estéticas, técnicas e interpretativas o paradigmas armónicos, sino que de manera subsidiaria se canoniza, de igual manera, todo el conjunto de obras y temas paradigmáticos de este estilo; así los real books de jazz o blues, que en definitiva representan una suerte cancioneros de la música popular americana (Young y Matheson, 2000), se han consolidado como la compilación de las obras canónicas de este sistema musical.…”

Section: De La Periferia Al Centro Del Polisistema De La Música Occidunclassified

La música Jazz en la Institución Educativa: un viaje de traslación de la periferia al corazón del canon de la música culta en occidente

Sánchez-Jara

Cáceres

2020

PMRT

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El presente artículo pretende constituirse como una aproximación teórica en torno al proceso de inserción y traslación de la música de jazz en el canon de la música culta en Occidente, monopolizado de manera paradigmática por la música clásica europea. Partiendo de un sustrato teórico conformado en relación a la teoría de los polisistemas, postulada por el investigador Israelí Itamar Even-Zohar, se analizan las sinergias, coyunturas y condicionantes que subyacen a un movimiento de traslación que ha propiciado el cambio de consideración de un género musical como el jazz, desde una concepción como música marginal y minoritaria, asociada a un contexto sociocultural concreto, hasta su reconocimiento como una de las expresiones artísticas más vanguardistas, refinadas y valoradas de la cultura occidental.

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“…When applied to the performing arts, some philosophers have referred to performable structures as types and individual performances as tokens. James Young and Carl Matheson believe that improvised jazz performances can be tokens (particulars) of a type (a universal kind) ‘…when they share a common starting point in a loose set of tacit instructions’ (128; see also Alperson 26). In his earlier work, Brown (before his pieces on higher‐order musical ontology that claim that no universals exist for jazz – see 2011a and 2012) agrees that improvisations can token work‐types, agreeing with Young and Matheson that an entirely improvised performance is not itself a musical work (2000a 115).…”

Section: Improvisation and Ontologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvisation in the Arts

Bresnahan

2015

Philosophy Compass

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This article focuses primarily on improvisation in the arts as discussed in philosophical aesthetics, supplemented with accounts of improvisational practice by arts theorists and educators. It begins with an overview of the term improvisation, first as it is used in general and then as it is used to describe particular products and practices in the individual arts. From here, questions and challenges that improvisation raises for the traditional work-of-art concept, the type-token distinction, and the appreciation and evaluation of the arts will be explored. This article concludes with the suggestion that further research and discussion on improvisation in the arts is needed, particularly in the areas of non-jazz improvisation.

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The Metaphysics of Jazz

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

"A Lot of Different Streams": Questioning "Jazz" and Composing Beyond Genre

"A Lot of Different Streams": Questioning "Jazz" and Composing Beyond Genre

La música Jazz en la Institución Educativa: un viaje de traslación de la periferia al corazón del canon de la música culta en occidente

Improvisation in the Arts

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