Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Rhythm Changes

Researching cultural dynamics in European jazz

CFP

Here's an interesting one:
 


Call for Articles – Issue 5: Analyzing and Interpreting Improvised Music

For further information: http://www.act.uni-bayreuth.de/de/cfa_5/index.html
or http://www.act.uni-bayreuth.de/en/cfa_5/index.html
Also please follow us on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Act.ZfMuP

Instant composing, real-time music, current music, free jazz, intuitive music – the genre indications on the part of artists point to a struggle surrounding a volatile subject. The focus of this issue is to present and discuss the scholarly methods for interpreting and analyzing these and similar genres and to identify their possibilities and limitations.

The topics in this area range from procedural questions of methodological and manual problems of transcription and translation from one sign system to another to problems of descriptive language right up to discussion of aesthetic premises, which, consciously or unconsciously, we bring to the subject. Ultimately, it comes down to the question of what subject we are dealing with when we analyze: a musical structure, a sonic result, a concert situation, a performance, a performance in the sense of performance art, a document of social communication, group processes, or the celebration (possibly arising from other contexts) of festival and performance cultures.
We warmly welcome all authors who are interested in the issue to send their articles for consideration. Editorially-supported languages are German, English, French, and Italian.

In addition to scholars from different disciplines we would also like to invite composers, musicians, and artists to express their views through reflections on their own art or the art of others.

The contributions should not exceed 45,000 characters in length (including spaces). The deadline for articles is 15 September 2012. Please send in submissions by e-mail to act@uni-bayreuth.de

On Jazz Hype and Antihype

Below is the first two paragraphs from Tom Gsteiger's comments about jazz in Switzerland. 
I think he's right on...  <http://www.hathut.com/home.html>

Bloom Time for Jazz from Switzerland
by Tom Gsteiger


Prelude: Hype/Antihype

Switzerland is a jazz paradise! Forgive my blatant words, but as I’m writing these lines on August 1, the Swiss national holiday, I expect a bit of patriotic exuberance is in order. Moreover, the tone of jazz reports has become rougher, too. If you want to be heard, you’d be well advised to write your messages with a sharp pen and roar as loud as possible. «Pimping» half-baked theses into dogmatic principles and conjuring up a culture clash between the US and Europe, music critics like Stanley Crouch or Stuart Nicholson have poisoned the climate and stand in the way of a more sophisticated view of things. Alas, their terrible simplifications go down well and encourage copycats. This is why we cheerfully push the repeat button: Switzerland is a jazz paradise!

Of course Switzerland is far from being a jazz paradise. Just as New York is no longer the epicentre of the jazz world ... and Oslo is not the new capital of jazz ... and Italy does not have the best jazz scene in Europe ... and neither E.S.T. nor The Bad Plus have revolutionised piano trio jazz ... Apodictic exaggeration keeps the hype machinery running and in doing so distracts people from the sheer wild complexity of artistic creation (as unfortunately do polls, which are widespread in jazz). People want the best and end up consuming what somehow or other appeals to the majority – instead of letting themselves be guided by their own curiosity, they are satisfied with the lowest common denominator (e.g. Robbie Williams or Fischli & Weiss or Esbjörn Svensson). What does the Swiss writer Urs Widmer think about it? «In literature, unlike professional sports, it’s not about being the best, it’s about having as many writers as possible who are good in every possible way. It’s exactly what we find in Switzerland today. Many authors are good in their own way.» This statement can also be applied directly to jazz in Switzerland.

Smithsonian's History Explorer: Themes: Jazz Appreciation Month

April is Jazz Appreciation Month at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Check it out. Of course for Rhythm Changers and RC followers I'm guessing EVERY month is jazz appreciation month ... We don't get many Jazz Appreciation Months in the UK.

http://historyexplorer.si.edu/themes/theme/?key=58#.T3oDiLySvw8.email

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Integration and conversation

We're in Lancaster having a meeting of (most of) the research team, and some of the talk has centred around developing the way in which we use the internet.

For some time now, the Posterous site has been something of a backchannel for us to share things with each other and the official Wordpress site has been where we show our outputs. But recently, the lines have been blurring, and we have started to think about them as all being part of the same process.

Rather than the websites being about what we do - we're more interested in them being how we do what we do. To that end - starting with this post - everything that we send to Posterous will now appear as part of the official Rhythm Changes site. We see no need to compartmentalise them any more (though nor do we see a need to shut down the Posterous site).

We're also interested in using the internet as a conversational space, and to that end, we're going to start using Twitter more actively - as a research group - but also as individuals. A few of us are already active on Twitter, but this evening we're going to be doing a workshop and bringing some of the others up to speed.

With any luck, there'll be a post shortly that provides links to ALL of our Twitter accounts. In the meantime, follow @rhythmchanges for updates - and feel free to join in the conversation there.

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