Swing

A State Department Tour of Palestine

Alto saxophonist Michael Hashim recounts his experiences touring with a group led by drummer Stefan Schatz under the auspices of the US State Department in the Palestinian enclaves. The interview touches on the reasons for the tour, the  difficulities of traveling under the tight security regime, and the musical points of accord and dialogue the group was able to achieve nonetheless with Palestinian musicans playing their own native instruments.

Discontinuity in the Music of Django Reinhardt

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Current Musicology

Analysis of jazz solos has often focused on formal coherence. Proponents of this approach have often tried to establish a parallel to the formal rigor of classical music-and thus to uphold jazz' status as an art form (for example, see Sonny Rollins and the Challenge of Thematic Improvisation). Givan argues that close analysis can be instead be used to highlight not continuity in a jazz solo but discontinuity, which has its own creative and symbolic possibilities.

Jazz Music in Motion: Dancers and Big Bands

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This article surveys the role of dance in black entertainment and its relation to the development of jazz in the first half of the 20th century. Malone finds that leading jazz instrumentalists gained formative experiences accompanying dancers, especially tap dancers. Musicians accordingly viewed dancers as practicing a sophisticated and influential form of jazz, and interaction between dance and music performance was seen as a vital sphere of improvisation.

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