Anthropology of Jazz

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Columbia University

Anthropology

Fall 2005

This course explores the "jazz world" broadly speaking, from an anthropological/ ethnographic perspective. Covering a variety of different periods in the history of this modern music, we will examine memoirs, autobiographies, films and recorded music, as well as scholarly anthropological and ethnographic accounts of what has been popularly called the "jazz life." The course is partly organized around space and location (e.g., the club, the recording studio, the dance hall, the "industry"), but the scope is global. We will extend our sights beyond the U.S. and look at local jazz cultures in other parts of the world, notably Japan.

Throughout we will examine tensions of race, gender, class, and sexuality. And we will pay particular attention to the way musicians themselves understood and narrated their world. Hopefully, students will come away from this course with a better understanding of jazz as well as the discipline of anthropology.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Students are responsible for keeping up with the reading assignments and participating fully in discussion. The final grade will be based on two short essays, a group research/creative project based on site-specific field work, and class participation. The project will be worth one-third of your grade, the two papers combined account for one-third, and class participation will make up the remaining one-third of your final grade. The short papers will assess and critique the reading assignments for whatever week for which you are responsible. These papers must be posted on Courseworks at least 24 hours in advance of class (i.e., by 2:00PM each Monday).

Because this is a seminar, you are expected to contribute to discussion-informed, of course, by the week's reading. I generally do not tolerate late papers without a plausible excuse. Late papers will be docked one-half of a grade for each day it is late. In order to participate fully in class discussions you must keep abreast of the reading assignments.

I encourage all students to read beyond the assigned readings (particularly from works on the suggested reading list) and contribute any additional insights or information to class discussion.
REQUIRED READING
Books

Sidney Bechet, Treat it Gentle (New York: Da Capo, 2002)

Horace Tapscott, Songs of the Unsung The Musical and Social Journey of Horace Tapscott (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001).

Mezz Mezzrow, Really the Blues (New York: Carol Publishing, 1991)

Frank Kofsky, Black Music, White Business (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1998).

Articles

NOTE: Suggested readings will be included under each weekly topic. For general background on the history of this music, you might want to consult: Amiri Baraka, Blues People (1963); Samuel Floyd, The Power of Black Music (1998); Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans (3rd ed., 1997); John Szwed, Jazz 101 (2000); Robert O'Meally, ed. The Jazz Cadence of American Culture (1998); Robert G. O'Meally, Brent Hayes Edwards, and Farah Jasmine Griffin, eds., Uptown Conversations: The New Jazz Studies (2004); Christopher Small, Music of the Common Tongue (1987); Art Taylor, Notes and Tones: Musician to Musician Interviews (1971); Alyn Shipton, A New History of Jazz (2001); Krin Gabbard, ed., Jazz Among the Discourses (1995); Krin Gabbard, ed., Representing Jazz (1995 ); Ingrid Monson, Saying Something (1996); Paul Berliner, Thinking in Jazz (1994).

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