Browsing by Subject "Jazz"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 56

Another kind of truth : a study of self-mythology in popular music
(2013-05) Moench, Michael Creighton; Slawek, Stephen; Carson, Charles D.
The connection between music and the formation of identity has been extensively explored in Ethnomusicology, as has the connection between music and the articulation of personal truth and knowledge. One peculiar artifact in the history of American popular music that raises many questions about both identity and truth is the interaction between musical performance and personal mythology. Many musicians have actively cultivated a mythic self--‐conception, while still others have gone to the lengths of creating an entire new name and history for themselves in their performances and recordings. My interest in this essay is to explore the production, transmission and modification of mythemes and mythology in conjunction with the production of musical sounds and other aspects of performative artistry. In particular I am examining the careers of Sun Ra, Jimi Hendrix, Sly & The Family Stone, Parliament--‐ Funkadelic and Prince in order to explore how and why these musicians created a coherent mythology in their art, or contributed to mythic, archetypal conceptions of themselves in the press and popular culture. Rather than analyzing the musical and visual productions of these artists as expressions contingent on the narrative or ideological intentions of their respective “myths”, or taking the reverse course of treating alter--‐egos and personal myths as superficial trappings of show business that coexists with the true essence of their art (e.g. the music itself) I am examining the recursive interaction between sound, image, and storytelling. Drawing on concepts from scholars of myth like Claude Levi--‐Strauss, Joseph Campbell and Bruce Lincoln, as well as scholars of Black Music history such as Paul Gilroy and Guthrie Ramsey, I intend to demonstrate that in art as in life, mythology is a vital part of how we perceive our world and ourselves. Furthermore, these examples illustrate that art is often a holistic experience where elements of sound, vision, and story are interdependent and can seldom if ever be truly separated.
Bulgarian bulge : jazz, subjectivity, and modernity in Bulgaria
(2011-08) McCormack, Ryan Sawyer; Seeman, Sonia Tamar, 1958-; Erlmann, Veit; Moore, Robin; Neuburger, Mary; Stewart, Kathleen
This dissertation investigates various issues at play in the development and perpetuation of jazz in Bulgaria from the early-20th century until the present. In particular, I explore jazz’s emergence within the conceptualization of subjective experience unique to modern Bulgaria. In this way I move away from the relatively static notion of a “transcendent” subjectivity centered on the “improviser” that constitutes a great deal of jazz historiography and discourse. Through an examination of jazz musicians, listeners, and government critics in different periods of Bulgarian history, I seek two broad but not mutually exclusive goals. The first is trace how “jazz” was conceptualized in different quarters of Bulgarian society and how those conceptualizations factored into the composition, recording, and patronage of music. This second is to posit alternatives to a subjectivity of “transcendence” in jazz performance, using the Bulgarian case as an example. Throughout the dissertation, I use “fascination” and “boredom” as the two concepts through which to ground a historically and materially-bound subjectivity that better takes into account social, cultural, and economic factors unique to Bulgaria. Ultimately, these concepts feature prominently in understanding jazz’s role in framing the fractured subjectivities of Bulgarians within modernity, as well as the constant historical struggle by Bulgarians to center senses of self and place within a changing Bulgaria, a changing Europe, and a changing world.
Chamber chip : an album of six pieces for instrument(s) and fixed media
(2015-12) Wilson, Zackery Joseph; Pinkston, Russell; Pennycook, Bruce; Sharlat, Yevgeniy; Grantham, Donald; Justin, David
Chamber Chip is a thirty-five-minute musical album consisting of six pieces written for electronic fixed media and various instruments and instrumentations, including: solo piano, solo tuba, flute and cello duo, brass quintet, and saxophone quartet and piano. The album is essentially a compilation of commissioned works collectively governed by a common theme: the intersection and juxtaposition of chiptune, classical, and jazz musical elements. The first chapter of this dissertation examines the genesis of the album and its compositions, the definition of chiptune music and its underlying influence, and the challenges inherent in the medium. The second chapter is a piece-by-piece analysis of the album, complete with explanations of major motives, harmonic language, and formal structure. The Chamber Chip physical and digital CD album will be commercially released on the chiptune, electronic, and video game inspired music net label Ubiktune in its 2016 catalog year.
Cognitive dimensions of instrumental jazz improvisation
(2011-05) Fidlon, James Daniel; Hellmer, Jeffrey L.; Duke, Robert A.; Costa-Giomi, Eugenia; O'Hare, Thomas J.; Scott, Laurie P.
Jazz improvisation represents one of the more impressive examples of human creative behavior, but as yet there has been little systematic investigation of its cognitive bases. The results of three studies that this investigation comprises illustrate the optimizations of thinking and behavior that underlie the capacities of skillful jazz improvisers, enabling them to meet the demands of improvised performance effectively and efficiently. Studies 1 and 2 provide evidence of a process for generating and controlling musical ideas that improvisers can enact with little conscious mediation. In Study 1, this was demonstrated by the ability of experienced improvisers to generate well-formed improvised solos during dual-task conditions, in which they allocated attentional resources to a secondary nonmusical task. In Study 2, the contributions of nonconscious processes to jazz improvisation were inferred from experienced improvisers’ descriptions of their intentions for upcoming music during improvised solos. Their descriptions contained almost no explicit details of the music they were about to play; v inexperienced improvisers, contrastingly, conceived of upcoming music largely in terms of its specific details (e.g., note selection, the quotation of licks). Study 3 examines the perceptions of two musicians performing as a duo, both serving at different times as soloist and accompanist. Here, the soloist’s attention was focused on the developmental and associative implications of his musical ideas, whereas the accompanist’s attention was devoted primarily to assessing the aesthetic and logistical implications of the soloist’s part while remaining vigilant for opportunities to directly interact. The findings in these studies illustrate the extent to which expert jazz musicians acquire and refine procedures for generating well-formed musical ideas at a minimal cognitive cost. The efficiency of the improvisational process was evidenced by the limited demands that generating novel music placed on the skilled improvisers’ attention, and in the abstract relationship between experts’ musical intentions and the specific actions they produced in bringing their intentions to fruition.
Disciplining the popular : new institutions for Argentine music education as cultural systems
(2010-05) O'Brien, Michael Seamus, 1978-; Moore, Robin D.; Erlmann, Veit; Slawek, Stephen; Keeler, Ward; Costa-Giomi, Eugenia
This dissertation focuses on a recent but growing movement in Argentina, state-sponsored formal institutions of popular music education. The musics taught in these schools – tango, jazz, and Argentine folk idioms – have historically been excluded from the country’s formal music education systems. Recent moves to standardize and legitimize these musics in this new institutional context raise questions of canon formation, pedagogical praxis, aesthetics and musical meaning that have implications far beyond the classrooms where they are implemented. I examine two of these schools based in and around the capital city of Buenos Aires: the Escuela de Música Popular de Avellaneda, and the Tango and Folklore department of the Conservatorio Superior de Música “Manuel de Falla.” I adopt an ethnographic approach that considers broad structural and policy issues of power distribution, state intervention, and cultural nationalism. I also examine how these structures play out in discourse and practice within and beyond the classroom, shaped by and in turn shaping students’ and teachers’ aesthetics, politics, and subject positions. I then analyze the output of several musical groups composed of current students and recent graduates of these programs, exploring the notion of an emerging institutional aesthetic and the extent to which these institutions act as homogenizing influences or engender creative divergence. Finally, applying Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of a field of cultural production, I question the extent to which this new “música popular” is truly popular, ultimately arguing that it occupies a sort of third space between mass culture and high culture, replicating some avant-garde assumptions about the role of art as anti-commercial, yet simultaneously embracing a symbolic economy that valorizes populist and subaltern identities and ideologies.
Doctoral thesis recital (double bass)
(2010-10-21) Booker, Adam; Not available
Bird of beauty / Stevie Wonder -- The peacocks / Jimmy Rowles -- Light as a feather / Stanley Clarke -- Ornithology / Charles Parker -- Skylark / H. Carmichael, J. Mercer -- Blackbird / Paul McCartney -- Birdland / Joe Zawinul.
Doctoral thesis recital (double bass)
(2010-11-22) Butts, Josef; Not available
Whim of Chambers / Paul Chambers -- Falling grace / Steve Swallow -- Bohemia after dark / Oscar Pettiford -- Our Spanish love song / Charlie Haden -- Chicken scratch / Josef Butts.
Doctoral thesis recital (double bass)
(2019-10-30) Suter, James; Unable to determine
Upper Manhattan Medical Group (U.M.M.G.) ; Charpoy ; A flower is a lovesome thing ; Lush life ; The intimacy of the blues ; Johnny come lately / Billy Strayhorn
Doctoral thesis recital (double bass)
(2015-03-09) Hassan, Tarik; Unable to Determine
Circle dance ; The colors nobody wanted ; Color blind ; That long brown hair ; Mid citizen ; St. Johns River / Tarik Hassan.
Doctoral thesis recital (drums)
(2019-10-22) Augustinis, Fabio; Unable to determine
Go get it ; The sun in Montreal / Pat Metheny -- Why don't I / Sonny Rollins -- Everybody's party ; Hammock soliloquy / John Scofield -- Think before you think / Bill Stewart
Doctoral thesis recital (guitar)
(2016-03-24) Pardo, Brian; not available
There will never be another you / Harry Warren -- Yes and no / Wayne Shorter -- Witch hunt / Wayne Shorter -- Soul eyes / Mal Waldron -- Ju ju / Wayne Shorter -- Cissy strut / Leo Nocentelli; Art Neville; George Porter; Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste.
Doctoral thesis recital (jazz composition)
(2012-11-27) Kim, Christian Jinsan; Unable to Determine
Oneness within the diversity of music / Christian Kim.
Doctoral thesis recital (jazz composition)
(2014-01-28) Wilcher, Marcus; Unable to Determine
Rhythmic strokes -- Slo jamz -- Trickling down -- Leap frog -- Real talk.
Doctoral thesis recital (jazz composition)
(2014-02-04) Heitlinger, Alex; Unable to determine; Unable to Determine
Slush pump truck stop -- Trail to Cullowhee -- The drawing board.
Doctoral thesis recital (jazz composition)
(2012-10-21) Santiago, Gabriel da Fonseca; Unable to Determine
Choro for Kristin -- Unlived future -- Poupee -- River of memory.
Doctoral thesis recital (jazz guitar)
(2015-11-12) Pardo, Brian; not available
Bemsha swing; Instrospection; Ask me now; Trinkle tinkle; Well you needn't; Rhythm-a-ning / Thelonius Monk.
Doctoral thesis recital (Jazz performance)
(2013-04-16) Wood, Bennett; Unable to Determine
West End Avenue / Jeff Campbell -- Young at heart / Johnny Richards -- Y todavia la quiero / Joe Henderson -- Big house / Rick Dimuzio -- Isfahan / Billy Strayhorn -- I love Paris / Cole Porter.
Doctoral thesis recital (jazz piano)
(2015-10-29) Bianchini, Gianni; not available
Softly as in a morning sunrise / Sigmund Romberg,Oscar Hammerstein; arr. Gianni Bianchini -- My Romance / Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart; arr. Gianni Bianchini -- My heart stood still / Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart; arr. Gianni Bianchini -- Peri's scope / Bill Evans; arr. Gianni Bianchini -- My love for you / Ron McClure, Bianni Bianchini -- The way you look tonight / Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields; arr. Gianni Bianchini.
Doctoral thesis recital (jazz piano)
(2017-11-08) Margitza, Ross; N/A
Black Forest blues / Hampton Hawes -- Bossa beguine / Oscar Peterson -- Virna / Neal Hefti -- Jitterbug waltz / Thomas "Fats" Waller -- If you only knew ; Place St. Henri / Oscar Peterson.
Doctoral thesis recital (jazz piano) lecture
(2016-04-20) Bianchini, Gianni; not available
"An analysis of the improvisational techniques of Gene Harris" -- Exactly like you / Jimmy McHugh; Dorothy Fields.