JAZZ HISTORIES

MUSIC 531

Examine musical improvisation from performers and select repertoire primarily from the Jazz Canon. Explore harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, and cultural expansion into the 20th and 21st centuries of improvisational performance practice. Learn elements needed to transform from a performer into a viable and competent improvisor. Emphasis on cross-cultural understanding and interdisciplinarity.

MUSIC 102

Examines cultural influences on the development of jazz. Explores historical and ethnographic works by scholars in ethnomusicology, history, anthropology, and communication in order to understand cultural influences of traditional and contemporary genres of jazz. Major topics include syncretism, nationalism, modernity, ethnicity, gender, colonialism, and globalization of modern America. Emphasis on cross-cultural understanding and interdisciplinarity in jazz performance.

AFRICAN 409

Introduces the phenomenon of "musical blackness" as a US-based, transnational cultural form and practice. Explores (topics will vary) how US-based, racially specified black musical forms, together with global forms also identified as "black," were constituted as part of the legacies of European colonial encounter and US imperial expansion; the categories of "traditional" music and popular style took shape and have been experienced as something part and parcel of this historical process. Gives close consideration to genre, style, and performance practice, in order to understand the many ways in which musical sound and social/political ideas are inextricably linked.

AFROAMER 156

Examines the interaction between African American musical culture and its historical context, with an emphasis on the period from 1920 to the present.

MUSIC 629

Introduction to contemporary research into jazz theory through analysis of lead sheet jazz compositions, analysis of large ensemble jazz compositions and improvised solos, and critical readings of jazz theory publications.