On Jazz, Memory and History

[JRJ 4.
1 (2010) 5-6]
doi:10.1558/jazz.v4i1.5
(print) ISSN 1753-8637

(online) ISSN 1753-8645
Editorial
Catherine Tackley
Jazz is notorious for myth and anecdotescholars are often challenged
by the sheer volume of conflicting accounts which also undeniably provide
a rich bank of resources for examining the mediation and public understanding of the genre. These memories, all of which might purport to offer
unmediated, authentic, first-hand experiences, are therefore perhaps both
the blessing and the curse of jazz studies. We begin this latest issue of
the Jazz Research Journal with a response to Alyn Shiptons essay on the
subject of New Jazz Histories (published in JRJ 3, no. 2), in which Nicholas Gebhardt explores the impact of memory on jazz history. Specifically,
interrogating musicians own discourse on their art can be both illuminating and frustrating by turn. Ken Proutys essay on Miles Davis, arguably
one of the most enigmatic personalities of jazz, draws parallels with the
artists musical aesthetics and performance practice to explore ways in
which, albeit problematically, autobiography served to fill the discursive
silent vacuum which occurred through Daviss troubled relationship with
writers. Complementing the work of Krin Gabbard (2009), Prouty raises
some important questions about the mediation of jazz history, authorship in
jazz and the ownership of artist (auto)biographies.
The other articles in this issue focus on specific case studies of jazz
outside the USA, demonstrating the JRJs continuing commitment to the
study of the genre in a global context. Jan Harm Schuttes essay draws on
Arjun Appadurais (1996) work on globalization to discuss the work of musicians Moses Molelekwa (South Africa) and Nah Youn-Sun (South Korea).
In particular, Schutte applies Appadurais conceptualization of centre and
periphery as imagined constructions of hierarchy to consider how the
genre is constructed. Eileen Hogan also examines constructions of jazz,
but in the context of national identity in post-independence Ireland. Her
paper draws on a variety of primary documentation, including newspaper
coverage and government records, to provide close analysis of the overt
sexualization and racialization of jazz in Irish discourse prior to 1938.
Hogans work is the first paper to be published from those submitted following the Jazz and Race, Past and Present conference which took place
at The Open University in Milton Keynes, UK in November 2010 as part of
Equinox Publishing Ltd 2011, Unit S3, Kelham House, 3 Lancaster Street, Sheffield, S3 8AF.
Jazz Research Journal
the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project What is Black
British Jazz?. We have several articles forthcoming which have been developed from papers and discussions which took place during the course of
this event. In particular, we look forward to the special issue on The Other
Jazz which presents studies of jazz in particular parts of the world. While
such narratives clearly acknowledge particular aspects of the global impact
of African American music, they also provide tangible accounts of diverse
local contributions.
Overall, the contributions to these issues highlight the powerful role jazz
plays in different national contexts and how histories of the music are constructed in both changing and complex cultural conditions.
References
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Gabbard, K. (2009) How Many Miles? Alternate Takes on the Jazz Life. In Thriving
on a Riff: Jazz and Blues Influences in African American Literature and Film,
ed. Graham Lock and David Murray, 184200. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Equinox Publishing Ltd 2011.
[JRJ 4.1 (2010) 7-14]

doi:10.1558/jazz.v4i1.7

On jazz, memory and history:

A response to Alyn Shipton
Nicholas Gebhardt*
Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts, LICA Building, Lancaster University LA1 4YW
n.gebhardt@lancaster.ac.uk
Abstract
This essay is a response to Alyn Shiptons essay in the previous edition of the journal.
It will explore two related ideas: firstly, what the concept of memory offers the process
of documenting jazz history; and secondly, the implications a theory of memory has
for how jazz critics interpret that history and the documents on which they rely to verify
the past.
Keywords: Alan Lomax; Alyn Shipton; jazz history; memory; oral testimony
to remember, we need others (Ricoeur 2004: 120).
There is probably no better example of the methodological challenges of

writing jazz history than those set out by Alan Lomax in Mister Jelly Roll
(Lomax 2001). In the famous prelude to the book, Lomax writes: The amplifier was hot. The needle was tracing a quiet spiral on the spinning acetate.
Mister Morton, I said, How about the beginning? Tell us about where you
were born and how you got started and whyand maybe keep playing
piano while you talk (p. xix). By linking the recording process to Jelly
Roll Mortons oral testimony, and relating what Morton says and to what
he plays, Lomaxs experimental biography was one of the first attempts to
conceptualize jazz history in terms of its subject. That hot May afternoon in
the Library of Congress a new way of writing history began, he continues,
history with music cues, the music evoking recollection and poignant
feeling (p. xix). But what kind of story did Lomax believe jazz historians
should be trying to tell? And what can we learn from Lomax if our ambition
is to write new histories of jazz?
* Nicholas Gebhardt teaches courses on popular music and improvisation in the
Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University, United Kingdom, and
is a member of the HERA-funded European research project, Rhythm Changes: Jazz
Cultures and European Identities.
I want to propose some provisional answers to these questions by way

of a brief response to Alyn Shiptons essay in the previous issue of this
journal. My sense is that the editorial dilemmas he encounters in the course
of collaborating with Danny Barker and Doc Cheatham on their autobiographies are a legacy of Lomaxs pioneering efforts at the Library of Congress.
The practice of leaving the phonograph, tape recorder, video camera or
digital recorder running, and then transcribing the results with little or no
editorial interference, is now widely in use; while audio recordings are
generally accepted as the best way of capturing a jazz musicians unique
perspective on the worldmusically and verbally. Numerous editors and
co-authors have then attempted, with varying levels of success, to bring
what Lomax defined as an inner consistency to the lives of jazz musicians
without comprising either the integrity of the subjects voice or questioning
the truth of their recollections. Moreover, the thousands of tape reels, video
tape, and digital files now held in the various jazz archives in the United
States, along with growing collections in the United Kingdom and Europe,
underline the degree to which critics and scholars conceive of the musicians oral testimonies as continuous with and productive of the identity of
the jazz community.1
It seems to me that the critical issue to emerge from Shiptons paper
is the relation of memory to history in jazz scholarship. As he acknowledges, the concept of memory has become a central concern of historical
theory over the last four decades, as historians have come to grips with
the challenges of including within their studies the voices and actions of
people without history: the hidden voices of those whose experiences
were unrepresented in standard historical narratives (Shipton 2009: 13).
Furthermore, in the process of letting these new subjects of history speak
to (or from) their memories of the past, even when those memories plainly
contradict the known facts, historians have had to adjust their view of what
history is (as a discipline and as a mode of human consciousness); but
equally, they have been compelled to modify their claims about what a
historian can (or should) do with the testimonies or documents she or he
collects.
This essay will explore two related ideas: firstly, what the concept of
memory offers the process of documenting jazz history; and secondly, the
implications a theory of memory has for how jazz critics interpret that history
(and the documents on which they rely to verify the past). What interests
1. As Burton Peretti points out, informal interviews with jazz musicians are a tradition
nearly as old as the music itself (Peretti 2001: 582).
On jazz, memory and history
me most of all about this problem is the dialectic of absence and presence
within any account of the past, and the possibilities such a dialectic opens
up for rethinking jazzs cultural significance.
My thinking here is guided by a reading of Paul Ricoeurs Memory,
History, Forgetting (2004), in which he develops a conception of historical
practice where forgetting plays as important a role in understanding the
past as acts of remembering. What Ricoeur demonstrates is that although
conventional historical narratives are perfectly able to account for the events
of the past through images, sounds, objects, documents, and monuments,
they have difficulty dealing with what is missing from the historical record:
as Hayden White (2007: 237) calls them, those absent presences which
demand remembrance. The tension between the procedures of scholarly
history, and the exercise or failure of individual and collective memory, thus
overshadows any attempt to describe the experiences and events of the
past as they really were.
What Lomaxs project makes patently clear is that this tension has
resulted in a very particular kind of predicament for jazz historians. In our
search for a founding narrative that is faithful to the musics cultural and
ideological significance, and yet also fulfils the requirements of scientific
inquiry, we struggle to reconcile what we imagine happenedjazzs myth
of originswith what we actually know about jazzs historical beginnings
and its development. Lomaxs solution was to emphasize the poetic over
the scientific dimensions of his narrative by blurring the line between fact
and fiction, public and private, music and words, and author and subject. It
did not matter to him that Mortons claims to have originated jazz or to have
composed a particular tune were exaggerated or wrong; what counted was
that the musicians were able to tell the story in their way:
Sometimes they brag; sometimes they remember exactly what was
said or how things looked; sometimes they remember it the way they
wished it; but somehow out of the crossing of misty memories comes
truthcomes a hint of great secretshow music growshow artists
can be pimps when they have to be and still set the world dancing with
fiery notes (Lomax 2001: xxii).
In tracing out the movement of Mortons world on so many different

levels simultaneously, Lomax makes us conscious of how difficult it is to
transcribe someones living memory into an historical narrative; to convey
both the lived experiences of the past, and account for their return as, and in,
memory. Although Mortons explicit declarationI was thereframes the
narrative, confirming the reality of what happened in so far as we believe (or
10
disbelieve) his words, Lomax also demonstrates the limits of conventional

forms of historical representation in conveying the meaning of someones
life. The interviews with band members, family and friends, musical discussions, songs sheets, lyrics, drawings, maps, letters, newspaper reports and
a discography, all draw attention to the impossibility of restricting the field of
memory to a single individuals recollections or, perhaps more importantly
in the case of a music such as jazz, to a single medium. In this sense,
Mortons recollections are not only (or simply) his, but derive from and personify the collective memory of the New Orleans Creole community.
The richness and, I would maintain, the continuing relevance of Lomaxs
work for jazz scholars is the way in which he problematizes memory, in the
sense of analysing what it means to remember the past and musics role
in that process. Faced with exaggeration, memory loss, folktales, fantasy,
fragments, fabrication, and straightforward contradiction, Lomax keeps
asking himself: Why does a person remember one thing and not another?
What forms do our memories take? How do we know whose memories they
are? And in what context does a person exercise their memory? An obvious
case is Mortons habit of altering his birth date as it suited himwriting
1888 on his insurance, giving 1885 on the Library of Congress Records
and telling his wife the year was 1886 (Lomax 2001: 34). Why would he
do this? What possible reasons would Morton have for making such mistakes or fabricating his past in this way, especially as he had agreed to the
interviews to set the record straight? For Lomax, such instances of playing
fast and loose with the facts are important precisely for being misty and
unreliable; they are meaningful in as much as they are faithful to Mortons
deep anxieties concerning his legacy as an artist (his fear that he would be
forgotten), as well as evidence of a distinctive cultural heritage.
But there is also something more compelling about Lomaxs focus on
memory, which relates to how the music works as a counterpoint to the
narrative. As I said above, Lomaxs decision to encourage Morton to play
the piano as he recounted his life provides him with a way of rethinking the
relationship between words and music in terms of the central role of sound
recording in jazz history. The musical examples both impel and underscore
the course and shape of Mortons narrative, which gradually assumes the
improvisatory quality of the music he is playing. In the written text, Lomax
conveys this dialectic by inserting musical notes when there are gaps in the
narrative or by describing key moments when the music seems to stand for
or give form to what remains unsaid or forgotten by Morton or his immediate associates. What is remarkable about the sound recordings (newly
11
reissued on Rounder Records), however, is the degree to which Mortons

spoken memories intersect with and produce specific musical examples,
which act as a progressive legitimation and justification of the events and
experiences of his life. For example, while Morton barely speaks about his
father, Ed La Menthe, Lomax discovers that his father had been a trombone
player:
This was a real discovery. Jelly Roll had mentioned playing trombone
occasionally but the influence of his father ran deeper. Obsessively,
in almost every line of his composition Jelly Roll wrote bass figures
in tailgate style and sonorous bursting melodies; trombone phrasing
is the Jelly Roll trademark So the man who hardly mentioned his
father in conversation never stopped talking about him in his music
(Lomax 2001: 34).
The complex movement of absences and presences found within Mortons biography, on both a textual and musical level, emphasizes a key
point in Ricoeurs analysis: that testimony constitutes the fundamental
transitional structure between memory and history (Ricoeur 2004: 21).
What that testimony tells us about the relation of past to present, what we
ask of it, how we both find and approach it, and what we do with it once
it becomes a document of living memory in history, will remain Ricoeurs
central problem for the duration of his long and complicated text, as he
guides his readers carefully, painstakingly, through each stage of this transition. But rather than seeing memory and history as successive stages
of the same process, he asks us instead to think of them as two distinct
modes of realizing a relation to the past in the present: history is a project
of truth, whereas memorys aim is faithfulness to the events of the past
and a collective recognition of what can be legitimately forgotten (Ricoeur
2001: 497; White 2007: 238). The problem with history conceived only as
a project of truth is that it reduces memory, the basic condition or matrix of
historical sense, to a simple object of history (Ricoeur 2004: 498). And so
reduced, memory loses its capacity to bring the events of the past into the
present in such a way that the dilemma of presence and absence can be
overcome (Ricoeur 2004: 494). Memory then becomes just another object
of specialized research: memory studies.
The kinds of questions that Ricoeur raises about memory in the course
of his analysisTo whom do our memories belong? And why that memory
and why now?seem especially important for jazz historians, for whom
the oral testimony of musicians remains a privileged medium for securing the identity of jazz and the cultural legitimacy of its artists. And yet,
12
for all their centrality to the writing of jazz history, my sense is that with a
few notable exceptions (Berliner 1994; Gushee 2005; Johnson 2000; Lewis
2008; Monson 1996; Peretti 1992; Radano 2003) these questions are still
largely marginal to mainstream jazz scholarship. The majority of jazz histories continue to pursue narratives of the kind criticized two decades ago
by Scott DeVeaux (1991); that is, they persist in documenting a succession of styles or periods, each with a conveniently distinctive label and time
period Details of emphasis vary. But from textbook to textbook, there is
substantive agreement on the defining features of each style, the pantheon
of great innovators, and the canon of recorded masterpieces (p. 525).
This is why Alyn Shiptons decision to foreground oral testimony is
such a welcome intervention, in so far as his emphasis on the lives of
players whose experiences have been unrepresented in most histories
and accounts opens up the space of memory along the lines set out by
Lomax. In several instances he refers to gaps or inconsistencies in what
his subjects recollect about their past, and the difficulties this entails for an
editor. The solutions he proposesempowering his subjects as authors
and editors, the use of multiple perspectives, the commissioning of a series
of overlapping histories, the recovery of hidden voices, the incorporation
of fictional or folkloric texts into factual narratives, and the process of translating the vernacular into written text in such a way as to retain the rhythms
of everyday speechraise a number of historiographical points.
Firstly, what Shiptons essay makes clear is that there is no historical
analysis which is not at the same time a philosophy of history, even if that
philosophy remains implicit in how the concept of historical perception or
sense is understood. Secondly, as Shiptons own work with Danny Barker
confirms, the relationship between oral and literate traditions in music and
language involves or demands a different kind of cultural analysis of how
music grows (to use Lomaxs phrase), which deals with what is absent or
forgotten or hidden in peoples lives, but which nonetheless contributes to
their sense of why music matters and how it is made. And thirdly, the role
of music in stimulating memories suggests an account of the way in which
jazz inhabits places, beliefs, social rituals, gestures and other aspects of
everyday or ordinary existence.
Taken together, these points take us in the direction of what I would call
a phenomenological account of the experiences of jazz musicians and their
audiences, as well as those who heard it only in passing, or shut it out of
their lives, or missed it altogether. And the value of such an account is that
it opens jazz historiography up to something like a sense of the everyday,
13
the uneventful, and the ordinary. These are concepts which do not usually
appear (or do not appear frequently enough) in jazz studies, but which I
think suggest possible ways of re-conceptualizing what we think is interesting or important to focus our attention on. And as Lomax well understood,
this means above all finding a way of recording and writing history that,
in Stanley Cavells terms, is to interest itself differently in human history,
whatever individual or class it turns its attention to (Cavell 1988: 191).
When I began thinking about this response, I re-read some of the influential essays that Ferdinand Braudel published in the 1950s and 1960s,
summarizing the claims of the Annales historians in France. What is striking about these essays is their continuing relevance to the challenges and
responsibilities facing those of us working in jazz studies. Braudel is critical
of that conception of history which fixes on overnight celebrity and the
fleeting spectacle of events, rather than on the collective life of human
groups and the social structures within which they live. His summary is
worth recalling: To the narrative historians, the life of men [sic] is dominated by dramatic accidents, by the actions of those exceptional beings
who occasionally emerge, and who often are the master of their own fate
and even more of ours (Braudel 1980: 11). Braudel criticizes this as a first
stage of history characterized by a monotonous game in which the sole
aim is to chart the intercrossing of singular destinies (p. 11). Instead of
consorting with princes, Braudel urges historians to tackle the social realities in and for themselves (p. 11). To a history of brief and dramatic acts,
Braudel opposes an alternative conception of human existence, grounded
in a history which almost stands still, a history of man [sic] and his intimate
relationship to the earth which bears and feeds him; it is a dialogue which
never stops repeating itself, which repeats itself in order to persist (pp.
1112). Such an alternative conception seems to offer a powerful means of
rethinking jazz history in terms of the oral testimonies on which it relies; but
also of refiguring what counts or does not count as that history in the first
place. And it is surely a story we should be trying to tell.
Bibliography
Berliner, P. (1994) Thinking in Jazz. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Braudel, F. (1980) On History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cavell, S. (1988) Themes Out of School. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
DeVeaux, S. (1991) Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography. Black
American Literature Forum 25/3: 52560. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3041812
Gushee, L. (2005) Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Jazz Band. New York:
Oxford University Press.
14
Johnson, B. (2000) The Inaudible Music: Jazz, Gender and Australian Modernity.
Strawberry Hills, New South Wales: Currency Press.
Lewis, G. E. (2008) A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lomax, A. (2001) Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans
Creole and Inventor of Jazz. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Monson, I. (1996) Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Peretti, B. W. (1992) The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Peretti, B. W. (2001) Speaking in the Groove: Oral History and Jazz. Journal of
American History 88/2: 58295. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2675107
Radano, R. (2003) Lying Up a Nation: Race and Black Music. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, P. (2004) Memory, History, Forgetting. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Shipton, A. (2009) New Jazz Histories: Can a Reconciliation of Widely Differing
Source Material Offer New Possibilities for the Jazz Historian? Jazz Research
Journal 3/2: 12744.
White, H. (2007) Guilty of History? The Longue Dure of Paul Ricoeur. History and
Theory 46/2: 23351. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2303.2007.00404.x
[JRJ 4.1 (2010) 15-41]

doi:10.1558/jazz.v4i1.15

Plagiarizing your own

autobiography, and other
strange tales:
Miles Davis, jazz discourse, and the aesthetic
of silence
Ken Prouty*
102 Music Building, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
proutyk@msu.edu
Abstract
Miles Davis was known for his troubled relationships with writers, often expressing disdain
for those who would comment upon his life and music. As a result, critical understanding
of Davis has often been obscured, resulting from a self-generated silence from Davis
himself, as a means to direct his own critical discourse. The allegations of plagiarism
surrounding the publication of Miles: The Autobiography illustrate Daviss imposition of
a discursive silence on his critics and admirers alike. By refusing to speak openly and
honestly about himself, Davis forced critics and scholars to fill in gaps in his narrative, with
speculation and, in the case of the autobiography, other written work. By being difficult
or uncooperative, Davis engaged in a process that was similar to his interactions with
musicians, leaving spaces for others to fill. Thus, an aesthetic of silence underscores both
his approach to music, and his engagement with the broader discourse.
Keywords: autobiography; discourse; Miles Davis; silence
I dont pay attention to critics

Miles Davis (Davis and Troupe 1989: 76).
Miles Daviss 1989 autobiography is one of the most celebrated, reviled,

popular and misunderstood works in the literature of jazz. A simmering
cauldron of memoir, ranting, posing and, it has been noted, borrowing from
other sources, no work in jazz since Minguss Beneath the Underdog (1971)
* Ken Prouty is an assistant professor of musicology and jazz studies at Michigan
State University, USA. He holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as a masters degree in jazz studies from the University of North Texas.
His first book, Knowing Jazz: Community, Pedagogy and Canon in the Information Age, is
forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi in 2012.
16
has so captivated, enraged and confused critics, scholars and fans alike.
In this essay, I wish to discuss some of the issues surrounding the books
creation and reception. Specifically, I argue that Miles: The Autobiography
simultaneously exists as a flawed work of (auto)biographical writing and
an authoritative one, as both a heavily-mediated account of the artist and
as a work that is inescapably real for Daviss public, received as a direct,
unmediated and authentic account from the artist himself. Beneath all these
ideas, I suggest, lies the relationship between Davis, would-be writers of his
life story, his public, and an overarching aesthetic of silence, which permeates both his discourse and his musical approach. In both discourse and
music, the most interesting things occur in the silences, the spaces left
intentionally blank by Davis, into which we can project our own ideas.
The Problem of (Auto)biography

Before delving into Miles, specifically, I would like to establish a context
for the book within biographical and autobiographical writing as a whole,
and within jazz autobiography in particular. To say that the role of critics
and scholars who engage in biographical writing about musicians, as
intermediaries between artists and audiences, is problematic is a gross
understatement. In my own teaching of jazz history to both graduate and
undergraduate jazz performance students, I have often encountered something of a hostile attitude, or at least a suspicious one, towards much jazz
writing; students sometimes express disdain for the writings of musicologists and critics, preferring instead to read first-hand accounts from musicians themselves. These types of works, it is argued, provide readers with
a portrait of the artist that is often regarded as beyond question or critique,
which might help to explain the lack of a sustained critique of jazz autobiography with the musics discourse.1 It is also clear that autobiographical works are very often, at some level, an attempt by the artist/author to
direct the discourse of their life and work, to not let it simply sit with other
writers. Christopher Harlos, in his overview of jazz autobiography in Gab-
1. Seldom have those who write about jazz autobiography seriously questioned the
construction of the subjects themselves, nor the authority with which those subjects seem
to speak, even if the specific methods of autobiographical construction are under scrutiny. William Epstein seems to point to a similar tendency towards a conservative view
of biographical criticism, one that lacks a more focused insight into their production and
reception. For Epstein, biographical criticism seems to reinforce, rather than contest, the
subject. I suggest that critical writing on jazz autobiography displays many of the same
conservative tendencies (Epstein 1991: 2).
Plagiarizing your own autobiography, and other strange tales
17
bards Representing Jazz (1995), posits that jazz autobiography represents

a parallel movement to the development of a more critical jazz studies in
the late twentieth century, serving to foster self-inscription which provides
an alternative to canonical conventions of jazz history (Harlos 1995: 133).
For instance, in Dizzy Gillespies autobiography, To Be or Not to Bop (1979,
written in collaboration with Al Fraser), the trumpeter devotes a substantial
discussion to dispelling myths about bebop that have come to pervade
the critical and scholarly literature of that particular genre. Jazz autobiography can thus be seen as an assertion of a discourse that is simultaneously authentic and alternate in relation to the secondary accounts which
dominated the critical and scholarly jazz press. As Harlos notes, the turn
to autobiography is regarded as a genuine opportunity to seize narrative
authority (Harlos 1995: 134).
But even in such works, the written word cannot always be relied upon
to be completely what it seems. Such problems are not unique to music, of
course, but are often part-and-parcel of subject/writer relationships in many
areas; writing about living persons, or those still in living memory, is often
fraught with problems. Memories fail, people can be difficult to deal with,
and understanding ones subject, even with unfettered access, is often a
trial. Take for instance the case of Dutch, Edmund Morriss controversial
official biography of Ronald Reagan (1999). Morris, who was granted open
access to Reagan and his inner circle during the middle and later years of
the presidency, found his subject aloof and uncooperative. Faced with a
deadline and little in the way of concrete narrative, Morris took the unusual
step of creating a fictional Greek-chorus of sorts, a character (using his
own name) whose life paralleled that of Reagan, and through whose eyes
the presidents actions and experiences were interpreted. The reaction to
Morriss approach was, to put it mildly, mixed. A few reviews found his
methods innovative; others sympathized, while still finding the approach
problematic. Most, however, were shocked that an author would so blatantly fictionalize what was supposed to be the authorized, definitive statement of Reagans life and career.2 The hostility with which Dutch was met
might reveal a bit of navet on the part of literary critics and historians that
2. John OSullivan, writing in National Review, called the work a failure (2004), while
Kate Masur, writing in the history journal Perspectives, refers to the book as deliberately
deceptive and undeniably bad history (1999: 3). In an essay-length review appearing the
following year in Political Science Quarterly, Fred I. Greenstein referred to Morriss work
as an intellectual embarrassment that blurs fact with fiction, though he does grant that
the approach was original (2000: 116).
18
biography might contain elements of fiction; perhaps the negativity was

generated by the fact the Morris was so open and unapologetic about it
poetic (or scholarly) license is supposed to be subtle, to enhance the narrative rather than appear within it. For his part, Reagans son and namesake
Ron Reagan noted in an October 1999 interview with 60 Minutes that Morris
had successfully captured the essence of his fathers life.
Dutch was, of course, not an autobiography, but an authorized biography, and the conflicts and controversies which the book instigated were
linked more to the authorial and editorial work of Morris than to the subject,
Reagan himself. Yet Reagans reluctant role in the creation of the narrative, his seeming silence, played an important role in shaping the work and
the reaction that was to come upon the books release. On the surface, at
least, it seemed to obfuscate the authenticity of the narrative. Such a claim
could potentially be made as well for collaborative autobiographies, works
that, while largely composed by a ghost-writer, nevertheless are seen by
audiences as authoritative statements by their respective subjects. Co-written works of autobiography have frequently been ignored or dismissed in
the critical literature; Clark Blaise, writing in an essay in The Seductions of
Biography, argues that such works do not represent true autobiography,
but are really ghost-written self-biographies (Blaise 1996: 201). Collaborative autobiographies are nevertheless ubiquitous in the literature on public
figures, with jazz musicians being no exception. Although texts directly
authored by musicians are not unknown, with Minguss Beneath the Underdog being a well-known example, for the most part collaborative works are
the norm in both jazz and popular autobiography generally, and are very
often well received by the reading public, to an extent that I would suggest
that distinctions such as that advanced by Blaise may not ultimately matter
in terms of reception. They continue to sell very well, and to provide the
audience of readers with what they feel is a direct, authentic statement on
the part of the subject.
Jazz autobiographies have often been granted a degree of deference
in the critical and scholarly discourses of jazz writing, often standing relatively unquestioned as musician-generated narratives. Kathy Ogren argues
that the autobiographies of early jazz musicians display a performative
quality, writing that jazz autobiographies are textual performances in which
musicians, sometimes in concert with their amanuensis, create personas
equally as fascinating as those developed musically (Ogren 1991: 112,
emphasis added). I find Ogrens employment of the term amanuensis
telling, as it refers not to a type of collaborative editorial arrangement, but
19
to one who simply transcribes, or completes the labor of transcribing and

writing for one who cannot. Co-authorial influence is not an explicit concern
in Ogrens analysis, save for a discussion near the end of the essay, where
she states that
It is beyond the scope of this essay to do justice to the significance of
the collaborators influences on written autobiographical texts. But we
can assume that many editors mediated oral performances, especially
if they were preserved as taped interviews (Ogren 1991: 123).
She immediately follows this discussion, however, by arguing that [Willie

the Lion] Smith, [Jelly Roll] Morton, [Sidney] Bechet, [Louis] Armstrong,
and [Danny] Barker all created personas out of materials and processes
akin to those of music (Ogren 1991: 124). While she does acknowledge
the role of the amanuensis to an extent, she grants final authorial credit to
the musician-subjects, whose constructions of narrative are resonant with
their musical identities. Her only extended discussion of collaborative work
centers on Jelly Roll Mortons text, which Ogren refers to as a biography
that was essentially written by (and credited to) Alan Lomax. Given this fact,
it is significant that Ogren includes this work in a discussion of jazz autobiography. She refers to the book as having a call and response quality,
reflecting the interaction between Morton and Lomax, and thus, has some
sense of autobiographical quality (Ogren 1991: 123); more importantly,
as evidenced by the passage I have cited previously, she indicates that
Morton is primarily responsible for the creation of the persona presented
in the text. In her treatment of jazz autobiography as an expression from
the artist directly, with little regard for the influence of editors or as-told-to
writers, I would suggest that perhaps Ogren misses a broader point, that
the musical personas of jazz musicians are, with few exceptions, borne out
of the collaborative and often heavily mediated process of jazz performance
itself. Could not a musical persona resonate with a textual persona more
directly in terms of collaboration? Just as Armstrong had collaborators in
the production of his music, so too did he have collaborators in the creation of his published life story. Yet Ogrens argument never fully engages
this idea, and is representative of most critical responses to jazz autobiographies, which privilege the role of the musician-subject in creating the
narrative. Despite this, her linking of autobiography and performance is an
extremely useful tool in understanding autobiographical jazz writing, as we
shall return to later.
Christopher Harlos also tends to treat jazz autobiography as a narrative that flows mainly from the artist, referring to such works as musician Equinox Publishing Ltd 2011.
20
authored texts and to artists as musician[s]-turned-writer[s] (Harlos

1995: 137). Despite this, he does detail a number of collaborative works
of jazz autobiography, including those devoted to Count Basie (with Albert
Murray), Pops Foster (with Todd Stoddard and contributions by others),
and Louis Armstrong (whose interlopers include Rudy Vallee and Horace
Gerlach). Harlos suggests (following William Kenney and Robert Stepto)
that these texts represent a dialectic between the words of the artist and
an authenticator in the form of the co-writers and editors (Harlos 1995:
152). Even in cases where the appearance of the collaborator is relatively
invisible within the narrative, questions of authorship persist, sometimes
egregiously so. In the example of Billie Holidays Lady Sings the Blues, the
singer herself may not have even participated in the books creation, with
the writing completed by stringing together pre-existing accounts. Harlos
details these issues, even noting the discrepancy between its identification as both autobiography on the front cover, and biography on the back
(Harlos 1995: 146). Yet he still refers to the book as written with co-author
William Dufty (as opposed to written by), granting Holiday at least partial
authorial credit, despite his claim that she had little to do with its writing
(Harlos 1995: 146). Harlos, like Ogren, attributes to the artists themselves
the credit of authorship, noting in his discussion of Milt Hintons Bass Line
that Hinton offers a carefully detailed account of a remarkable career, while
saying nothing of the specific role of co-writer David Berger (Harlos 1995:
133). Similarly, he casts Duke Ellington in the role of author in discussing
Music is My Mistress, even describing him as having a keenly individual
understanding of autobiographical form (Harlos 1995: 137). But Ellingtons
collaborator, Stanley Dance, is nowhere to be found in Harloss account.
By contrast, Krin Gabbard finds Dances experiences while working with
Ellington on Music is My Mistress worth exploring; by his account, Ellington
was disengaged from the process, and was generally uncooperative with
Stanley Dance, his collaborator, silently watching old movies on television
instead of participating fully in interviews for the book (Gabbard 2008:188).
The resulting work paints a portrait of Ellington that is flattering, sometimes
overly so; Dance, as a friend and seeming defender of Ellingtons reputation, certainly shaped the narrative to support this conclusion.3 The processes through which these types of texts are written, Harlos notes, are part
of a sticky method of producing an autobiography in such a collabora 3. Krin Gabbard devotes a good deal of discussion of such works in his essay How
Many Miles? Alternate Takes on the Jazz Life (2008). I shall return to Gabbards essay
and his perspectives on Miles Daviss autobiography later in this article.
21
tive manner (Harlos 1995: 146). Notably, he does not dwell for long on the
notoriously sticky collaboration on what was certainly the most discussed
jazz autobiography of the day, Miles, specifically citing it as part of his discussion of musician-authored text[s] (Harlos 1995: 137), despite the welldocumented controversies surrounding its creation and publication, which
I will address in more depth later in this essay. Despite Harloss accounting
of the pitfalls of collaborative works, like Ogren he does not, in the final
analysis, come to question the authorial power of the musician-subjects of
jazz autobiography.
These arguments cut to the core of what I would suggest is the central
issue in the reception of jazz autobiography: the attribution of authorial
identity. This is also evident within the broader discourse of African American autobiography, which itself stands as an important form of cultural
enfranchisement (Goodwin 1993: 19). James Goodwin notes in his essay
on the autobiographical narrative of former slave and abolitionist leader
Frederick Douglass that biography served both literary and liberating
functions, traces of which can be seen from slave narratives all the way
through to contemporary works (Goodwin 1993: 6465). Autobiographies
of African American jazz musicians have become an important part of this
genre: The Oxford Companion to African American Literature suggests that
jazz autobiography is one of the richest veins of the African American literary tradition and a unique contribution to American culture and history
(Vaidhaynathan 1997: 396). Within the tradition of African American literary
criticism, to say nothing of jazzs critical oeuvre, jazz autobiography can
be read as an attempt by artists to liberate themselves from the mediating
effects of critical discourses, and to retake control of their own lives in the
public and intellectual spheres. But with very few exceptions, most of these
works are of the as told to variety, and in such works, the relationships
between artist and collaborator must be called into question. Debates over
authorship are not simply a matter for credit on a book jacket, but are
deeply intertwined with race and authorship. A collaborator whose presence is not immediately evident in the autobiographical text allows the
artist to assume the role of self-authenticator of his or her own story; such
is clearly the case in Miles.4
4. Troupe is not present in the autobiographys main text, nor are specific interviews
or other sources cited. His specific role in the production of Miles has been the subject
of some contention. In Harloss account, he cites Troupes reported unwillingness to
accept responsibility for the manuscript (Harlos 1995: 150), a contention that echoes
sentiments expressed in Stanley Crouchs scathing review of the book. In the afterword to
22
Works such as these might also be understood as what Mark A. Sanders

refers to as a dictated autobiography, a form which has remained largely
invisible in the critical discourse of autobiography (Sanders 1994: 445).
Sanders notes that while the dictator (the artist in the case of jazz autobiography) theoretically controls the basic content,
the writer fully controls the form that content must assume, and thus
he or she controls a signifying overlay shaping and reconstituting
content, often creating meaning at odds with the overt intent of the
dictator. Briefly put, narrative form itself operates as an independent
signifier; as a product of long-standing literary conventionsthe
naturalized impulse toward linearity, the demand for continuity from
moment to moment, the drive toward formal resolution, and so onit
necessarily encodes, perhaps embodies, and ultimately transmits
cultural presuppositions and ideological biases capable of creating or
redirecting meaning for the text as a whole (Sanders 1994: 446).
Thus co-authors must be seen as an important agent in shaping the narrative of the jazz autobiography, beyond simple transcription and editing
of language. A critique of such works must address how dictator and
writer control their respective realms (Sanders 1994: 446). Sanders notes
the conflict between Malcolm X and Alex Haley during the production of
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as an example of such tensions. Haley
recounts in the books epilogue how he had difficulty in convincing Malcolm
to shift the focus of the book to his life, as opposed to a treatise on black
nationalist thought, which Sanders notes is a contention over models of
self and self-portraiture (Sanders 1994: 453). Despite Haleys significant
and pronounced role in shaping the narrative, Malcolm still seems to retain
authorial control in the reception of the text; Michael Eric Dyson, in analyzing the work in a 1996 essay, refers to Haley as Malcolms faithful and
creative scribe (Dyson 1996: 45), though this description seems to significantly understate Haleys role in the writing of the book, which was creative in ways that went well beyond writing itself. Dyson gives absolutely no
coverage to Haleys influence on the course of the narrative or the topics
Miles, Troupe says little about the process of writing, but does talk a bit about interviewing
Davis and others, saying that the autobiography came together after countless hours
of interviewing (Davis and Troupe 1990: 414), but noting nothing about other sources
of information; the overall impression that Troupe presents in the Afterword is that this
is Daviss voice coming through. In Miles and Me, however, Troupe not only ties himself
closely to the book, but seems to take credit directly, referring to Miles as our book
(Troupe 2000: 90), and noting that After I finished the book (93) he (Troupe) had to
distance himself from his subject [emphases added].
23
that were covered, which Haley himself describes in depth in the books
epilogue; by Haleys accounting, he was much more than a scribe.5 A
reaction such as Dysons is probably typical for most readers, as audiences
are likely not interested in the particulars of a books production, and are
more likely to be drawn to a text whose authorship seems to flow directly
from the subject.6
It should come as no surprise then that within the narratives of most jazz
autobiographies, the presence of an obvious collaborator within an otherwise autobiographical account is not readily apparent, despite the crucial
role of such figures in their development. Co-authors tend to appear silent,
an invisible hand guiding the flow of the text and the shape of the narrative.
Lay readers of jazz autobiography likely do not care about how the actual
words were put down on paper, and the musician-turned-writer probably
senses this as well. As John Sturrock notes, The autobiographeris on
the side of the lay reader of autobiography He becomes an autobiographer because his name is already in the public domain: he has done or
written something that ensures him a readership (Sturrock 1993: 23). Too
bright a spotlight (or any at all) on a co-author might interfere with the supposed direct, unmediated connection between artist and audience, which
has to be considered a primary consideration in jazz autobiography. But,
as noted previously, such collaborators have played, in fact, fundamental
roles in the creation of autobiographical works, often well beyond simple
transcription and editing. In considering Miles: The Autobiography, such
issues are brought to the fore, often in very striking ways.
Contextualizing Miles: The Autobiography

It might be considered to be something of a small publishing miracle that
the project of Miles: The Autobiography was ever even initiated, as perhaps
no musical artists problematic relationships with writers and journalists
have been as much a part of the public consciousness as that of Miles
5. Haley recounts, for example, his difficulty in getting Malcolm X to understand what
the purpose of the book was to be. While Malcolm seemed more interested in espousing
Black Muslim philosophy, praise of [Elijah] Muhammad, and the evils of the white devil
(Malcolm X 1965: 425), Haley endeavored to steer his subject towards a broader, more
narrative view of his life and work.
6. Harlos also notes in his essay on jazz autobiography that no less a scholar of
African American literature than Henry Louis Gates, Jr. similarly understates Haleys role
in his anthology Bearing Witness (Harlos 1995: 147). Certainly, both Dyson and Gates
understood Haleys role in the book, and their failure to assess it fully in their respective
essays is notable.
24
Davis. Journalists and others who wished to interview Davis often found
him to be a difficult subject; Harry Reasoner, who presented one of Daviss
last television interviews for CBSs weekly news program 60 Minutes, noted
at the end of the segment that the trumpeter was sometimes a prickly man
to deal with (60 Minutes 1989). Many others have noted, privately and in
print, similar sentiments. Above all, the general consensus seemed to be,
among those who were able to get close enough to Miles for an interview,
that it was difficult to get to know him and even more difficult to get him to
fully open up.
For these reasons, the publication of Miles Daviss autobiography by
Simon and Schuster in 1989 was heralded as a major event in both the
mainstream press, and among various constituents of the jazz community.
Finally, it was hoped, we would get a faithful, straight-from-the-source telling
of Miless story, without critical or scholarly interlopers interjecting their own
opinions on his music or other aspects of his life and personality. By this
point in his life and career, Miles had become a figure of controversy among
jazz critics and fansto be fair, he was always somewhat controversial, but
given his recent dabbling in pop based and electronic forms, Miless music
had caused deep divisions among his listeners and critics. After years of
reclusiveness and reluctance to cooperate with biographers, author Quincy
Troupe (who described Davis as his idol and had known him for some
years) was enlisted as co-writer. Troupe, in his memoir of his relationship
with Davis called Miles and Me, described his own first encounter with Davis
as a journalist in 1985, when conducting an interview for Spin magazine. He
recalls his initial unease at meeting Miles in an official capacity (as Troupe
recounts, they had met a few years earlier, when Davis had engaged him
in a discussion of an attractive women at a party thrown by one of Daviss
physicians), thinking of other negative experiences with interviewers who
had tried to work with Davis. Troupe describes his introduction to Davis in
the interview session this way:
So I just stood there [in Daviss apartment], along with [Daviss] valet,
and watched him drawing feverishly, not saying a word He put
down the pencil, took off his glasses, looked at me sideways, kind
of slanting his face upwards, and, fixing me with those radar-beacon
eyes, said Man, youre a funny lookin motherfucka. Then, squinting
through the darkness at my dreadlocked hair, he added, Howd you
get your hair like that? (Troupe 2000: 27).
This anecdote reveals some of Daviss enigmatic personality and his awkward, often strained relationship with writers; Troupe, for his part, was clearly
25
ready for the worst. After chastising Davis for touching his hair, the initial tension of the interview was broken, and Davis and Troupe began, so it seemed,
to bond in a way that few, if any, writers have been able to do. Whether this
was directly responsible for Troupes role as the as-told-to writer for Daviss
autobiography is not known (though Troupe seems to imply it was a significant factor). At any rate, Troupe would sit down with Davis and attempt to
capture the artists life story, a major coup for any writer. The resulting book,
Miles: The Autobiography, caused a bit of a sensation upon its release,
reaching a number of best-seller lists, a remarkable feat for an account of
a jazz musician at the close of the 1980s. Gary Giddins, writing in The New
York Times, found in the pages of the autobiography a Davis that was admirable and enraging, a mass of contradictions, some of them lying cheek by
jowl on the same page (Giddins 1989: 77). Astute observers of jazz such as
Giddins did not let Davis off the hook for perceived errors and mischaracterizations, calling the book far from perfect.7 Many reviewers were troubled
by Daviss seemingly flippant references to drug use and, more disturbingly, violence against women in his life. A review by Jonathan Yardley in the
Washington Post sums up the feelings of many reviewers:
Though the book does contain some interesting anecdotes and even
provides a few hints as to why Daviss music has followed its particular course, for the most part the book is a depressing testimonial
to arrogance, petulance, self-indulgence, immaturity and pettiness;
if it was Davis intention in doing this book to present himself in as
disagreeable a light as possible, let it be noted that he has certainly
succeeded (Yardley 1989: N3).
In the years since its publication, Miles: The Autobiography has become an
iconic piece of jazz literature, regarded as an expression of Miles in his own
words.8 There is only one problem with this formulation: some of the words
used, it has been alleged, were not his own, or even those of his co-writer.
7. Aside from citing him as a co-writer, Giddins hardly mentions Troupes role in the
book; the closest he comes is to opine that Troupe elicited a wealth of psychological
details that render Mr Davis an entirely convincing, if rather narcissistic, narrator (Giddins
1989: 77). I would note that Giddinss decision to cite Davis as the narrator rather than
either Troupe or a combination of the two underscores the critical reaction to Miles which
heard the book as an expression of Daviss voice.
8. Take, for example, the following passage from Clive Daviss piece on Miles from
The Times in 1990; he writes The main problem with Miles is that it comes straight from
the great mans mouth. Quincy Troupe, a New York poet and jazz journalist, may be
credited as co-author, but his role seems to have been confined to changing the batteries
in the tape recorder (Clive Davis 1990).
26
Plagiarism is, of course, a serious charge to level at any writer, as it questions the very core of not only a writers efforts, but their motivation as well.
The incorporation of someone elses work simply through osmosis or the
unconscious incorporation of ideas from other writers is not at all uncommon in mass market writing.9 But from a publishing standpoint, plagiarism
is plagiarism, and is often the kiss-of-death for careers in the publishing
industry. The accusations of plagiarism against Davis (and Troupe, by extension) revolve mainly around a biography of Davis written in two parts (published in 1983 and 1985) by Toronto-based writer Jack Chambers, entitled
Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis, a text that remains one
of the most highly regarded biographical works to date on Davis, winning
an ASCAP/Deems Taylor award in 1985. Chamberss own assessment of
Daviss autobiography, in a published review in the Globe and Mail from
December 1989, openly critiques the process of writing the book and questions the working relationship between Davis and Troupe. He writes:
[The autobiography] contains no explanation of how he shared author
ship with Quincy Troupe, a New York journalist and teacher, but it is
not hard to guess. The book consists of a skeleton of Davis career
fleshed out with sporadic anecdotes and reminiscences. The fleshy
bits are scatological and sometimes scandalous. The sound of the
voice rings trueit is familiar now from all those interviews (Chambers 1989).
In his review, Chambers never specifically addresses the topic of his own
work being mined by Davis and Troupe, but he devoted a section in a new
introduction to the combined edition of his book (1998) to the allegations,
and he speaks to them directly and in depth. Chambers writes of receiving communications from readers who believed that the autobiography
had been a rip-off of his own work, going so far as to point out similarities
between the cover photos (Chambers 1998: xx).
But Chambers was not the first to publicly point out similarities between
the texts. The first significant public salvo fired in this fight was unleashed by
Stanley Crouch, whose scathing critical broadside, Play the Right Thing,
was printed in the New Republic in February 1990. On the allegations of
plagiarism, Crouch states the following:
9. Even in works of scholarship in the public eye, these accusations are not uncommon. In a pair of highly publicized cases, noted historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and the
late Stephen Ambrose were both accused of plagiarizing parts of their books on Eleanor
Roosevelt and bomber crews in the Second World War, respectively. Both books were
best-sellers, and the controversies were covered extensively in the American media.
27
One of the most disturbing things about Miles is its debt to Jack
Chambers [sic] Milestones, a critical biography written in two parts
between 1983 and 1985. Pages 16061 of Miles, for example, look
alarmingly like pages 16667 of Milestones (there is even a cavalier
reference to Chambers as some writer) (Crouch 1990: 36).
Crouch goes on to cite several passages from the two books, and the language is, as he suggests, clearly similar. Chambers himself, in the 1998
introduction, expands upon this point even further, pointing to additional
passages that betray similarity of language, in some cases using nearly
the exact same wording. I do not wish to dwell too deeply on the allegations themselves, as they are well documented by a number of writers.10
Rather, I am interested in what both the occurrence of such actions, and
how they were received, mean within the wider discourse on Daviss life
and music.
In his 2008 essay on jazz autobiography entitled How Many Miles?
Alternate Takes on the Jazz Life, Krin Gabbard has managed to shed some
additional light on this topic. Examining the transcripts from Daviss interviews with Troupe, Gabbard finds them to be incomplete, or more to the
point, to be insufficiently complete to provide the breadth of information
presented in the autobiography. Much of this, he argues, had to come from
somewhere else, despite its presentation in the first person as Miles himself
speaking. Gabbard reports that Davis tired of answering Troupes questions after several sessions (Gabbard 2008: 191), a scenario that seems to
echo his description of Stanley Dances experiences with Ellington. Crouch
has also suggested (as reported by Chambers) that Troupe found Davis
an uncooperative subject, and that the book was more or less written by
a committee at Simon and Schuster, who incorporated Chamberss work
by the shovelful (Chambers 1998: xxiv). Chambers advances a somewhat different explanation, that Davis himself was indeed familiar with Milestones and that he used it as a surrogate for his own fading memory, citing
accounts from individuals who observed Davis with the book on a number
of occasions (Chambers 1998: xxivxxv). Troupe himself has seemed reluctant to discuss the issue.11 In Troupes book Miles and Me the crowning
10. See, for example, Scott DeVeauxs review (1992), in which he claims that Davis
and Troupe cross the line into plagiarism and John Gennari (2006), who refers to the
section of the book as being lifted from an existing biography. Harlos also notes these
developments in his essay on jazz autobiography (1995: 150), but mainly cites the reviews
of DeVeaux and Crouch, and does not fully explore their broader implications.
11. Crouch notes that Troupe initially denied the allegation but later said that Davis
can quote himself, before casting blame on the publisher (Crouch 1990: 36). Chambers
28
achievement of their relationship, the autobiography, gets relatively little

coverage, most of which is consumed with talking about the positive critical reception, Daviss reactions to the book (also positive), and awards for
which it was nominated. Nowhere does Troupe even hint at the plagiarism
controversy surrounding the book, despite the fact that Troupe had to have
been aware of this by the time Miles and Me was published in 2000.
All this seems to square with accounts of Daviss problematic relationship with those who would write about him, and Troupe would not be the
first to find himself in such a situation. As Chambers notes in the original
preface to Milestones, Alex Haley had borrowed passages from pre-existing
works for his famed interview with Davis in Playboy in 1962. In one egregious
example, Haley attributes a quote to Miles that was in fact from his father, in
an Ebony interview the previous year (Chambers 1998: ixx). The interview
was granted only after the author agreed to be Daviss sparring partner (literally), and even then he was greeted with some suspicion. Haley himself
recounts the difficulty in securing an interview:
Playboy wanted to do a piece on Miles Davis. I was excited at the
opportunity because Playboy was the most exciting magazine in the
world of periodical writers I was so desperate to get this story that
when he told me where Miles trained as an amateur boxer when he
was in New York, I bought some gym gear and went up to Wileys
Uptown Gym on 135th Street and enrolled for six months He knew
I was there and one day he came up to me with his hands on his hips
and jerked his head towards the ring. The invitation was clear: get
in the ring with him or forget any hope of an interview (Grobel 2001:
195).
The interview itself, it turned out, resulted in relatively little information on

which to base his assigned 6,000-word article, as Haley notes in an astonishing confession:
After five weeks, I realized I had fascinating things about his night
life, but I didnt have enough quotes from Miles. So I took a gamble: I
wrote 3,000 words about the nightlife of the king of jazz, and then for
the other 3,000 words I went through every quote I could find, made
up the questions to fit, and that was how the Playboy interview took
form (Grobel 2001: 196).
Daviss own comments (as presented in the autobiography) demonstrate

why Haley may have encountered such difficulties:
likewise reports that Troupe became upset when questioned by Crouch on the matter
(Chambers 1998: xxiii).
29
Before the last session for Quiet Nights in November, I finally agreed to
do an interview for Playboy magazine. Marc Crawford, who had written
the story on me for Ebony, introduced me to Alex Haley, who wanted
to do the interview. I didnt want to do it at first. So Alex said, Why?
I told him, Its a magazine for whites. White people usually ask you
questions just to get inside your mind, to see what youre thinking
Alex talked to me and went to the gym with me and even got in the
ring with me and took a few punches upside his head. That impressed
me. So I told him, Listen, man, if I tell you all of this, why dont they
make me part of the company for giving you all this information they
want me to give you? He said that he couldnt do that. So I told him
if they would give him $2,500 for the interview, then Id do it. They
agreed and thats how they got the interview. But I didnt like what
he did with the interview. Alex made up some things, although it was
good reading (Davis and Troupe 1989: 260).
Im particularly perplexed by the comment, almost an afterthought, that

Haley made up some things. For many people, this might be cause for
just rage, or legal action. Yet Davis does not seem overly concerned, even
noting that the article was still good reading. Perhaps he expected nothing
less from a writer, or perhaps he really didnt care. Or maybe, at some level,
Davis understood that he was a difficult person to write about, and that he
bore some responsibility for his own actions. Letting Haley off the hook
might be, in some way, recognition of this idea, an acknowledgement that
he sometimes forced writers to fill in the gaps themselves. In the case of
both Troupe and Haley, this seems to have been the case.
Jack Chamberss reactions to these allegations are also telling. First,
he is unequivocal in his belief that what Davis and Troupe did was plagiarism, and that it is not a trivial matter (he referred to Crouchs article as an
expos). Second, and I would argue more importantly, Chambers seems
to suggest that Davis ultimately controls the discourse, that he has the
power to shape the narrative in whatever fashion he wants. This is a powerful statement for a writer of biography to make, especially one whose work
on Davis is considered to be among the most authoritative ever written. His
descriptions of how (in his view) the use of Milestones came to be used
in the creation of Miles seem to reflect a sense that his work was being
given a tacit blessing, a seal-of-approval by Davis.12 Chambers seems
12. As noted previously, Chambers suggests that Davis may have used the book to
recall details of his own life that eluded him in his later years. He recounts at some length
evidence (as recounted to him by Leonard Feather) that Davis not only had seen the
book, but had carried it with him on a cross-country trip (Chambers 1998: xxv). Chambers
refers to Milestones, in fact, as becoming the authorized biography six years after its
publication (xxi). He also notes that Davis, while allegedly familiar with Milestones, may
30
unconcerned that Davis and Troupe borrowed so much of his material in

the autobiography. Davis seemed unconcerned that Alex Haley made stuff
up to complete his Playboy interview. Who wrote the words themselves is
not importantthe discourse flows, it seems, from the subject, in this case
Davis, who ultimately has the power to determine its authenticity, and to
assert a claim of ownership over it.
Most writers, like Chambers, never get close enough to Miles to fully
engage with their subject, but even for those who do, such as Haley or
Troupe, these encounters had their problems. It is worth emphasizing the
eerily similar narratives of Haley and Troupe, as much as they have come
down to us. In these cases, we can observe the following: both writers
encountered an initial excitement at the prospect of interviewing Miles, a
notoriously difficult interview. Haley had been trying to secure an interview
for some time, while Troupe described Davis as his idol. Miles was, in
both mens minds, something that was special; both writers had to undergo
some kind of rite of passage to be let into Miless world. For Haley, it was
a few rounds in the ring, while for Troupe, it was having Miles examine his
dreadlocks; both writers, it seems, ultimately found their subjects uncooperative, or were unable to glean enough information from them for their
works. And both writers, in order to complete their assignments, had to
utilize secondary sources in what were purported to be primary accounts
in order to complete the narrative, Haley creating what amounted to a fictionalized interview between himself and the quotable Miles; Troupe (or
perhaps his proxies at Simon and Schuster) filling in the gaps with liberal
servings of other works.
Miless experiences with these writers and many others can be read
as an exercise in power, a reversal of a paradigm that he felt gave far too
much power to critics and other writers. This much is clear from Miless
public statements over the years. His disdain for most writers and critics
was seldom hidden, and his frequent putdowns of them are the stuff of
jazz legend. This in itself would seem to provide ample impetus for Davis
to want to produce his own autobiographical narrative, continuing the long
tradition of African American public figures that used autobiography as a
way to reclaim the discourses of their own lives. It is at this level that the
autobiography functions most clearly as a corrective, establishing its liberating qualities. Here, the oppressors are his critics, particularly white critics,
not have been familiar with his own book, noting Daviss surprise when asked by Harry
Reasoner about certain details in Miles (xxiv).
31
who control the relationship between artist and public. Despite his protests
to the contrary, Miles Davis clearly did pay attention to critics, and was concerned about what they said and wrote. But while he outwardly bristled at
their influence and power within his own discourse, I sense that inside, he
knew full well that the trump card of ultimate authorship could be played
at any timehe could walk away, refuse to engage, and, above all, remain
silent.
There is, I would suggest, an overriding sense of silence from Miles
about his own life, a silence that he used to direct the discourse of his
own life and music. The idea of silence has become something of a trope
in writing about Miles, frequently invoked to represent a certain sense of
mystery, an unknowable quality about this most public of jazz icons. For
example, Greg Tates obituary for Davis from the Village Voice in 1991 was
titled Silence, Exile, Cunning, and he presented Davis as a figure who was
proud without being loud (Tate 1996: 236). Mike Zwerin refers to Davis in
an essay as the prince of silence (Zwerin 2008: 309), a play on another
oft-used designation of Davis as the prince of darkness.13 Legions of jazz
journalists and scholars sought to uncover the real story behind Miles, but
it was never quite within reach. Bits of personal narrative, flashes of anger
and contempt, tantalizing stories about wild living were all that were forthcoming. But many critics, scholars, and others (including musicians) who
would attempt to more fully understand Miles Davis, either the man himself
or his music, were met with silence, expressed sometimes as a reluctance
or refusal to engage with journalists, at other times as long pauses and
spaces in performance.
Silence as a strategy to assert control over discourse might seem counter-intuitive, yet there are clear precedents for such ideas. As Frances Sendbuehler notes (following Michel Foucault) in discussing the role of silence
in Miltons Paradise Lost,
It is arguable that silence as a form of discourse occupies a space
even more vast than intertextuality does, due to the limitlessness
and endlessness of silence and all that silence can imply. Silence
is silence itself, and it is meaning without language; silences can be
meaningful, just as language can be without meaning (Sendbuehler
1994).
13. While darkness has often been applied to refer to moodiness, I suggest that
in this context it might also be understood as a darkness that obscures, an absence of
illumination that underscores the silent nature of Daviss attitudes and aesthetic.
32
As Foucault himself notes, in The History of Sexuality,

Silence [is] an element that functions alongside the things said, with
them and in relation to them within over-all strategies. There is no
binary division to be made between what one says and what one does
not say (Foucault 1978: 27).
As Foucault has described it, discourse is inextricably intertwined with

power; thus, silence as part of discourse can also be read as an expression of power, of control. In the present case, Miless silences force us to
respond with our own ideas on what he is. And it is through such silences
that I would suggest Davis sees his opportunity to control the discourse of
his public image. Silence, manifesting itself as a refusal or unwillingness to
play the game of professional writers, seems fundamental to the way Davis
saw his relationship with critics and others who would try to collaborate with
him. As Steven Helmling notes in his review of the autobiography,
A Miles legend, unmentioned in the book: Richard Avedon, wanting to
photograph Miles, made overtures to his record company. Sniffing the
publicity value, some executive sent Miles a memo instructing him to
get in touch with Avedon. Miles refused. Sometimes, when they ask
you to do something, he explained, the only thing you can say is no
(Helmling 1991: 187).
It seems likely that, at some point, Davis simply said no to Troupe, and
refused to cooperate in the way Troupe had hoped he would, or indeed,
that was required for an as-told-to autobiography. This refusal to cooperate created a silence which had to be filled, and I suggest that Troupe, or
whomever was responsible for the choices that went into writing the book,
ought not to be judged too harshly. They were, in essence, just the latest in
a long line of figures whose desire to get close to Miles Davis, to solicit information from him, was met with a studied silence. The irony is that through
such silence, Davis might have succeeded in doing exactly what he set out
to do; to create an autobiography that his audiences found to be a real
expression of his personality, one that made readers believe that they were
hearing from him directly, in his own words, telling his own story. This is
not to say that an autobiography in which he had more fully participated
might not achieve the same result, but from his position, it was certainly a
much simpler solution. It might be said, then, that the result of these processes is a work that is mediated not simply through the decisions of Miless
authenticators but because they had to due to his reticence, his silence.
Such a work might potentially say more about Miles Davis than a literal,
33
straight-from-the-horses-mouth narrative that autobiographical works are

supposed to represent. What I mean by this is that Miles: The Autobiography is more than simply a book that chronicles his telling of his own life
story; it is, rather, a discourse in itself, one that by necessity forces us to
think beyond the page, even beyond the facts themselves, and about how
the book represents a larger process of identity and power. If this seems
a bit phenomenological, that is what it is meant to be. Miles Davis as a
public figure carries meaning not simply as a person, an historical figure,
or a musician, but as a figure whose public defines him relative to what he
means to them.
And it is for this public that the book was intended. If we examine the
public reaction to Miles: The Autobiography, we can see that this strategy
has been largely successful. A brief survey of reader comments on Amazon.
com (where the book has a composite rating of 4.5 stars out of five) underscores this point. As one Amazon user writes:14
Miles Davis is candid, and quite generous with his use of obscenitiesbut no matter. He tells it like he sees it. One gets the impression
that if the man is flawed, and his recollections perhaps self-serving at
times, he at least is being as honest as he can be with himself. We
really dont know, just as we cant really know all the true facts in any
autobiography.
Another comment refers to the book as a must read for all true jazz lovers,
stating:
This book is a gospel for all true jazz lovers. Miles tells all about the
jazz scene in such a vivid manner, that you will feel like he is talking
directly to you This is a great biography. You will truly understand
what a powerful musician Miles really was.
The next comment speaks directly to the idea of autobiography as an

authoritative state from the subject to the reader:
This is a great example of autobiographyit reads like Miles collaborator Quincy Troupe just typed the words down after they were tape
recorded. The result is a free flowing, profane and somewhat quirky
style that lets you really experience Miles and his times.
If Troupes job was to make the book sound like Miles, the next commentator seems to suggest that he was successful:
14. These and many other user reviews are accessible at http://www.amazon.com/
Miles-Autobiography-Davis/dp/0671725823
34

Miles tells it like it is in this book. You can tell its [sic] his voice and
not his co-writer as he describes in detail all of the people in his life,
good and bad.
What are we to make of comments such as these, in this admittedly unscientific survey? Is this simply a case of fans not knowing about the controversies surrounding the book?15 That might be the case, but I suspect
there is something deeper going on here. It is not only lay fans who fail
to question the authorial identity of the narrative. Christopher Harlos does
not consider the broader implications of the plagiarism controversy in his
discussion of jazz autobiography; John Gennari gives the controversy only
a passing mention (see n. 11), but still seems to view the book as representing Daviss voice, referring to Miles as an as-told-to memoir (Gennari
2006: 203). Steven Helmling notes, in his review from 1991,
Miless voice is the only voice you hear in this book, and only occasionally (to insert dates and get personnel straight) does one detect
Quincy Troupes editorial hand (though the editing and arranging of
the transcribed tapes must have been an enormous job) (Helmling
1991: 186).
This is all the more striking given what Helmling wrote only a few pages
earlier:
Daviss autobiography, an inauspicious stew of ghost-written cartilage connecting tape recorded ramblings (and, it has been charged,
plagiarisms from a recent biography of Davis)? Every review Ive seen
has been vehemently negative (Helmling 1991: 183).
Helmings predicament seems to stand for critics and fans reception of the
book as a whole: despite the problems with the book that are, by now, fairly
common knowledge, it still holds an aura of authenticity and legitimacy.
Whether these are Daviss words, whether they were written by Troupe,
or by a whole committee at Simon and Schuster is beside the point. For
these readers, the book sounds like Miles, or at least what they imagine
Miles would sound like. That, at the end of the day, is what matters most. In
the wake of the silences from Davis himself, we project our own meaning
onto the narrative.
Silence would seem to be antithetical to biographical writing, as autobiography and authorized biography (if such a distinction is more than arbi-
15. Only one review on the website mentions the controversy with Chamberss
book.
35
trary in the present case) are not supposed to be silent, but to fill the gaps,
to provide the gory details of the subjects life. In this case, however, the
silence flows as an extension of Daviss personality, and thus imbues the
text with a different kind of authorial control, one that I will argue manifests
itself not only in Daviss relationships with critics and fans, but in his musical
approach as well.
Coda: Silence and Sound

That the idea of silence has become a significant trope in the discourse on
Miles Daviss life and music has already been discussed, and it is clear that
Davis employed it to full effect in his relationships with writers. But silence
also manifests itself in Daviss music. Long known as an artist with a particular predilection for employing space in his music, Daviss approach to
improvisation might, at some level, might be seen to resonate with his discursive style, one that is based on a give-and-take between actors, where
gaps in the line need to be filled with other ideas.
Take, for instance, Daviss numerous versions of the Rodgers and Hart
standard My Funny Valentine. Between 1956 and 1965, Davis recorded
no less than six versions of the song. In the first version, a studio session
recorded in 1956 for Prestige with the first classic quintet of Davis, John
Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, Davis plays
what is probably the straightest version of the melody, though he still does
not complete the melody in its entirety. Of the roughly 2:15 that Davis plays
from his entrance on the melody to the entrance of Garlands piano solo,
he can be heard playing for 1:42, while 33 seconds of the solo consists
of silence, or about 25% of the total solo time, a much higher percentage
than Garlands solo. Daviss 1958 live recording from the Plaza Hotel shows
the trumpeter making much greater use of space; in this example, out of
the 3:15 taken up by Daviss melody and solo, there is a full one minute
of space, while Davis plays for just over two minutes; silence, in this case,
takes up 30% of the solo. A similar ratio of space to sound can be heard
in Daviss famed 1964 live recordings from the albums Four and More and
Live in Tokyo. Later sessions display an even greater amount of space. The
two versions of My Funny Valentine heard on the Plugged Nickel sessions
of December 1965 display the greatest use of space, with the percentage
of space in Daviss playing from the 22 December version comprising just
under 50%, while the following nights performance is at about 40%. These
last two sessions, of course, feature Daviss second classic quartet of
Davis, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. With
36
this group, Davis seems to have developed a level of comfort and trust that
reduces the need for him to be constantly playing, constantly directing the
flow of the music. They made possible the use of an even greater degree
of silence from Davis, as they could fill the gaps in a way that Davis likely
found engaging. This was a group for whom tension was not simply an
obstacle, but a means of fostering creativity, of initiating and maintaining
conversation and discourse.
It might not be too much of a conceptual leap to argue that Daviss
frequent use of extensive gaps in his playing, spaces in which members
of the rest of the band can interject or overlay their own ideas, could be in
some way related to Daviss lack of full, detailed accounting of his own life.
This aesthetic of silence manifests itself not only in Daviss playing, but in
his approach to discourse as well. The members of Daviss second quintet
were not constantly looking to him for information, but were left free to
make their own decisions. By contrast, such freedom seemed to elude the
first quintet; John Coltrane noted that Davis was reticent to give him directions or guidance on his own playing during the saxophonists first stint with
the group from 19551957. Coltranes inquiries were met with a silence not
too different from that with which Davis greeted interviewers and others
who sought to bring his persona into the public eye.
Given Daviss tendency towards eschewing conventions of form and
practice, even within a standard such as My Funny Valentine, it is not difficult to understand why so many scholars have linked his music to Henry
Louis Gatess theories of signifyin(g), first popularized in his influential
work of African American literary criticism The Signifying Monkey. At the
risk of adding to what might be an over-employed metaphor in critical jazz
studies, I would suggest that Daviss use of silence might also be explained
in this way. In doing so, I draw upon the arguments of Gary Tomlinson,
whose critique of the condemnation of Daviss fusion efforts underscores
what he terms a rhetoric of absence, particularly in relation to a more stylistically extroverted jazz tradition that preceded it (Tomlinson 2002: 92). This
sense of absence, for Tomlinson, stems from the lack of a readily apparent
connection to other stylistic trends in jazz against which (or within which)
fusion could be measured;16 by refusing to more directly establish himself
16. For example, Tomlinson cites criticisms of Daviss fusion recordings that bemoaned
their lack of linear development, and jazz eighths, elements that would squarely ground
the music in a more traditional framework. Thus these elements are absent in fusion, and
I might extend this to an expression of silence in the face of the jazz tradition from which
these critics were operating.
37
within such traditions, Davis also refuses to provide critics with the necessary (in their view) context to assess his music. Tomlinson, whose study
draws heavily on Gates, also refers to Daviss ambivalent background,
one that led him to a dialogic approach to his music (Tomlinson 2002:
9697). Such a dialogic worldview could be easily extended to his relationships with critics; for him, the flow of information from artist to writer to
audience must have been frustrating, and disengaging from the process
served to disrupt such dynamics. Robert Walser, who uses Gatess theories as a springboard for an analysis of the February 1964 recording of My
Funny Valentine, notes substantial pauses in Daviss lines as a means
of creating a space for dialogue (Walser 1993: 358). While Daviss use
of silence is not a primary concern in Walsers analysis, his central argument that Daviss music poses problems for critics because it does not fit
with conventional, expected musical practices, resonates with the present
arguments about his use of silence as an attempt to force others, whether
listeners, fellow musicians, or those who wrote about him, to get beyond
their own expectations of him. Near the end of his essay, Walser writes the
following:
The work of Miles Davis seems to repudiate conventional notions of
aesthetic distance and insists that music is less a thing than an activity;
his music itself provides the most eloquent argument for analysis to
open itself up to issues of gesture and performativity (Walser 1993:
359).
This is resonant with Kathy Ogrens suggestion that jazz autobiography is

ultimately a performative act, that autobiographical narratives often reflect
some of the same aesthetic that informs their subjects music. Miles might
seem to be an ideal candidate for such an analysis; it too may be regarded
as less a thing (i.e., a book), and more of an activity (i.e., a discursive
process from which the book results). So much of the performativity of
Miless music is based in an aesthetic of silence, manifested both as space,
and in his interactions with musicians in his groups. Numerous musicians
through the years have spoken of Miless tendency to not explicitly lead his
musicians in a traditional sense, forcing them to explore their own relationships to his voice. John Coltrane was sometimes puzzled at Miless reticence to give more concrete guidance (Porter 1999: 100). Herbie Hancock,
one third of the rhythm section of the great quintet of the mid 1960s, summarized Miless approach in an interview with Gene Santoro, saying that
Miles never told us what to play, never told us what notes to play (Santoro
2007: 140). In his work with journalists and writers in general, he seems to
38
have taken a similar approach; Miles Davis would simply not be content to
answer questions, to provide explicit direction in the construction of his narrative, to tell people what to write. Like his musical interactions, his encounters with writers forced them figure things out on their own. Miles, then,
might be understood as a written expression of these processes, built from
an aesthetic of silence that so clearly permeates his music. Through his
silence, perhaps Miles was also signifyin(g) on jazz criticism at some level,
playing the trickster to his literary tormentors, confounding their expectations just as his music has confounded critics and collaborators alike. Miles
Davis plays his life story in the autobiography, and it is perhaps for this
reason that it rings true for so many of its readers.
One final anecdote might prove instructive. In his account of his relationship with Davis, Mark Crawford recalls bringing the acclaimed writer James
Baldwin to meet Davis at the latters apartment in 1966. Crawford describes
the encounter this way:
Their eyes met in a violent clash and locked onto each other from
a distance of six feet. They engaged in the longest most intense
staring match I have ever seen There seemed a crackling electricity
between them. At last, Miles turned to me. Theres beer in the box.
He went out the kitchen door. My God! Jimmy whispered, hes shyer
than I am (Crawford 1996: 222).
The silence with which Davis greeted Baldwin was not a slight, not a dismissal, but perhaps might be better understood as an exercise in discourse
itself, each man sizing up the other, looking intently, communicating, but
saying nothing. This is the same way that Miles often interacted with
members of his band, letting them, even forcing them, to take the burden of
communication upon themselves. Daviss 60 Minutes interview with Harry
Reasoner also speaks to a similar idea. As Reasoner asks Davis questions,
the trumpeter gives curt, short responses that force Reasoner to try and
dig deeper. It is not simply a matter of one asking questions, the other
responding, but of two men locked in a contest. Miles will not supply the
full answer; he will not make the interviewers job easy, but will make them
work for a response, just as he made his musicians work to perform with
him at a high level. This is perhaps the best expression of the Miles Davis
aesthetic made manifest in written form, not what he actually said, but the
manner in which the conversations unfolds, a process that includes a level
of discomfort, conflict, tension, sparring as opposed to telegraphing ones
punches. By emphasizing silence, Davis forces his would-be collaborators
to go beyond themselves, and to have a greater role in the creation of the
39
work, musical or written. Some have been able to work it out, and some
have not. As Frank Alkyer notes in the Preface to the Miles Davis Reader,
The road of music journalism is littered with quality writers who tried and
failed to deliver a Miles Davis interview (Alkyer 2007: xiii). A similar sentiment could surely be applied to many quality musicians who worked with
Davis as well. For some, the silence is deafening.
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[JRJ 4.1 (2010) 43-56]

doi:10.1558/jazz.v4i1.43

Jazz at large:
Scapes and the imagination in the performances
of Moses Molelekwa and Nah Youn-Sun
Jan Harm Schutte*

University of Chicago, 1126 E 59th St., STE 1, Chicago IL 60637-1580, USA
lafraas@yahoo.com
Abstract
A number of scholars have discussed how jazz has been constructed as being the
creative product of the United States of America. The article draws on some of the ideas
of Arjun Appadurai in order to show how the music of two non-Americans, Moses Molelekwa (South Africa) and Nah Youn-Sun (South Korea), may be understood as challenging
which sounds may be classified as jazz, and who may be included in its audiences.
I will focus on their active involvement infrequently trans-globalcollaborations with
artists outside or on the peripheries of jazz. The article also explores the conditions of
globalization that make possible such reconfigurations and how these dynamics relate
to broader processes of reimagining global geographies of power and music. In discussing the musical performances of these jazz artists, I hope to reflect on the role of the
imagination in the process of genre definition.
Keywords: globalization; hegemony; jazz; Korea; scapes; South Africa
As I look through my collection of jazz albums, I am bombarded with a flow

of images and information: iconic photos of John Coltrane seated with a
soprano sax across his lap or Miles Davis staring thoughtfully into the distance; recurrent titles such as Summertime and Autumn Leaves; clips of
reviews from magazines such as Downbeat, integral in defining an aesthetic
standard of excellence in the imagination of jazz audiences. However, this
flow is occasionally punctuated by albums bearing images and text discordant with the rest: place names drawn from the urban African space of
Johannesburg, such as Tembisa and Rockey Street; quotes from reviews
written in Korean rather than Roman characters; photos of an East Asian
female vocalist on the cover. These images and texts evoke a complex
multiplicity of musical memories and imaginings, drawn both from lived
experiences and from imagined worlds I have never occupied. In this paper
* Jan Schutte, BMus (University of KwaZulu-Natal), is currently a PhD student in
Anthropology at the University of Chicago.
44
I will discuss how these dynamics enable the work of the imagination,
as articulated by Arjun Appadurai (1996), in undermining dominant, fixed
definitions of the genre of jazz. In particular, I will explore this process by
showing how the musical activities of Nah Youn-Sun (1969) and Moses
Molelekwa (19732001) may be understood in terms of their engagement
with various media- and ethnoscapes (Appadurai 1996: 33).
A number of scholars have discussed how jazz has been constructed
as being the creative product of the United States of America (Atkins 2003;
Anderson 2007; Muller 2001; Nicholson 2005). It is this centering1 in the
US that makes jazz a particularly interesting site in which to investigate the
dynamics of imaginary contestation of dominant constructions of center
and periphery. Although scholars have discussed how other genres such
as world music have allowed places previously marginal to global popular
music to achieve wider currency, world music has from its inception emphasized its utilization of exotic sounds from beyond western centers (Stokes
2003; Nicholson 2005; Taylor 2007). Jazz, on the other hand, has involved
constructions and negotiations of nationhood in its definition throughout
its history (Anderson 2007). For this reason, investigating the potential of
the imaginary engagement with semiotic configurations involved in the performances of two jazz musicians from outside the USthus allowing for
reconfigurations of center/periphery relations and renegotiations of a genre
whose definitions have previously been authorized and articulated within
that nation staterepresents a useful lens through which to analyze the
dynamics of globalization.
I hope to show how the music of two non-Americans, Moses Molelekwa and Nah Youn-Sunfrequently described as jazz artists in media
reviewsmay be understood as challenging which sounds may be classified as jazz, and who may be included in its audiences. In particular, I
will focus on their active involvement infrequently trans-globalcollaborations with artists outside or on the peripheries of the genre of jazz. I will
also explore the conditions of globalization that make possible these reconfigurations of the dynamics of genre making and re-making, and how these
dynamics relate to broader processes of reimagining global geographies
of power and music.
1. I use this term in similar way to Appadurai, whereby centers and peripheries are
imagined constructions of hierarchy that are characterized respectively as being spaces
which are regarded as exerting authoritative force in relation to particular sets of ideas
(for example Paris and Milan as centers of fashion), or those which are seen as existing
outside beyond the centers.
Jazz at large
45
In his book, Modernity at Large (1996), Arjun Appadurai explains that,

in recent times, a disjuncture has arisen between the global landscapes
of economics, culture and politics. He proposes that such disjunctures
should be explored by analyzing the relationship among five theoretical
dimensions: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes
and ideoscapes. In describing the nature of these theoretical constructs,
he explains that the shared suffix of scape allows us to point to the fluid,
irregular shapes of these landscapes and underlines the fact that these
are not objectively given relations that look the same from every angle of
vision but, rather, that they are deeply perspectival constructs, inflected
by the historical, linguistic, and political situatedness of different sorts of
actors (1996: 33).
The flows of creative and social signifiers contained in and circumscribed
by music display a similar fluidity, and thus the scapes model serves as an
effective means by which to analyze and describe their dynamics. While
it might be instructive to conduct future research into the application of
the other scapes, in this essay I will limit my discussion to the ethno- and
mediascapes imbricated in the performances of Nah Youn-Sun and Moses
Molelekwa.
I will examine both the musical and non-musical features of Nahs and
Molelekwas participation in the global flows that make up these ethnoand mediascapes. In analyzing the musical features of these scapes I will
use a semiotic approach as articulated by Louise Meintjes (1990). Drawing
on the ideas of Giles and Shepherd, she explains how political meanings
can become embedded in a piece of music through strings of connected
signs which operate through the affective experience integral to musics
communicative capacity (Meintjes 1990: 43). Similarly, the musical performances of Molelekwa and Nah can be regarded as sign vehicles of
interconnected musical and non-musical signifiers (Meintjes 1990).
Molelekwa, Nah and the fluid ethno- and

mediascapes of international jazz
Appadurai defines the ethnoscape as the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live, a formation which has become
increasingly fluid and mobile under conditions of modernity (1996: 33).
According to this idea, we are all part of one or more ethnoscapes. In a
similar way, jazz musicians in their mobile trans-global interactions may
be considered to form part of these shifting ethnoscapes. Atkins (2003)
and others (Molasky 2003; Jones 2003; Muller 2007; Moore 2007) have
46
discussed jazz as an internationally occurring interconnected genre. The

existence of numerous jazz festivals, jazz scenes and jazz programs (in
academic institutions) all over the world seems to support the idea that jazz
is a global music with an international network of scenes and audiences. It
is in such a shifting ethnoscape that a South African artist such as Molelekwa can collaborate with Cuban pianist, Chucho Valdes; Naha Korean
musiciancan work with the French ensemble Refractory, and a South
African researcher can write about both while residing in South Korea.
In her collaboration with Refractory, entitled Nah Youn-Sun with Refractory
(2005), Nahs engagement within this ethnoscape is manifested through a
series of signifiers. For example, the lyrical content of the album indexes
multiple languages, including French, Spanish, Hebrew and English. In
this way, by projecting a number of linguistic voices, rather than asserting
an exclusive Koreanness, she invites multiple inscriptions of identity and
thus constructs various perspectives from which listeners can forge identifications. The collaborations sensibility is that of a group of like-minded
thinkers each speaking together in their shared second language. Such
a performance activates the imagination and the listener is prompted to
envision an international community of jazz thinkers, musicians and audiences who are listening simultaneously through their own respective local
filters. Integral to this process is the work of the imagination, which, under
conditions of modernity, is central to all forms of agency, is itself a social
fact, and is the key component of the new global order (Appadurai 1996:
31).
This linguistic diversity continues on the album cover and on the liner
notes. The majority of the liner notes are written in Hangeul (Korean characters), indicating that it was intended for distribution in this countryit is
recorded on the EMI label, and made and distributed by the EMIs South
Korean branch. These notes describe the music as or electrojazz. In addition to the use of Hangeul, French also appearsin the acknowledgements of the band membersas does English. The latter is used for the
majority of the song titles (two are in Spanish and one is in French) as well as
for the warning that unauthorized sale, broadcasting or performance of this
sound recording is prohibited. Interestingly, this warning does not appear
in Hangeul at all. Thus either it is assumed that Koreans dont engage in
piracywhich much of my preliminary research while working in the country
contradictsor it is assumed that they can or should be able to read in
English. I will elaborate on the problematic nature of this assumption later in
my discussion.
Jazz at large
47
In analyzing the images and texts of the album and liner notes, it is useful
to apply another of Appadurais scapesthat of media. Appadurai defines
mediascapes as both the distribution of electronic capabilities to produce
and disseminate information and the images of the world created by these
media (1996: 35). He explains that they provide large and complex repertories of images, narratives, and ethnoscapes to viewers throughout the
world (1996: 35). The visual and textual signifiers found in the packaging of
Nah and Refractorys album may be considered part of this complex repertory. Nahs presence on the album is made apparent before the first track is
played by the fact that her name and visual presence are dominant on the
sleeve of the disc, even though she doesnt compose a single song. Also,
as a performer she is absent from a number of tracks, including Planet,
which is more than twice the length of the second longest track on the
album. One could speculate that this centering of Nah works to reference
and construct various ethnoscapes, depending on the context in which listeners consume the album and engage with it imaginatively. Within Korea,
the sole inclusion of images of Nah on the cover serves to invoke a Korean
ethnoscape, which is situated within a broader international socio-musical
flow through the use of English on the cover. Internationally, the images of
Nah on the cover may be interpreted as invoking a global jazz community
as the Asian body of Nah serves to reference the international and the exotic
(Hisama 1993) simultaneously; the normative West and a shading of its
other, the incorporation of jazzs periphery by its center. The format of Nahs
name as it appears on the album is also interesting in this regard. In several
other contextsreviews written in English, for instanceit reads as YounSun Nah. On the album cover, however, her name appears as it would in
Koreanwith the family name Nah being placed first, and the given name
Youn-Sun being placed secondbut written in Roman letters rather than
Hangeul characters. By placing the family name first, as would usually be
the case in Korea, Nah identifies herself as being part of a Korean ethnoscape, or possibly an Asian ethnoscape. With the use of Roman letters,
the international is indexed, and the local ethnoscape is situated within the
context of the global. Thus, through this combination of signifiers, Nahs
music invokes and participates in constructing several mediascapes, both
local and global.
The fluidity of imagined and real socio-musical categories hinted at by
the linguistic diversity of the lyrics and liner notes is echoed in the musical
signifiers, as the opening track, Tango de Celos begins. The piece starts
with the rhythm trio of drums, bass and guitar with the saxophone extem-
48
porizing on thematic material that will later be formalized by Nah. The production quality of this short section has a distinct acoustic feel compared
to what follows, briefly challenging the genre expectations of what might
be implied by the electro aspect of electro-jazz. This challenge, however,
is evanescent in nature and dissipates while a lush electronic backdrop is
gradually constructed. This interplay between the electronic and the live
is a feature throughout the album. The juxtaposition of the sound aesthetics
of the live and the electronic seems to suggest more than just a blending of the old and the new. Rather, the acoustic and the electro may
be considered as signs, where the former invokes the jazz canon and
its imagined audiencewho may associate signifiers of liveness with the
acoustic jazz performance which constitutes jazzs traditional context of
ideal listening2 (Stockfelt 1997)and the latter invokes an ethno-musical
scape on the fringes of jazz and beyond. The combining of these two
signs confers a sense of fluidity on the invoked audience of the album, referencing an ethnoscape of audiences within and outside of the boundaries
circumscribing jazz. Furthermore, combining live elementsindexing the
acoustic and the jazz canonand electronic elementswhich represent
sounds from the periphery and beyondwidens the scope for audiences
to imagine what sounds may be classified as jazz.
This opening up of the imagined possibilities of jazzs soundscapes
and of the genres audience ethnoscapes is further achieved through the
blurring of generic boundaries in various tracks on the album. One of these
is Yo Solo Quiero. This piece opens with a generic Latin jazz groove,
features Spanish-language lyrics, and includes collective improvisation by
Nah and the keyboardist. Through this vocal and instrumental interplay,
as well as the referencing of what many would regard as one of the subgenres of jazz through the Latin groove, the dominant constructions of
the jazz canon are invoked; scholars such as Anderson (2007) have commented on the recurrent privileging of improvisation as definitive of jazz in
canon-building exercises. Overlaying this groove are sampled imitations
of the spontaneous audience calls marking the participatory nature of
many jazz forms, including Latin, which filter these signifiers through an
2. This is Stockfelts (1997) term for the environment that is regarded as the most
appropriate space in which reception of a particular genre of music should take place,
and in which its meanings may most fully be realized. In the case of jazz, the construction of the music as participatory means that both audience and musicians are present in
the ideal listening context of an acoustic live performance. This privileging of the acoustic
sound could stem from the fact that the majority of the works of the canon were produced
prior to mass electronification of instruments.
Jazz at large
49
electronic mediator of sound, thus reconfiguring the musical experience

to allow for interpretations by those outside of the audience of the jazz
canon. In this way, the combination of signifiers indexing diverse soundworlds reconstitutes the imagined possibilities for the sound- and ethnoscapes of jazz.
Similarly, Molelekwas participation in the ethnoscape of jazzin particular, through cross-genre collaborations and the drawing together of
previously discrete musical signifiersmay be interpreted as challenging
hegemonic constructions of the genre. Throughout his career, Molelekwa
reflected a duality in his approach to performance and composition
similar to that discussed aboveboth invoking the defining characteristics of the jazz canon, and incorporating musical material from beyond the
boundaries of the genre. Some of his earlier workin particular, his first
album, Finding Oneself (1995)was criticized for conforming too much to
the expectations of more conservative audiences and musicians regarding jazz. However, as his musical career progressed, he began to subvert
these expectations. He became as well known for his collaborations with
the kwaito3 supergroup TKZee, British classical pianist Joanna MacGregor,
and Cuban Latin jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, as he was for his solo work.
This aspect of his performances invokes a global ethnoscape of artists and
audiences, similar to that of Nah, and contributes to challenging dominant
constructions of jazz. Here, it is useful to compare the potential meanings
of collaboration in jazz with the trope of collaboration so prevalent in the
late 1980s and 1990s in the packaging of world music (Taylor 2007). Taylor
describes collaboration in this latter context as an inherently exploitative
relationship between a collaboratorusually from a powerful Western
metropolis such as the United States or Europeand those with whom he
or she collaborates. One may refer to these musicians, usually from nonWestern countries, as collaborateeswho, although they may benefit in
terms of exposure or financial reward, are used primarily for the exotic
elements they contribute to the musical vision of the collaborator, who
is constructed (through copyright and album packaging, for example) as
the authoritative artistic agency behind the project. This process relies on
the privileging in Western discourse of the individual artistic genius, which
makes truly equal collaborations almost impossible. This situation differs
from the dynamics of jazz collaborations as they have occurred throughout
the jazz canon, in that collaborateesor band membersand collabora-
3. A South African popular music genre similar to hip hop.
50
tors (band leaders) are attributed with similar degrees of agency in the interaction. This is due to the dominant construction of jazz as a democratic
musical formdiscussed by Anderson (2007)whereby the contributions
of band members are regarded as being equal. This is evident in the reoccurrence throughout jazz history of collaboratees gaining prestige and
respect from their involvement in collaborators projects. A good example
is that of John Coltrane as collaboratee appearing in Miles Daviss band,
where he first gained wide recognition, before embarking on his solo career
as band leader and composer in his own right (Collier 1978). This construction of collaboration in jazz makes it possible for non-Western artists to
become collaborators and to enhance their own prestige by incorporating collaboratees from Western centers of power. By playing on dominant
Western constructions of the individual artistic genius attributed to the collaborator, their cross-genre, transglobal collaborations serve to call into
question dominant constructions of the jazz genre. In this way, by appropriating certain aspects of the dominant constructions of jazz, musicians
from outside the Western centers of jazz may challenge other aspects
of hegemonic classifications of what sounds and bodies may legitimately
participate in the genre, facilitating the reimagining of power relationships
between various constituencies among jazzs global ethnoscapes.
This invocation of the global ethnoscape of jazz is also effected through
the semiosis of the musical objects of Molelekwas authorship. His performance on Genes and Spirits (1998) is a case in point, and an analysis of the
track, Down Rocky Street, serves as a good entry point.
The track opens with a 3:2 polyrhythmic ostinato played on an mbira.
This instrument forms an integral part of Shona musical traditions (Berliner
1993). Performances of this tradition or those which encompass the use
of this instrument can be accessed in a variety of contexts in regions surrounding this African state, for example in the cities of neighboring South
Africa where I encountered it for the first time as an undergraduate studying
ethnomusicology. This utilization of a Shona instrument by a South African
jazz musician locates the aural imagination of the audience in a narrative
of Africanness. A few bars into the piece, a reggae groove is introduced
by the rhythm section, played over the mbiras theme. For an instant there
seems to be a clash between the two musical idioms, before they are reconciled as the eighth-notes of the reggaes four-four pattern interlock perfectly
into the three aspect of the original polyrhythm. The drummer emphasizes
the two and four of the time signature on the bass drum, with Molelekwa
(on keyboard) stabbing chords on the second eighth-note of every quarter-
Jazz at large
51
note pulse. The bassist plays a simple ostinato that accents the first beat of
each bar while circumscribing the pieces harmonic movement. Over this
activity, the guitarist superimposes a few spare textural motifs that seem to
suggest a peripheral presence rather than an equal musical peer. It is worth
noting that after the introduction of the reggae groove, the mbira is relegated to the fringes of the music, playing a similar role to that of the guitar.
In this way, the specific African sound-world of the mbira is supplanted by
reggaes more African-diasporic sonic imaginairea term used by Appadurai, drawing on the ideas of Emile Durkheim, to describe a constructed
landscape of collective aspirations (1996: 31). I will return to the question
as to what these aspirations might be in relation to jazz below.
A few bars after this confluence of two musical categories, yet another
is introduced. The musical protagonistthe clarinet (played by Frances
Reardon)plays the head of the piece in counterpoint with the trombone.
At this point, the genre expectations of jazz are finally acknowledged with
the clear articulation of a melody and the centering of two instruments traditionally associated with the jazz canon. Now that the entire musical cast
has been introduced, the piece grooves along until there is a sudden lull
in musical activity. Similar pauses occur intermittently throughout the track
and punctuate regular statements of the head, or main melody. At the third
pause, it becomes a backdrop for the introduction of Reardons solo. As
the solo builds momentum and the ensemble enters with a driving reggae
groove, the combination of this groove and clarinet improvisation as the
climax of the piece is reminiscent of Branford Marsaliss famous solo on
Stings Englishman in New York (1987). This reference constitutes a dual
index of the jazz canon on the one hand, and of the blurring of the boundaries of jazz on the other. As Marsalis is an American jazz artist, brother of
Wyntonone of the main gate-keepers to the jazz canon in recent yearsa
reference to his soloing may be associated with dominant constructions of
jazz. On the other hand, Branfords collaboration with a pop musician was
criticized by some as diluting jazzs essence, and thus challenging the
canon (Anderson 2007). In this way, this dual reference may be seen as
pointing to the general tension between playing into and challenging the
expectations of jazz. In this sense we can regard Molelekwas music as
invoking the complex disjunctures of the overlapping flows of jazzs ethnoscapes: a relatively exclusive representation of an African scape, the
global pan-Africanist imaginaire, and the jazz canon centered on the US.
The socio-linguistic and musical complexities of the performances of
Nah and Molelekwa allow for the formation and reformation of jazzs ethno-
52
scapes, enabling the imaginations of audiences, who neednt confine their

dreams to the big city lights of Seoul or Johannesburg, but may engage
imaginatively with a variety of transglobal ethnoscapes. Appadurai argues
that [-scapes] are the building blocks ofimagined worlds Many persons
on the globe live in such imagined worldsand thus are able to contest
and sometimes even subvert the imagined worlds of the official mindthat
surround them (1996: 33). In the same way, the ethnoscapes of jazz allow
listeners to challenge and possibly subvert dominant constructions of the
genre, and the imagined worlds constructed through jazz.
Genes and spirits: the global canon of jazz

In analyzing the role of the imagination and scapes in challenging dominant
constructions of jazz, another issue must be discussed. The invocation of
an international jazz scene, discussed earlier, should not fool us into thinking that all musicians within this scene have equal access to its financial
rewards or cultural prestige. At the same time, it would be a mistake to view
the relationship between the various sites where jazz is studied, played
and taught as static. Here Appadurais use of the terms, center and periphery, are helpful in analyzing the tensions of this fluid relationship. These
terms imply that there are traditional centers that occupy a position of
hegemonic dominance over the periphery. Under conditions of modernity
these centers can be undermined by the germination of new centers, or by
the increasingly porous nature of the boundaries between old centers and
peripheries. To many, the center of jazz exists in the US. It is players who
come from this center that are often referenced as influences for many of
the jazz players that hail from the periphery. Aspirations to this US center
are clear in many anecdotal accounts of South African jazz history. An apt
example in the context of this essay is that of Molelekwas fatheralso a
jazz pianistwho had the nickname of Monk Molelekwa, as a reference
to the US jazz pianist Thelonius. There are also physical spaces within the
US such as New York or New Orleans which are regarded by many as the
home of jazz, and these are either aspired to by artists from the periphery or
reviled for their exclusionary dominance. In either case a position of power
is acknowledged and artists beyond these dominant spaces must play
into constructssuch as the jazz canoncreated by the center in order to
participate in its activities and possibly reap its rewards. In addition, these
musicians on the periphery are saddled with the burden of having to meet
obligatory exoticist expectations of these audiences, for it is the alterity of
these performers that may gain them the attentions of audiences ahead of
Jazz at large
53
artists at the center (Allen [2005] mentions this double-bind in relation to

the world music market). Thus musicians on the periphery face a dilemma,
because if they adhere too strongly to the conventions of the jazz canon,
they may be regarded as nothing special, yet, if they stray too far away
from the canon, they may prompt dismissive censure for not being jazzy
enough.
One way in which this unequal relationship between center and periphery may be constructed and contested is through the work of the imagination, and Nah Youn-Suns album discussed earlier presents us with a way
of examining these processes. Her use of English as a dominant language
on her collaboration with Refractory may be interpreted as signifying the
center of jazz, the nation constructed as the source of its canon: the US.
The parallel dominance of the English language on the coverparticularly
through invocations of authority as articulated by instructions to the buyers
of the recording regarding copyright restrictionsturns our attention not
only to the US as a center of jazz, but also as a hegemonic economic
power. This position is constructed as being so powerful as to make its
linguistic signifierEnglishuniversally understood by all who read it. On
the other hand, the musical aspects of the Refractory collaboration allow
Nah to contest these constructions. Although Nah Youn-Sun plays into the
expectations of the jazz canon in other contextssuch as her performances
in the Nah Youn-Sun Quintet (2000)these expectations are challenged in
the Refractory collaboration through the genre-blurring discussed above.
This musical contestation challenges the idea of the US as center. Certain
sounds constructed as the jazz canon serve as an index for the US as the
home of jazz; therefore, by broadening the range of sounds classified as
jazz and contesting narrow delineations of the canon, the status of the US
as the center of jazz is challenged.
Nah may be understood as attempting to negotiate the tension between
the increasing freedom, enabled by the proliferation of media images characteristic of globalization, to imagine new interrelations between sites of
production and consumption of jazz on the one hand, and on the other,
the constraints exercised by established political and economic hierarchies who influence the flow of global media objects in powerful ways. This
tension may be understood as fundamental to the dynamics of globalization, in which a heightened sense of disjuncture and the displace[ment] of
long-naturalized relations between center and periphery come up against
political and economic interests that, even as they capitalize on the proliferation of cultural difference, also demand that such cultural difference be
54
rendered manageable as content within globally reproducibleforms and

genres (Mazzarella 2004: 351).
Molelekwas performances may be interpreted as attempts to negotiate
a similar tension. His music challenges dominant constructions of center/
periphery not only through his indexing of sounds from the African Diaspora
and specific African contexts, but also through his collaboration with artists
from other centers. Through the use of sound signifiers he privileges the
African elements of the musical heritage of this genre, evoking the idea
that Africa is the true home of jazz,4 thus allowing listeners to engage with
his performance unfettered by dominant constructions of jazz as Americas music. Through his work with other musicians he acknowledges the
prestige of other musical worlds and geographical spacesfor example,
that of Europe and Western classical music through his collaboration with
Western classical pianist Joanna MacGregor. This allows him to juxtapose
centers of contrasting musical worlds (undermining any attempt to judge
the performance according to the dominant standard dictated by either),
and render boundaries between these as porous, and thus tenuous.
Molelekwas 1998 release (Genes and Spirits) presents us with a further example of how construction of jazzs center and peripheries may be
challenged musically. This is accomplished through the juxtaposition of
signifiers of the real and the imagined in the album title. Genes can
be regarded as signifying the realm of concrete reality as established by
modernist narratives of science, truth and tangibility. The word Spirits,
however, indexes discourses of myth, subjectivity and the unquantifiable.
Furthermore, Genes might suggest a fixed birthplace of jazz and that its
course must always be evaluated with its origin in mind; its relationship with
the center (or parent) must always be acknowledged. This might be interpreted as referencing hegemonic constructions of jazzs centers. Spirits,
however, seems to imply a less fixed relationship between style and origin,
making the essence of jazz uncertain and ineffable. Such a reading allows
for the possibility of the construction of new centers, and for a subversion
of the relationship between old centers and peripheries.
This imbrication of the imaginaries of jazz in contesting the genres
relationship with geographical spaces allows listeners to imagine jazz as a
post-national music and themselves as post-national subjects. By facilitating the work of the imagination, the music of Nah and Molelekwa may be
4. It is important to note that several jazz musicians within the US have also constructed Africa as the true home of jazz. The free jazz musicians aligned with the Black
Arts movement in the 1960s constitute an example of this (Anderson 2007).
Jazz at large
55
understood as playing a role in recarving geography and contesting power

relations through enabling acts of what Anna Tsing calls world-making.
She explains that world-making flowsare not just interconnections, but
also the recarving of channels and remapping of the possibilities of geography (2000: 327). As jazz is reimagined, relationships between center
and periphery mirrored in traditional constructions of the jazz canon may
also be challenged. However, it is clear that dominant constructions of the
relationship between center and periphery, and the political and economic
structures supporting these constructions, may continue to exert pressures
on the imaginations of listeners.
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African Popular Music: The Career of the Penny Whistle. South African Journal
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Anderson, I. (2007) This is Our Music: Free Jazz, the Sixties, and American Culture.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Atkins, E. T. (2003) Toward a Global History of Jazz. In Jazz Planet, ed. E. T. Atkins.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Berliner, P. (1993) Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Collier, J. L. (1978) The Making of Jazz: A Comprehensive History. London:
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Hisama, E. (1993) Postcolonialism on the Make: The Music of John Mellencamp,
David Bowie and John Zorn. Popular Music 12(2): 91104. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1017/S0261143000005493
Jones, A. F. (2003) Black Internationale: Notes on the Chinese Jazz Age. In Jazz
Planet, ed. E. T. Atkins. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
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Meintjes, L. (1990) Paul Simon's Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical
Meaning. Ethnomusicology 34(1): 3773. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/852356
Molasky, M. (2003) A Japanese Story about Jazz in Russia: Itsuki Hiroyukis Farewell, Moscow Gang. In Jazz Planet, ed. E. T. Atkins. Jackson: University Press
of Mississippi.
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Aldershot: Ashgate.
Muller, C. (2001) Capturing the Spirit of Africa in the Jazz Singing of South AfricanBorn Sathima Bea Benjamin. Research in African Literatures 32(2): 13352.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2979/RAL.2001.32.2.133
(2007) South Africa and American Jazz: Towards a Polyphonic Historiography.
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Nicholson, S. (2005) Is Jazz Dead? (Or Has It Moved to a New Address). New York
and London: Routledge.
Stockfelt, O. (1997) Adequate Modes of Listening. In Keeping Score: Music, Disciplinarity, Culture, ed. D. Schwarz, A Kassabian and L. Siegel. Charlottesville,
VA and London: University Press of Virginia.
Stokes, M. (2003) The Global Politics of World Music. In The Cultural study of Music:
A Critical Introduction. New York and London: Routledge.
Taylor, T. (2007) Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World. Durham, NC: Duke
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Recordings
Molelekwa, Moses (1995) Finding Oneself. B & W Music, UK, BW 053 and South
Africa BWCD 2.
(1998) Genes and Spirits. MELT2000, UK/South Africa, BW079 and BWSA079.
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Sting (1987) Nothing Like the Sun. A&M, B00000I2I7.
[JRJ 4.1 (2010) 57-79]

doi:10.1558/jazz.v4i1.57

Earthly, sensual, devilish:

Sex, race and jazz in post-independence
Ireland
Eileen Hogan*
School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork, Ireland
e.hogan@ucc.ie
Abstract
This article examines racialized and sexualized constructions of jazz music and dance in
Ireland in the post-independence era. Drawing on newspaper coverage and government
debate from 1920 to 1938, I argue that the broadcasting service and the dance halls
were important sites of formation of Irish national identity. The nation-building project
was premised upon the idealization of a rural, sanitized moral landscape. In this period,
fears about the liberalization of sexual mores focused particularly on the lives of young
Irish women, whose cultural activities became a key concern of the guardians of public
morality in the new nation-state in the 1920s and 1930s. Intensive anti-jazz campaigns,
led by the Catholic elite and largely supported by the state, constructed modern music
and dance as cultural imports that threatened Irish cultural identity and the nation.
Keywords: broadcasting; Catholic conservativism; morality dance hall; national identity
Introduction
Dear Irish colleens,1 hasten ye and crush
Jazz dancing, for it makes the Virgin Mary blush.
Root out such vile creations from our sod,
Come, banish these modes, so displeasing to God.
Patriotic daughters, its up to you
To cease jazz dancing for the sake of Risn Dhu.2
(C. Bohan, The Evils of Jazz, Leitrim Observer, 30 December 1933,
p. 5)
* Eileen Hogan is a lecturer in Social Policy in University College Cork. She is currently completing her PhD on music, place and identity in the Institute of Popular Music,
University of Liverpool.
1. Colleens is the Anglicized and pluralized form of the Irish word cailn meaning
girl.
2. Risn Dhu (or more commonly Risn Dubh) translates from Irish as Dark Rosaleen or Little Dark Rose, one of the many female figures who were used as an allegorical
representation of colonized Ireland (see Innes 1994).
58
The Irish Free State, established in 1922 following the War of Independence against the British state, bore little evidence of its revolutionary origins
with regard to socio-political progressivism, which were quickly subsumed
into a nation-building project. Though the newly formed state was defined
officially in the 1922 Constitution as secular, the political elite were strongly
influenced by a Catholic conservative ideology, as was its population with
92.6% defining themselves as Catholic in the first census undertaken in
the Irish Free State in 1926.3 This Church/State alliance sought to fashion
an imagined community (Anderson 1983) premised upon Catholic social
teaching and established upon a normative code of conduct that reflected
the religious beliefs of the majority of the population. Political leaders promoting the nationalist ideology tended to try to out-Catholic each other in
publicly performing their religious affiliations and in capitulating to clerical
pressures for legislative development with regard to sexual morality (Smith
2004: 210). In the 1920s and 1930s, this political-religious alliance instigated a repressive zeitgeist of social and cultural conservatism ( hAllmhurin 2005: 9) which was to have a long-lasting impact on Irish society.
This article analyses how the Church/State alliance sought a spatial (re)
production of the Irish moral landscape post-independence (Crowley and
Kitchin 2008). With reference to jazz music and dance, and popular culture
more broadly, domestic and public spaces and the virtual spaces of the
national radio airwaves were key sites for the regulation of moral conduct
as the basis of the nation-building project. Nationalist discourse produced
sexualized and racialized constructions of jazz music and dance, which
were based upon spatial conceptualizations of safety (at home/in rural
spaces/with friends and family) and danger (in public spaces/in urban
settings/in the company of strangers). Discussion in this article draws on
primary archival research that examined Dil (parliamentary) debates on
jazz and radio broadcasting and national and local newspaper coverage
of sexual morality, jazz music and jazz dancing between 1920 and 1938. In
exploring representations of jazz as a threat to the Irish nation and her citizens, I focus particularly on the regulation of female moral conduct.4 In light
of feminist scholarship on nationalism (McClintock 1993; Yuval-Davis 1997;
Mayer 2000), it is argued that rigid and essentialist constructs of gender
have been crucial to building and sustaining a nations identity: national 3. http://www.cso.ie/census/census_1926_results/Volume3/C%205%201926%20
V3%20T1abc.pdf
4. I use the term her citizens because of the idealization of Mother Ireland. See
McClintocks (1993) argument that all nationalisms are gendered.
Earthly, sensual, devilish
59
ism becomes the language through which sexual control and repression
is justified, and masculine prowess is expressed and exercised (Mayer
2000: 1). I begin by examining the gendered roles accorded to citizens of
the new state and conservative attitudes towards womens lives and cultural activities in the 1920s and 1930s. The disavowal of modern, foreign
cultural influences is then explored, with a particular focus on racialized
definitions of jazz as articulated in the contemporary media and Dil discussion. The next section examines the censorship of jazz in Ireland, contextualized within debate regarding the role of the new national broadcasting
service established in 1926. Following this, concerns relating to modern,
jazz dancing are explored, charting the influence of anti-jazz campaigners on their successful introduction of the Dance Hall Act 1935, which was
further evidence of the censorious climate of the post-independence era.
Sex and the nation: discourses of morality in

post-independence Ireland
In order to understand how jazz could be proscribed in the early decades
of Irish independence, it is necessary to first consider the gendered roles
accorded to the citizens of the new state. As McClintock argues, all nations
depend on powerful constructions of gender. Despite nationalisms ideological investment in the idea of popular unity, nations have historically
amounted to the sanctioned institutionalisation of gender difference (1993:
61, original emphasis). As the romanticism of the independence movement
faded and the Free State government realized the limitations of their newly
won power, it reacted in typical post-revolutionary fashion and began to
enact restrictive measures against women (Valiulis 1995: 127).5 In 1920s
and 1930s Ireland, social interaction between men and women was increasingly regulated by the Catholic Church due to concomitant moral panics
about the liberalization of sexuality and promiscuity, as evidenced by rising
numbers of illegitimate births and abortions, sexual crimes, high levels
5. Women had been actively involved in the War of Independence (19191921) and
the Civil War (19221923), but post-independence political women, particularly Republicans, were castigated as unnatural, aberrant, dangerous and unattractive. In 1925 Bishop
Doorley warned that Women who go around taking despatches and arms from one place
to another are furies. Who would respect them and who would marry them? (cited in
Ryan 1999: 270). A number of womens groups did protest the erosion of their rights
post-independence, including the Irish Womens Citizens and Local Government Association, the National Council of Women and the National University Women Graduates
Association but, as middle-class and Dublin-based organizations they found little support
among the Irish female population (Beaumont 1997).
60
of venereal disease and increasing use of contraception (Luddy 2007).

Women were constructed in two waysboth as vulnerable to the sexual
advances of men and as temptresses. As according to the sexual double
standardthe virgin/whore dichotomywomen were deemed nave, vulnerable and at risk of inappropriate sexual advances, but at the same time
were charged with responsibility for mens sexual conduct, thereby a threat
to moral probity (OConnor 2003). The ideal of womanhood and feminine
identity promoted for young Catholic girls was that of the Virgin Mother, an
asexual/desexualized construction of self-sacrificing motherhood that had
developed as part of the cult of the Virgin Mary (Mariolatry) during the
period of the Catholic Devotional Revolution in the late nineteenth century
(Martin 1997; Nash 1997; Cusack 2000). As Meaney argues, the fusion
of the iconographies of Mother Ireland and the Blessed Virgin became
the lynchpin of the ideology of race and gender (2007: 52). Motherhood
was conceived, within a disciplinary grid (Crowley and Kitchin 2008: 358)
of legislative and discursive reinforcements, as womens proper role in
society, and the discourses which grounded women in domesticity at the
same time conferred on them status and responsibility for producing and
maintaining the population:
The womans duties in this regard especially that of bringing up
children, are of such far-reaching importance for the nation and the
race, that the need of safeguarding them must outweigh almost every
other consideration (Irish Monthly, 1925: 2829 cited in Valiulis 1995:
127).
Women were thus accorded a key responsibility for the maintenance of

moral order and sexual purity as a function of the postcolonial project to
promote an essential Irishness (Meaney 2007). The advancement of the
Irish race from savagery to civilization, from primitivism to progress, was
premised upon the control of sexuality and sexual practices. This civilizing
process was based upon discourses of Victorian moralism grafted onto
Catholic social teaching (Inglis 2005). Transgressors of this national moral
code, particularly unmarried mothers, were castigated as threats both to
mother Church and mother Ireland. Yet the practice of postponed marriage meant that marriage was not an option for many young men and
women, who chose or were forced by economic necessity to emigrate.6
6. The system of partible inheritance, or the subdivision of land between all sons,
was common in Ireland before the Great Famine of 184549, but was subsequently
blamed as the cause of poverty and starvation. Thereafter, land inheritance trends moved
towards a system of impartible inheritance, meaning that only one child would inherit the
61
Given the scapegoating of the young modern woman as the root of

Eve-like temptation in Irish society and the limited life choices available to
them in this restrictive and conservative environment, it is perhaps unsurprising that Ireland had an unusually high proportion of female emigration by comparison with broader European trends. The Irish Press noted
a marked excess of females among the emigrants from 1926 to 1936; in
this period an average of 9,511 females emigrated each year, compared
with 7,421 males (28 August 1936: 1, Free State Population: Slight Fall
Since 1926). It is estimated that in the same period a total of 46,000, mostly
single/unmarried Irish women (compared to 30,000 men) emigrated to
Britain (Ryan 2001: 274). Female emigration was a source of moral panic in
the 1920s and 1930s, both in terms of the danger emigrant girls posed to
the nation in the act of leaving and also the dangers awaiting these unchaperoned women abroad (Ryan 2001). Women who chose to move beyond
and outside the private sphere of home, their accorded place in society,
were often discursively produced as pos[ing] a threat to settled patriarchal
order (Massey 1998: 11). Concerns were expressed in the Irish Press with
regard to female emigration, within which women were again conceived in
terms of their biological function as reproducers of the Irish race:
The growth of the population depends on the net reproduction rate
which derives from women of child-bearing age. It is, therefore, a
grievous thing that a big majority of those who emigrated from 1926
to 1936 were girls and young women This opens a disquieting
prospect, for a falling population here would sterilize the new industrialization as well as weaken the country in every other way (6 January
1937: 6, Will England be Irish in 2037?).
Spatialized constructions of the safe, rural places of home in/as the domestic
marital setting and home in/as Ireland were juxtaposed with unsafe conceptualizations of the urban, modern, unknown and foreign cities of America and
England. A letter to the Westmeath Examiner claimed that:
[T]here are no people under the sun so moralas the rural Irish
These simple boys and girls have not even the remotest idea of what
they are to be brought into contact with over there. The United States
are verily and truly Cosmopolitan, giving evidence of the vices of every
nation representedvices which appear under forms which I shall not
farm. Siblings who did not benefit tended to leave the land and often to leave the country
also, and to marry late or not to marry at all. This effected postponed marriage patterns in
Ireland. In 1926, for example, it was estimated that about 26% of women remained unmarried at age 45. In the 1930s, three-quarters of 2534-year-old men remained unmarried
(Lee 1973: 6).
62

speak of, but to the awful temptations of which our boys and girls will
be daily and hourly exposed (14 August 1920: 6, Emigration: A Word
of Warning).
The Irish Independent often warned in xenophobic terms against the

dangers of the stranger for those over-ambitious young women seeking
better conditions outside of home:
[O]thers will discover when it is too late that if poverty must be
endured it is better to face it amongst friends and relatives in Ireland
than in a strange land amongst strangers (23 August 1924: 6, An Evil
Unchecked).7
In 1936, a social worker with the Catholic Bureau warned that:

The greatest pitfalls await the young, untrained girls who leave their
country homes Friendless, in almost every instance, they wander
aimlessly in search of work in a strange city, a prey for the designing...
Irish girlsare far better off in Ireland (Irish Independent, 9 November
1936: 5, Pitfalls for Irish Girls).
This article was followed in December 1936 by a series of special articles by journalist Gertrude Gaffney on the fate of Irish girls in English
cities, announced on 3 December 1936 (Gaffney 1936a: 11). The Irish
Girl Emigrants series (Gaffney 1936a1936f) carried warnings about the
poor employment prospects for unskilled female emigrants, describing
them as nave country girls (all were assumed to be/constructed as rural
emigrants)easy prey to the undesirable acquaintance (Gaffney 1936c:
8)who will usually find themselves completely isolated and friendless
among a strange people (Gaffney1936d: 7). These lonely Irish girls are
constructed as unworldly victims of unscrupulous men:
[W]hen the flashy-looking young men they meet in the streets address
them they are delighted to find someone to talk to They are dazzled
by London life, which, even in the East End appears to them, coming
from their quiet farms and bogs and mountains, as all glamour and
dazzle, with its brilliant light, its shops full of pretty things, its cinemas
and music halls and cafes (Gaffney 1936e: 6).
7. This was a continuation of pre-independence arguments such as that contained

within the Freemans Journal in 1908: Irish girls, beguiled by hopes of fantastic wages
abroad, give up more than they know, when instead of the simple neighbourly village life
or the friendly relations still existing in good Irish household, they choose at a distance
the tawdry, uncertain splendours of a despised servant class, and take on themselves the
terrible risk of utter failure far away from all home help. It is surely true that scarcely one
Irish girl aboard is ever happy again at heart (24 February 1908).
63
Irish women, both in Ireland and abroad, though charged with moral
responsibility for the continuance of the nation and mens moral behaviour,
were simultaneously constructed as simple, nave and in need of protection within a discourse of public morality based on a conflation of national
and patriarchal interests (OConnor 2003: 54). The next section relates
national(ist) concerns to popular cultural activities, where modern music
and dance styles and other forms of cultural consumption were posited as
being in opposition to the traditional, rural values enshrined within contemporary discourse as the foundation of national identity.
All glamour and dazzle: Rooting out foreign

cultural influences
Popular culture and popular music have been and continue to be instrumental in the construction of European national identities and ideologies
(Biddle and Knights 2007). The spatialization of Irish identity, similar to
many emergent postcolonial, national cultures, involved a fixing of Irishness to rural values. Irish culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries frequently grounded itself in a rugged soil as far removed from
the colonial metropolis and the inroads of colonialism as possible (Quigley
2003: 382). In seeking to construct a national identity embedded in Catholicism, the Catholic hierarchy mainly concerned themselves with the temptations to vice allegedly incited by popular culture. Cultural manifestations of
modern life including music, dance and cinema, and their consumption,
were disavowed as markers of urban, cosmopolitan immorality and potential corruptions of Irishness as conceived in traditionalist terms. As articulated by the Council of Bishops in Maynooth in 1927:
The evil one is ever setting his snares for unwary feet. At the moment,
his traps for the innocent are chiefly the dance hall, the bad book, the
indecent paper, the motion picture, the immodest fashion of female
dressall of which tend to destroy the virtues characteristic of our
race (cited in Carlson 1990: 9).
Fears emerged about Irish womens rejection of their true identity and their
perceived natural domestic habitat; women, it was argued, were instead
becoming fag-smoking, jazz-dancing, lip-sticking flappers (Kilkenny People 1927, cited in Valiulis 1995: 128).
From the 1920s onwards, the new forms of music and dance emerging in the US and Britain were considered corrupting to the values of Irish
people, promoting physical movements and pleasures which were antithet-
64
ical to the morally ordered bodies espoused for Irish men and women in the
postcolonial reconstruction of national Irish purity. In the 1920s, the moral
crusadersboth clerical and politicalparticularly targeted jazz music and
jazz dancing. With reference to jazz, two sites of cultural activityradio
broadcasting and the dance hallposed specific threats. Debate, which
was centred on these sites, discursively produced notions of national cultural purity as being under threat from foreign cultural corruption. Before
considering these sites of formation, I explore the racialized definitions of
jazz presented in the media and in political debate.
Negroid excrescences: racialized definitions

of jazz
Opposition to jazz was not unique to Irelandsimilar negative responses
have been noted in Britain, Europe and the USbut the specificity of the
Irish experience is bound up in particular sociohistorical conditions of colonialism and emigration and the sociopolitical context of the consolidation
of the nation-state. With regard to stereotypes of blackness, the image of
the grinning black musician was familiar to Irish audiences of the hugely
popular contemporary blackface minstrel shows from the early nineteenth
century onwards. The failure of Irish abolitionists to condemn such images
of the Negro most often presented on the Irish stage as wholly inaccurate
has been criticized, yet this was the image of blackness which was carried
to America in the minds of countless Irish emigrants (Riach 1973: 241, cited
in Chan 2005: 21). In America in the 1920s, hostility within BlackIrish relations was based on labour market competition. Irish-born immigrants, keen
to establish themselves in the economic, political and cultural hierarchy,
sought to distance themselves from black communities by invoking their
whiteness as evidence of their natural superiority (Ignatiev 1995; Garner
2004). The Irish, previously castigated through British colonial racialization, did not therefore throw the rule book out the window, but internalized
the ideology of racialized difference learned through their experience of
colonialism and engaged in an ideological battle which involved honing
skills and playing better than those from whom they learned the rules in
the first place (Garner 2007: 129). In jostling for an advanced ideological
positioning relative to black communities, the Irish drew on a dialectical
concept that judged the civilized against the uncivilized other, appealing to essentialist arguments to progress the Irish race and Irish national
identity (McVeigh and Rolston 2009: 3). Irelands whiteness was to be protected from foreign influences and foreign bodies and their whiff of promis Equinox Publishing Ltd 2011.
65
cuous interracial identifications and mixing in the cultural spaces of the hoi
polloi (Chan 2005: 21). The savagery and paganism of jazz presented
an ideal construct against which to define and measure the extent of civilization achieved by the Irish. Shiptons New History of Jazz suggests that
the term jazz in the US carried with it a disreputable image associated
with decadence, late nights, illegal booze, licentious dancing and a host of
dubious pleasures by the time it came into common usage in the 1920s,
and because of its African-American origins jazz was inextricably bound
up in the question of race (2001: 1). Anti-Black racism was diffused from
Irish-American experiences abroad; at home in Ireland, jazz and modern
dancing were used as signifiers of Otherness that represented all that was
debauched about modern life, and alarms about its effects were firmly identified in and through racialized terms.
Some early discussions of jazz music considered its aesthetic qualities
in slightly more positive, though still essentialist, terms. An article, penned
by Norman Ackland, defined jazz as a multicultural expression of
the soul of modern Americathe swan song of that strange mixture
of races that populates the great, restless cities of the West. Jazz is a
curious blend of the conventional melody of the Saxon, the plaintive
cry of the Celt, the abandoned syncopation of the negro, the riotous
improvisation of the Russian and Hungarian gypsy, and the deeply
coloured cadences of the Semite (Irish Independent, 25 July 1924:
6).
Another article, which appeared in the Sunday Independent in 1924, begins

positively in describing jazz music as intellectual, but then condemns it
as too intellectual: Jazz is made by the head and not by the heart It is
immensely clever, they say, and thats about all. There is no emotion about
it. The author, H.R.W., then claims, in scientific language, the inherent
immorality of jazz music and dance:
There is a portion of the brain whose function it is to respond to
rhythm When excited, this in turn increases the heart-beat, raises
the blood pressure, exalts the feelings, and makes us want to do
something between keeping time and fighting. This looks as if jazz
would produce much the same effect as a bottle of whiskey (Sunday
Independent, 15 June 1924: 9).
It was this alleged incitement to immorality that the Irish anti-jazz crusaders fixated upon. Jazz was constructed again and again in political debate
and in the contemporary media as being antithetical to the Gaelic spirit,
occasionally in very unpleasant and overtly racist terms. For example, a
66
contributor to the Irish Radio Review in March 1927 wrote of the physical
effects of jazz music and dance:
I know that my feet will begin to tap the floor if I hear a Jazz-band
strike up a tune. I know that the natural instinct is for me to move my
body in all sorts of ridiculous ways that my ancestors discarded years
ago But I ask, is that all that Jazz can do? Can it not wake other than
animal instincts in me? Has it not other than nigger qualities? I, for
one, do not want to ape the nigger. I wonder if all those who profess to
go into an ecstasy when they hear the haunting strains of the HoolaHoola-Blues, or such-like clap-trap, know that it is nothing short of
a reversal to the primitive, when they allow themselves to be carried
away by such arrant nonsense (cited in McLoone 2000: 314).
National and regional press coverage is replete with racialized references

to jazz and modern dancing. The Irish Times, for example, claimed that
the fox-trot, with its various negroid excrescences, is not only inartistic,
but inane (5 September 1921: 2). The Irish Times also claimed that jazz
has an appeal for those primitive passions which Freud declares to be the
prevailing factor in the subconscious mind. It furthermore argued that the
negroid influence in the present craze is very harmful and that modern
dance must divorce itself from that barbaric influence (16 March 1922:
4). The Anglo-Celt bemoaned the emergent craze for foreign and cannibal
jazz dances (27 June 1925: 2) and the Limerick Leader condoned jazz
dancings apish and heathenish inventions (cited in Chan 2005: 21). An
assessment of highbrow musical tastes pronounced that a coolie will go
into ecstasy over the rhythmical beating of a tom-tom, whereas the highbrows have had more opportunity of developing and training their musical
faculties than, say, the jazz worshippers (Irish Independent, 31 July 1926).
District Justice Goff claimed that listening and dancing to the savage
rhythm of jazz effected mental illness:
Savage rhythm is, I am afraid, associated with the arousing of certain
base passions, and is associated in that way in the minds of a very
large number of people who are not normal I am afraid that [jazz]
has made a terrible number of people abnormal, and that these
people, whom I might call jazz addicts, have lost control of themselves
(Irish Independent, 8 February 1931: 2).
A lecturer at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Mr Hubert Rooney, proclaimed jazz to be the abomination of desolation, a relic of barbarism,
fitted only to express the jerks of negroes and people of similar mentality
(Irish Press, 18 November 1932). It was also argued that jazz effected laziness. Sean OKelly of Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic League) asserted that
67
he was not so much against jazz as against the mentality that it induced,
arguing that jazz kept a man from working; it got into his mind the idea that
things should come nice and easily (Irish Times, 11 January 1934: 5).8
The Archbishop of Tuam, Rev. Dr. Gilmartin, speaking at the opening
of a Feis (festival, including Irish dance and music competitions), warned
against the character of many modern dances which would offend the
moral sense of a decent pagan. Jazz music and dance, he argued, pandered to the lower sensual instincts and so, instead of being a dignified recreation, they often became the occasion of subordinating the spirit to the
flesh (Irish Independent, 15 May 1933: 9). An adjucator at a Feis described
jazz music and jazz dancing as the greatest curse the world has ever
known. Jazz has done more absolute harm in all grades of society than
all the bad literature that ever was written. Jazz has turned society upside
down (Irish Press, 3 November 1931: 5). Many unsuccessful attempts were
made to define jazz dancing, particularly during the period of 19341936
when the Gaelic League were seeking a ban on jazz music on radio broadcasts and jazz dancing in local halls. At a meeting of Limerick County
Council, a member asked what was jazzwas it a pagan dance? to which
the Chairman replied, I dont know anything about its origin. It is un-Irish
and unworthy to be danced in any Irish dance hall (Irish Press, 15 January
1934: 7). At another meeting of the Dublin Vocational Education Committee, a member argued that the resolution to ban jazz was nonsensical and
when he asked for a definition of jazz was told that the one and two-step
dances were not jazz. Jazz dances were negro dances (Irish Times, 12
January 1934: 11). The Connacht Tribune reported that the question [What
is jazz?] has been asked in every paper for the past three weeks (10 February 1934: 7). One T.D., Mr Kehoe, helpfully defined jazz dancing as a cross
between a waltz and all-in wrestling (Dil Debates, 26 March 1936, vol. 61,
section 377-78). No consensus was reached on what jazz was, though the
anti-jazz campaign defined any foreign dance as jazz dancing and agreed
to exclude no dance that is in keeping with public Christian decency. One
of the key crusaders, Rev. P. Conefrey, deferred to the pronouncements of
an (unnamed) Oxford Professor that jazz is something that should not as
much be mentioned amongst us and is borrowed from the language of
the savages of Africa, and its object is to destroy virtue in the human soul
(Leitrim Observer, 10 February 1934: 1).
8. The Gaelic League was a cultural revivalist organization founded in 1893 with the
aim of preserving Irish language, literature, traditional music and dance.
68
As can be read from many of the quotations above, the key source of
concern in relation to the effects of jazz music and dance was the impact on
the healthy Irish body, in terms of both mental and physical inducements to
pagan, base or animalistic movements and desires. Such fears, articulated
through racialized and sexualized constructions of jazz music and dance,
were central to legislative responses to the threat of jazz and its anticipated
destructive impact on the Irish body politic. Below, I explore the employment of this anti-jazz rhetoric in relation to two key spaces of Irish cultural
identity formation, the broadcasting service and the dance halls.
A question of great importance: radio

broadcasting and national identity
McLoone (2000) argues that in the months preceding the inauguration of
Irelands first broadcasting service, 2RN, in 1926, the cultural agenda, more
than the political or economic, was pre-eminent in debates about the services normative function. The general consensus within the Dil regarding
the purpose of radio broadcasting was that it should act as an institution
which would protect and preserve Irish national identity. Jazz musics purported deleterious effects, as grounds for its removal from the airwaves,
were mooted in an editorial in the Irish Independent newspaper as early
as 1921, which cited the expressions of moral panic about jazz in America:
Dont permit vulgar cheap jazz music to be played. Such music almost
forces dancers to use jerky half-steps, and invites immoral variations. Justification for the banning of jazz made reference to the threat of social and
moral disorder, describing jazz as
that expression of protest against law and order, that Bolshevik element
of licence striving for expression in music Jazz disorganises all
regular laws and order; it stimulates to extreme deeds, to a breaking
away from all rules and conventions; it is harmful and dangerous, and
its influence is wholly bad (Irish Independent, 20 September 1921: 3,
Is Jazz to Go?).
Such assertions were also supported by the pseudo-scientific literature

of the time, drawing from American research conducted on the physical
effects of listening to jazz:
A number of scientific men who have been working on experiments in
musico-therapy with the insane, declare that while regular rhythms and
simple tones produce a quieting effect on the brain of even a violent
patient, the effect of jazz on the normal brain produces an atrophied
condition on the brain cells of conception, until very frequently those
69
under the demoralising influence of the persistent use of syncopation, combined with inharmonic partial tones, are actually incapable of
distinguishing between good and evil, between right and wrong (Irish
Independent, 20 September 1921: 3, Is Jazz to Go?).
In reacting to the suggested evils of jazz, the state adopted an approach

which essentially infantilized the Irish citizen, proposing an argument for
censorship which would be for the benefit of a population which ought
to be saved from themselves (see also McLoone 2000). The tone of Dil
contributions was often overtly authoritarian with regard to the role of moral
custodians of State institutions in preserving Irish habits, such as that of
the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, J. J. Walsh, who intend[ed] to shut
down [the broadcasting service] at 10.30 punctually I consider that it is
a bad practice to take people off the normal track of living: to keep them
up late at night and to disturb the usual routine of life unduly (28 January
1926, Dil Debates, vol. 14 no. 3, section 273), though this was challenged
by another contributor: I am not satisfied with the Ministers emphatic
statement that everybody has to be in bed at ten-thirty (28 January 1926,
Dil Debates, vol. 14 no. 3, section 285). Also discussed was the removal
of jazz from Irish broadcasting, again in normative terms about Irish peoples conduct at home: I do not knowwhy it [jazz] was included at all,
unless to enable people to dance in their own homes, but they hardly get
time enough for that I am glad to see it has been abolished or, at least, it
has been dropped recently (28 January 1926, Dil Debates, vol. 14 no. 3,
section 286).
The state considered the question of broadcasting as one of great
importance. For example, D. J. Gorey, T.D.,9 argued that:
It is scarcely necessary to say that broadcasting in the future may
develop into one of the greatest elements of our national life. Perhaps
in the very near future broadcasting may find its way into a good many
homes, possibly into every home. When one realises the great educational influence that broadcasting will have in this and every other
country where it is operating, to my mind it will be almost as important
in a national and moral sense as our schools (15 February 1924, Dil
Debates, vol. 6 no. 15, section 1112).
References were made to the threat of foreign popular cultural influences

in arguments about safeguarding the broadcasting service as an institution
of the moral state:
9. T.D. = Teachta Dil member of parliament.
70

The matter that will be transmitted should, in my opinion, be carefully revised from the moral and national standpoint. We do not want
the minds of our youths contaminated with some of the stuff that the
youths of other countries have been imbibing (15 February 1924, Dil
In 1926, Richard Heffernan T.D. outlined the importance of broadcasting as

a national mechanism for confronting the dangers of jazz dancing:
In recent years the people have broken out of bounds and insisted on
getting entertainment. As a result, dancing goes on night after night. If
you take up a local newspaper now you find announcement of dances
prominently advertised. I think that is the result of modern development, but I think the desire for entertainment and pleasure might be
availed of to lead the people along more cultured lines, and that the
use of wireless might contribute in a way that would be desirable to
the education of people living in rural areas (15 February 1924, Dil
It was suggested in 1936 that jazz could be completely eradicated from the
programmes of Radio Athlone [I]f we want jazz we can get it via England
in the very best possible formand we might be mercifully spared the
infliction of hearing Radio Athlone relaying it (26 March 1936, Dil Debates,
vol. 61, section 377-78). In 1943, jazz and crooning music ceased to be
broadcast on Radio ireann entirely following pressure from the Dil and
was not reinstated until January 1948.
Radio broadcasting was therefore an important site of power for the
Irish political elite; this was a virtual space controlled by government
through which the disciplining of bodies could be articulated. Broadcasting was recognized as a cultural institution which could be harnessed in
the production of the new national moral landscape, which particularly
responded to the needs, perceived and constructed, of the mostly rural
population (in 1926, 61.1% of the Irish population lived outside towns and
villages. In total, 78.2% lived in rural areas, including towns and villages
with less than 10,000 in population10). Such concerns for the protection of
the populace and their values were also evident in relation to the regulation of dance halls, particularly in rural spaces, where the encroachment
of both foreign and urban cultural activities was considered a potential
threat to the nation.
10. http://www.cso.ie/census/census_1926_results/Volume10/C%201926%20
V10%20Chapter%20II.pdf
71
No worse fomenter of great evil: jazz dancing

and the Dance Hall Act 1935
Fears about media and cultural imperialism were commonly voiced in the
1920s and early 1930s in the press, and in political and clerical debate,
becoming increasingly prevalent in the years preceding the Dance Hall Act
of 1935, reflecting as McLoone puts it, the censorious climate of Ireland
in these years (2000: 308). Stokess assertion that social dance bringing
together unmarried men and women in public space is a problem in any
society in which social and moral order is imaged in terms of marriage
and the confinement of sexuality within the domestic unit is particularly
pertinent to this context (Stokes 1994: 23). The Bishop of Galway in 1924
exhorted his flock to play an active role in protecting Irish society from the
worst excesses of foreign, corrupting values, condemning the burgeoning
music/dance styles as not the clean, healthy national dances but importations from the vilest dens of London, Paris and New York, direct and unmistakable incitements to evil thought and evil desire and urging parents to
control their childrens cultural activities: Fathers of this parish, if your girls
do not obey you, if they are not in at the hour appointed, lay the lash upon
their backs. That was the good old system and that should be the system
today (Irish Catholic Directory 1924, cited in Curtis 1994). A statement
from the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland in Maynooth in 1925 argued
that there is no worse fomenter ofgreat evil than the dancing hall and
the occasion of sin and sin itself are the attendance of night dances in
particular.11 Fr. Devane, a Jesuit social worker, argued that Native music
and dance have given way to jazz, crooning, and the dances of African
primitives (cited in Duffy 2009: para. 22). National dances, it was argued,
do not make degenerates (ibid.), but as stated by the Archbishop of Tuam
in 1927: instead of Irish dances, we have sensuous contortions of the body
timed to a semibarbaric music (cited in Long 2006: 12). The new music
cultures originating in Black-American communities, the so-called hectic
pleasures of the crowded dancehall, were condemned in overtly racist
terms as negroid importations, earthly, sensual and devilish, which are
direct incitements to sensuality and sinful passion (Dr McNamee, Bishop
of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise 1935, cited in Ryan 1998b: 270).12
11. Full text available at http://www.setdance.com/archive/evils_of_dancing.htm.
12. Brennans exploration of the reinvention of the Irish dance tradition explains how,
as part of the cultural revivalist period of Romantic nationalism in the late nineteenth
century, foreign influences (primarily French, Scottish and English) were rooted out of
dancing in the re-presentation of the national dancing style (Brennan 1994).
72
Young women were instead urged to fashion themselves according to

that Christian modesty of which Mary is the model and to eschew the
laxity in that maidenly decorum in dress and in conduct which is the greatest safeguard of female virtue (Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 1926, Editorial).
Female fashion was forcefully denigrated by the clerics who suggested that
women of Ireland, heretofore renowned for their virtue and honour, go about
furnished with the paint-pot, the lipstick and a dance to-day showed some
of our Irish girls in such scanty drapery as could only be exceeded in the
slave markets of pagan countries (Irish Independent, 13 October 1926). Dr
Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, pronounced that ladies sometimes appeared
atdances dressed to leave almost half the body nude (Irish Independent, 4 March 1935). The Marian ideal of womanhood was thus seen to be
eroding in 1920s society under the tyranny of present-day fashions:
[W]omen and girls in our towns and cities frequently dress in a way
that is calculated to arouse the basest passions The prevailing
scantiness of attire, which barely conforms to the laws of decency, is a
moral danger both to the wearer, whose self-respect must necessarily
be weakened by it, and to the beholder, and a very grave responsibility rests on those who put themselves and others into such dangerous
occasions of sin (Irish Ecclesiastical Record, May 1926, Editorial).
Jazz dancing was used generically to indicate all non-traditional forms

of social dance and dancing bodiesemerged as sites of identity formation (OConnor 2005: 89). Jazz was particularly problematic because of
the physicality involvedit was not jazz music per se, but the gendered
and embodied identities produced in/through jazz dancing that were the
main cause of moral panic, particularly with regard to the female dancer;
the fear of modernitywas mapped onto the body of the modern dancing
woman (OConnor 2005: 101). The embodied subjectivity of the female
jazz dancerincorporating an inappropriate style of dance (closed couple
dancing) and inappropriate physical adornments (clothing and cosmetics)
were an affront to the authentic and pure Irish identity as embodied in traditional Irish dance.
The Carrigan Committee, named after its chairman, was established in
1931 to examine alleged moral degeneracy among Irish people, and in contributions to this forum, a number of priests lamented the liberal behaviours
of their young parishioners who return home late at nightfrom dance
halls. The proposed solution to these social problems was to seek to limit
opportunities for sexual activity, to eradicate sexual immorality at the point
of origin and to remove, as far as possible, the occasion of offence (Rev.
73
J. Canavan 1932, cited in Smith 2004: 216). Rev. Canavan articulated the
necessity in this endeavour for the rigorous control of dance halls, though
civil servants attacked this outcome of the Carrigan Committees report,
which they argue, wanders some way from the terms of reference (cited
in Smyth 1993: 53). Undeterred, Cardinal MacRory in 1931 condemned the
New Paganism evidenced among the young generation, within which is
found a craze for pleasure and excitement, an impatience of parental control
andsomething approaching a mania for dancing. He urged Catholics to
roll back this tide of paganism expressed in evil literature, bad pictures,
indecent dances and fashions and immoral views on the sacred contract
of matrimony. Of particular concern was the threat of the stranger or outsider and the clergy suggested imposing a geographic limit on attendees
in the interests of protecting the sanctity and the (perceived) safety of rural
spaces. Youth employment had afforded some the possibility of purchasing
motor cars, leading Cardinal MacRory to express concerns about a great
and common source of evil: the parking of motor cars close to dance halls
in badly lighted village streets or on dark country roads. Cars so placed
are usedby young people for sitting out the intervals between dances
(Irish Independent, 16 February 1931: 5). Dr ODoherty, Bishop of Galway,
warned that the dance hall was practically on every occasion a danger,
where evil men lured girls out on the roads from the town for most foul and
evil purposes (Irish Independent, 11 May 1931). In a sermon in Galway he
warns girls about the dangers of joy-riding:
Evil mendemons in human formcome from outside the parish
and outside the cityto indulge in this practice. They lure girls from
the town to go for motor drives into the country, and you know what
happens It is not for the benefit of the motor drive. It is for something infinitely worse You must not go into the occasions of sin; you
must check evil thoughts and evil desires; you must avoid dangerous
dances (Connacht Tribune, 9 May 1931: 21).
A letter to the Editor of the Anglo-Celt referring to the scandalous conduct

in the dance halls, claimed that these were
a disgrace to any Catholic country, and there appears to be no control
whatsoever. I was an eye-witness to these dances, namely the jazz,
fox-trot, the shimmy dance, and the Blues, and my opinion is that not
alone are they immoral and vulgar, but disgusting (7 August 1926: 6).
An Irish Times editorial in 1929 referred to the possibility of legislatively

limiting jazz dancing: the strict supervision of dance halls and the banning
(by law if need be) of all night dances would abolish many inducements to
74
sexual vice (cited in hAllmhurin 2005: 10). With regard to the banning
of jazz dances, the Gaelic League in 1934 appealed to the Church, teaching organizations and public boards to inform the government that jazz
would not be tolerated because of its being against Christianity, learning
and the spirit of nationality (Irish Press, 12 January 1934: 3). Pressures
on the government for the proscription of dance halls intensified when the
Gaelic League launched its Anti-Jazz Campaign in 1934, organizing a
New Years Day protest march in Mohill, County Leitrim, attended by 3,000
people shouting slogans such as Down with jazz! and Out with paganism! (Weekly Irish Times, 6 January 1934: 4, Campaign Against Night
Dances). The Secretary of the League, Sean OKelly, also controversially
condemned the Minister Sean MacEntee, responsible for funding broadcasting: Our Minister of Finance has a soul buried in jazz and is selling the
musical soul of the nation for the dividends of sponsored jazz programmes.
He is jazzing every night of the week (cited in Smyth 1993: 54). A newly
appointed President of a Co. Dublin branch of the Gaelic League, the
determined enemies of jazz, reflected on the success of the Mohill protest,
hoping that it had sounded the death-knell of jazz and all it connoted.
He furthermore argued that the previous ten years were a decade of jazz
music, jazz dance, jazz cinema, and jazz junketing and jazz law [T]hose
years would be treated by historians as the Jazz Age in Irish history (Irish
Times, 11 January 1934: 5).
Due to clerical and establishment pressures, protest against jazz dancing culminated legislatively in the introduction of the Dance Hall Act 1935,
passed without Dil debate, imposing limitations on all public dances
which would henceforth require a licence held by a person of good character and obtained from a district justice (see hAllmhurin 2005; Smyth
1993). Music and dance performances, even in the national style, were dislocated from the preferred spaces of the country house kitchen, barn and
crossroads in favour of licensed spaces of parochial halls and local schools
which could be monitored by the local clergy. Contrary to the cosy myths of
rural Ireland, the crossroads were not entirely deemed to be an appropriate space for exposition of national cultural music and dance forms. MacMahon recalls events in the 1930s when: Wooden roadside platforms were
set on fire by curatespriests drove their motorcars backward and forward
over the timber platformsand those who played music at dances were
branded as outcasts (cited in Whyte 1971: 28).13
13. It is argued that the Dance Hall Act was never intended to prohibit crossroad or
75
Even after the introduction of the Dance Hall Act 1935, further limitations
on jazz dancing were imposed, as an article from the Irish Press in 1938
demonstrates, where District Justice Goff (an especially zealous opponent
of jazz) in Co. Louth argued in his court that jazz dancing is a definitely
harmful form of amusement, and has definitely bad moral effect and thereafter sought to enforce greater restrictions through reneging licences beyond
11pm, though exceptions would be made for genuine Irish dancing or
where clergymen make themselves personally responsible for the dances
and only where there was a guarantee that there will be no jazz whatever
(10 September 1938: 6, Justice Declares War on Jazz). A parish priest
from Leitrim in the Irish Press also argued that
The leaders of men in Ireland to-day are responsible for this grave
social menace to the new-born ire. The seriousness of it was not
noticed until it had spread into the rural areas. But unfortunately, it has
spread and it exemplifies how the youth of Ireland are being led.
Not all were in agreement with those who campaigned against jazz. For
example, prior to the introduction of the Dance Hall Act 1935, two Derrybased Gaelic Athletics Association (G.A.A.) clubs controversially withdrew
from competitions in protest at the proposed ban on using G.A.A. facilities for jazz dances and there were heated exchanges at the meeting as
reported in the Irish Times: I might as well tell you that we are going to
continue jazzing and we will run jazz dances in spite of the G.A.A. (31
January 1930: 8). One irate correspondent in the Irish Independent noted
the lack of consensus on what exactly constituted jazz, heavily criticizing members of the Gaelic League and their tirade against jazz: They are
at loggerheads as to what is jazz and what is not [T]he majority of the
speakers class everything non-Irish as jazz. This correspondent ridiculed
the purging of jazz: How many of these valiant dictators can dance even
one step to an Irish jig or reel? Probably not one Before these leading
lights of the Gael run amok again, for Irelands sake let them learn some
rudiments of common-sense (24 November 1934: 6).
It is important to note, therefore, OConnors (2003) warning against
extrapolating from Church and State documentation an assumption that
their moral dictates were strictly obeyed. Daly argues that the 1930s might
be less unremittingly bleak than might be assumed (1995: 101) and Ryan
house dances, as evidenced in Department of Justice files dealing with the application
of the Act which were eventually made available to scholars in the 1980s and 1990s
(hAllmhurin 2005: 11).
76
(1998a) also cautions against overstating the success of cultural proscriptions. The population never entirely succumbed to this nationalist vision
of Irish cultural identity, closed off from outside influences. Modernization
in the 1930s offered some, though primarily middle-class, urban (Dublin)based young women increased levels of independence. Many thousands
emigrated in the early decades of independence and many of those who
stayed embraced the new popular music cultures from abroad despite religious and legislative proscriptions. The number of dance halls in Ireland in
1938 was estimated at 1,176 and an article from The Irish Times noted with
reference to the Dance Hall Act 1935 that its failure to reduce or limit the
number of public dancehalls, or to standardize their control, is admitted
(Irish Times, 7 February 1938: 4). Smyth (1993) argues that the legislative
ban on unregulated dances indicates the Churchs inability to control the
leisure pursuits of young Catholics during this time when American popular
culture was, as hAllmhurin puts it, selling its way across the Atlantic
(2005: 10). Though the enormous influence of the Catholic Church must be
acknowledged with respect to public morality, and womens lives in particular, neither should this be overstated.
Conclusion
This article has explored how, in the decades immediately following independence, the Irish political establishment sought to construct a national
identity and sense of difference from its colonizer which was itself based
upon notions of cultural purity and exclusion and essentialist ideas of
race, ethnicity and difference. Fears about cultural imperialism overshadowing and gradually usurping national culture led to an Othering of jazz
music and dance. Young women, accorded a special position as protectors
of national purity, were vehemently condemned in media and Dil debate
for eschewing their perceived responsibility to the nation, as construed by
Church and State, instead seeking out sensual pleasures associated with
modern music and dance. The idea of jazzassociated with sexual impropriety, paganism and racial impuritywas an ideal construct against which
to compare the sanctitude of traditional Irish, Catholic and rural values. The
broadcasting service and the dance halls became key sites for exercising
disciplinary control on Irish peoples lives. Radio broadcastings role was
not to be mere entertainment, within which jazz might have a position;
rather, broadcasting was centred within a cultural agenda, having a normative educational function. The dance halls were also strongly regulated
to exclude jazz, through Church control of activities and legislatively with
77
the introduction of the Dance Hall Act 1935. Though not entirely successful in their mission to control the population, given the ongoing popularity
of modern music and dance styles, the moral crusaders within the State/
Church alliance were deeply influential in maintaining a Catholic conservative stronghold on cultural activities in Ireland of the 1920s and 1930s.
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[JRJ 4.1 (2010) 81-86]

doi:10.1558/jazz.v4i1.81

Review
Charles Hersch, Subversive Sounds: Race and the

Birth of Jazz in New Orleans. Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press, 2007. Xii + 289 pp.
Bruce Boyd Raeburn

Hogan Jazz Archive, 6801 Freret Street, Room 304, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118,
USA
raeburn@tulane.edu
This is a book that anyone interested in the origins of jazz in New Orleans
must read. In Subversive Sounds, Charles Hersch provides the most complete and incisive analysis currently available on the implications of the emergence of jazz with regard to perceptions of race and concomitant cultural
dynamics, effectively utilizing oral histories, police reports, court records,
correspondence, photographs, film, and journalistic ephemera, along with
a judicious exposition of secondary sources related to the historiography of
race relations and American popular music, primarily with a tight focus on
New Orleans. He contends that the regionally distinctive social synergies
and blurring of racial, aesthetic, and class (but rarely gender) boundaries
that enabled and were expanded by the rise of jazz in the Crescent City,
subverted the social controls intrinsic to segregation, policies that were
designed to preserve white purity by keeping it free of African American
cultural penetration. Indeed, some whites (and Creoles of color) could
not get enough of the black vernacular music that became the wellspring
for jazz, and Hersch believes that that interest catalyzed a broadening of
attitudes within American culture and society that was inimical to the classification of society and behavior according to racial stereotypes, opening
up possibilities for malleable and dynamic modes of American identity
described here as inclusive subjectivities. Rather than choosing between
black music and melting pot explanations for jazz, Hersch posits a third
alternative: an atomistic and relativistic approach to jazz origins, contextualizing the process within the concept of creolization, in which fluidity of
identity inheres in negotiated cultural interactions among diverse groups.
The book tracks the transformative dialectics of cultural creation, resistance
to dissemination, and eventual acceptance as an art form that accompanied the rise of jazz, traversing the cultural landscape of New Orleans to
82
explore the revolutionary potential of dance halls and saloons that catered
to racially mixed audiences (even before jazz), lakefront resorts where black
and white jazz musicians played within earshot of each other, and a panoply
of street-based musical activities ranging from brass band parades (which
Hersch calls arenas of impurity) to spasm bands and vocal quartets. Given
the economic imperatives that governed the market at the time that jazz
was coalescing, relating to what Hersch sees as a shortage of musicians
to cover a burgeoning demand for music of all kinds at the beginning of
the twentieth century, jazz musicians developed broad repertoires and skill
sets that allowed them to work for various constituencies, ranging from the
underclass to the social elite. Market conditions, as well as desire, therefore
furthered the process of subverting the political apparatus that sustained
apartheid and expanded the possibilities for negotiation of identity beyond
the prevailing racial stereotypes, although limits placed upon black musicians fortunes and freedom of movement remained formidable in the face
of white privilege and discrimination.
A consistent theme running throughout this work is the hybrid nature
of New Orleans culture on virtually all levels and the contradictions and
exceptions that result from this couture de metissage. Hersch argues that
music within the citys black community (itself portrayed as a cauldron of
racial and ethnic diversity, both free and enslaved, albeit in the throes of
reconfiguration in the late nineteenth century due to emancipation and segregation) was never self-contained or pure (p. 88). Accordingly, although
jazz was shaped by an African-derived sensibility that situated music as
central to existencea necessity for all rather than a luxury for the fewit
also drew eclectically from a myriad of sources for inspiration and raw
material, including the Eurocentric canon and what is often referred to as
the Latin Tinge. As an aural environment, New Orleans was undoubtedly
singular in the richness and variegation of its ambient musical miasma,
especially in the streets and along the wharfs, but Hersch also tracks the
cultural backwash that spread into the rural hinterland, evident in the blending of amateur and conservatory pedagogical traditions by itinerant black
professors such as James B. Humphrey (who taught plantation workers to
play for recreation) and in the resulting migration of rural musicians to the
city. One of the strengths of this study is the wealth of anecdotal information drawn from oral histories, revealing the predilections of individual jazz
personalities in all their quirkiness and animating the broader discussion
of ethnic and racial classifications and the generalizations applied to them.
Hersch provides the best portrait in print of the obscure cornetist Chris
Review
83
Kelly, a mysterious figure who never recorded but achieved legendary

status among New Orleans jazz musicians nonetheless for his idiosyncratic
rendering of the blues. Kelly was trained in the country by J. B. Humphrey
and used the skills he learned there to build a career for himself as a jazz
musician dedicated to playing exclusively for underclass audiences in the
city. He became the antithesis of the Protestant work ethic, sporting outlandish outfits, performing haphazardly and self-indulgently, and indicating
absolutely no desire to better himself by playing for rich white folks. Like
Signor Cornmeal in the 1830s or Ruthie The Duck Woman in the 1970s,
Kelly became one of those celebrated characters for which New Orleans
has long been famous.
Ultimately, Subversive Sounds relaxes its tight focus on New Orleans
and moves on to a broader consideration of the legacy of jazz in shaping
perceptions of race in national (one is tempted to say universal) terms. In
tracing the respective career trajectories of Jelly Roll Morton (Creole), Nick
LaRocca (white), and Louis Armstrong (African American)the personification as historical jazz avatars of the three constituent racial/ethnic archetypes presented in this studyHersch explores the vagaries attending the
widespread dissemination of New Orleans jazz and its consequent transition from a functional music defining community life at home to a commodity within the popular entertainment industry. One wishes that some
consideration of Mortons multifaceted gifts as a composer and arranger
excelling in orchestral variegation had been included in this discussion (his
version of New Orleans style was certainly distinct from Armstrongs), but
as Hersch points out, of the three, only Armstrong succeeded in sustaining continuous interest and major long-term sales in the popular music
market. Interestingly, Hersch interprets Armstrongs charismatic hold on
the American consumer as a conduit for the inculcation of New Orleansbased values (especially the celebration of racial and ethnic diversity and
cultural variegation and blending) into the American cultural mainstream,
while also recognizing that jazz continues to manifest itself in New Orleans
today in very different ways than it does in New York, the nations jazz
capital. Ironically, Armstrongs ability to make the black vernacular accessible to broader audiences was crucial in achieving the legitimization of
jazz as an iconic American art, inspiring a movement of advocates for its
recognition grounded in concepts of purity which compromised, to some
extent, the musics continued potency as an agent for racial fluidity (pp.
20910). In his conclusion, Hersch interrogates contemporary American
attitudes about race in light of the lessons derived from his analysis of jazz
84
origins in New Orleans, offering the notion of racial inter-subjectivity: A

kind of inner shift that goes beyond being exposed to anothers culture
emphasiz[ing] the way our identity, even our basic experience of the world
and of ourselves, is inseparable from our relationships with others (pp.
206207). In this shared reality, the act of making music enables pathways
to new identities in the blending of subjectivities and in requiring emotional
and intellectual connection as the measure of success. This is perhaps
why jazz is often referred to as the sound of surprise. Herschs point is
that the musicians may just as easily surprise themselves as their audience
with what happens on the bandstand and will grow accordingly, not just as
musicians but as humans. While some may find the theoretical arguments
contained in this book of varying utility, they are all worthy of consideration, and the richness of factual detail on early New Orleans players and
practices alone qualifies this volume as an important contribution to jazz
studies.
Yet, one can nevertheless take issue with some of the viewpoints and
conclusions expressed in Subversive Sounds. Positing a chronology of jazz
origins based on graphic representation in and contemporaneous (and
later academic) reactions to the Robinsons Band Plays Anything cartoon
gracing the cover of The Mascot on November 15, 1890 (p. 4) or presenting
commentary from editors in the Daily Picayune in 1894 decrying the potential for race mixing inherent in what Hersch refers to as the new music
(p.5) may serve to bolster the books primary thesis, but it is a leap of faith
to interpret the music in question as jazz without significant corroboration
from other, less specious, sources. Certainly, the trend apparent in the work
of Lawrence Gushee and others in recent years theorizes jazz origins much
later, closer to the turn of the century (and after). Furthermore, repeated citation of commentary in The Mascot (a self-consciously lurid scandal sheet
that wallowed in controversy and dedicated itself to creating it) to establish factual content or as a gauge of public opinion requires exceptional
diligence and qualification, which is largely lackingit is the equivalent of
citing unsubstantiated testimony in todays National Enquirer as factual. In
at least one instance, the authors designation of a performance site as perennially ratty (p. 32) is too static and confining: the Masonic/Odd Fellows
Hall at the intersection of Perdido and South Rampart streets served John
Robichauxs respectable Creole bands as well as disreputable bands such
as Boldens. This location was a rental space that conformed to the preferences of whatever group paid for it; yet categorizing a sponsoring organization or band according to respectable/ratty binaries can sometimes be
Review
85
inherently problematical. A poster for a grand ball sponsored by the Young

Mens Olympian Benevolent Association Jrs. for the benefit of its tomb fund
at Odd Fellows Hall on January 8, 1900 states: Kill it kid for it is nothing but
a chinch; Walk into it for it is a lead pipe cinch. For that 3 oclock quadrille
it [is] all the go; whenever it is played by the old Boy ROBICHAUX. This
is not the sort of language one would expect from proper Creoles, which
illustrates how even respectable band leaders such as Robichaux in his
pre-jazz days (and the Central City-based black association that hired
him) could dabble in the ratty for fun without sacrificing respectability,
thus calling into question overdrawn boundaries, while nevertheless bolstering the overall argument that music generated malleability. Hersch is
well aware that New Orleans musicians transformed themselves depending on the requirements of their clientele and the occasionit is one of the
strengths of his bookbut occasionally he lapses into incarcerating his
subjects in categorical imperatives for heuristic purposes.
Moreover, while there is a wealth of detail throughout the book relating to
pedagogy, performance practices, performance sites, and especially social
interaction across ethnic and racial boundaries, there is a lack of chronological precision that inhibits discussion of the cultural dynamics associated with early New Orleans jazz. In particular, arguments relating to Creole
acceptance or rejection of jazz (pp. 2122, 6469, 98108) would be more
compelling and concise if the age of various participants had been effectively factored into the equation: for example, Isidore Barbarin (born 1872),
of the Onward Brass Band, was a French-speaking Creole who was impervious to the allure of jazz, but his sons Paul and Louis (both drummers, born
1899 and 1902 respectively) embraced it, while also eschewing the Creole
language. The youngsters were more like their uptown black counterparts
than their parents were. The incidence of a generation gap pertaining to
jazz within the Barbarin household (and also for the Tio and the Roppolo
families, along with many others, conforming to the same general time line)
makes a more precise documentation of jazz-informed cohorts as distinct
from their predecessors possible, an exercise that would have tightened
the chronological threshold for this study. To be sure, some older Creoles
(such as Peter Bocage and Manuel Perez) adapted to jazz, unlearning
to some extent their conservatory training; for others, like Charlie Bocage
(Petes younger brother), Sidney Bechet and Freddie Keppard, the ear
music/head arrangement approach to music was all they ever knew. The
continued dissolution of Creole cultural hegemony at this time (especially
post-Plessy) undoubtedly pushed younger Afro-French musicians toward
86
black vernacular music (even if they identified as white, like Achille Baquet),
inciting them to reject Creole heritage and to seek new modes of identification based on their personal accomplishments as artists and entertainers to compensate for the degradation inflicted upon their elders. This
process was compounded, of course, by the attractive power of the blues
to stir their imaginations, a topic which Hersch explores comprehensively in
addressing the transformative power of the black vernacularin this study,
even Nick LaRocca, the white segregationist, does some signifyin! A more
complete and incisive chronological template would also have clarified the
relative importance and interconnection of indoor and outdoor events in
early jazz, which are presented in sequential terms from the former to the
latter, a characterization that may obscure the degree to which such activities were integrated from the beginning. Even so, such deficiencies do not
detract substantially from the value of this book, which is primarily concerned with illuminating how concepts of race informed the cultural dynamics associated with jazzs emergence and were themselves transformed in
the process, which it does exceptionally well.

On Jazz, Memory and History

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On Jazz, Memory and History

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[JRJ 4.

(print) ISSN 1753-8637

Jazz Research Journal

Equinox Publishing Ltd 2011.

[JRJ 4.1 (2010) 7-14]

(print) ISSN 1753-8637