Jazz Music World

Research Proposal
Overview

● Jazz is a musical style that has become the basis for

the formation of networks.
● These networks have formed certain types
relationships among members and with other members
of other musical styles (i.e. hiphop, indigenous music,
etc). Research shows that this depends largely on the
social space that the network is situated in (McGee
2015; Stevenson 2014; Merriam 1964; Lopes 2000).
● Research question: Is Jazz in the Philippines more
egalitarian and collaborative?

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What is Jazz?

Aesthetically...
– Music that is highly improvised
– Afro-American origins; combining Euro-American
classical music and African-American
folk/popular music.
– tension between improvisation and
standardization (Small 1987)
● It is a musical style that has its own
practices, attitudes, and values
– an elite culture
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Exclusive or open?

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What gives form to their culture?

● 1920s Big band Jazz (Lopes 1999)

– Institutionalization of classical music as high
art created a divide:
– Dismissive of other musicians: legitimate
musicians (classical) vs nonlegitimate
musicians (popular)
– legitimacy was given only to white musicians
who had classical training.
– Centralized and hierarchical

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“Subculture”: reacting against
status quo

● black jazz musicians responded to the

forming of a field (Lopes 2000)
– symbolic and economic capital was reserved
for white musicians
– modern jazz was developed as a strategy to
gain more symbolic and economic capital by
claiming that it was an elite form of music as
well.
– modern jazz was successful because of its
subcultural status, it was anti-status quo.
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● Because of the unique field of musical
practice in the 1920-30s, black musicians
responded by forming a subculture and
formed certain relationships (negative ties to
other musical practices) (citation needed).
● However, across different societies, jazz has
been practiced differently. Differing in their
relationships with each other (among jazz
musicians) and with other musical styles.
● (Claim) The opposite is evident today. Jazz is
characterized by collaboration.
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How can this be observed in the
local context?

● A social theory of space: Music World

(Crossley & Bottero 2014)
● Specifically, the Music World formed
in Tago Jazz Cafe.

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Networks: "Participants in a music
world necessarily interact with and
depend upon one another, forming
ties of varying types, durations and
intensities. Moreover, this network is
dynamically interlocked with the
constitutive activities of the world in a
feedback loop."

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Complete network

● What kind of network do people from

Tago form?
– What relationships do they have with each
other?
– hierarchical or egalitarian
– Core-periphery?

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Ego-network: measuring exclusivity

● What kind of relationships does a

musician form with other musical
styles?
– do they collaborate with other musicians of
different styles?
– do they also belong to networks outside their
Music World?
– do they form negative ties with other Music
Worlds?

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Enthography

● Conventions: "The cooperation that is

necessary to the collective ‘doing’ of
music is eased to the extent that
particular interaction patterns
stabilise as conventions."
● Capturing the logic of the space, i.e.
communities of practice.

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● What kind of conventions guide them?
– What impact does this have on the
relationships(internal and external) they form?
– What are the sources of these conventions?
– Who affirms or resists these conventions?

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● Resources and Resource Mobilization:
"the distribution of resources across
participants in a music world creates
relations of inequality,
interdependence and (thereby) power
between them."
– Core-periphery relationship? (not feasible)

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● Places. "Art always ‘happens
somewhere’, Becker (2004) observes,
and where it happens often impacts
upon the way in which it happens.
Music is shaped by the places in which
it is made"
– What is the impact of Tago Jazz Cafe's
geographic location in how the musician's
networks are formed?

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I argue that the Jazz Music World in the
Philippines has been exclusive (according
to exploratory interviews) but has become
more democratic because of Tago Jazz Cafe.
Tago has grassroots origins. Many of its
musicians are not formally educated and
therefore do not belong to an elite culture
and therefore do not form an antagonistic
relationship with other musical styles.

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Many of those informally trained
musicians received their training by
taking part in other musical styles and
therefore belong to other networks.
The geographic placement of Tago
also opens its networks further to the
broader networks within Cubao.

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I also assume that formally educated jazz
musicicans belong to an elite culture. This
may be due to the institutionalization of
music in the Philippines ( ex. UP College of
Music, UST Conservatory of Music, etc),
which creates a cultural divide. This is an
assumption I can confirm if pinoy jazz
musicians form a core-periphery network;
those at the core are connected to
educational institutions (tentative); while
those at the periphery rely on other (?)
networks in order to survive.
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