European Origins of A New Jazz

[garthsj]

I found this recent reference to a new book in the Yale U.P. catalog ... has anyone read this yet?

NORTHERN SUN, SOUTHERN MOON

EUROPE’S REINVENTION OF JAZZ

Mike Heffley

May 2005

384 p. , 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Cloth 0-300-10693-9 $45.00

Until the 1960s American jazz, for all its improvisational and rhythmic brilliance, remained rooted in formal Western conventions originating in ancient Greece and early Christian plainchant. At the same time European jazz continued to follow the American model. When the creators of so-called free jazz--Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, and others--liberated American jazz from its Western ties, European musicians found their own distinctive voices and created a vital, innovative, and independent jazz culture.

Northern Sun, Southern Moon examines this pan-Eurasian musical revolution. Author and musician Mike Heffley charts its development in Scandinavia, Holland, England, France, Italy, and especially (former East and West) Germany. He then follows its spread to former Eastern-bloc countries. Heffley brings to life an evolving musical phenomenon, situating European jazz in its historical, social, political, and cultural contexts and adding valuable material to the still-scant scholarship on improvisation. He reveals a Eurasian genealogy worthy of jazz’s well-established African and American pedigrees and proposes startling new implications for the histories of both Western music and jazz.

Mike Heffley is a writer, composer, and jazz scholar. He has a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and is the author of The Making of Anthony Braxton.

[Simon Weil]

I guess you're asking if people have been sent pre-publication copies - which I haven't. It does sound interesting, so thanks for bringing it our attention. I mean there's a need for an English-language history of post-Ornette European Jazz.

I mean that's a really big area.

Simon Weil

Edited January 4, 2005 by Simon Weil

[alankin]

May 2005

384 p. , 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Cloth 0-300-10693-9 $45.00

Would reverse on the way-back machine go forward in time?

[AllenLowe]

I knew Heffley years ago, and he's a bright guy, but my hackles tend to raise when I see "Until the 1960s American jazz, for all its improvisational and rhythmic brilliance, remained rooted in formal Western conventions originating in ancient Greece and early Christian plainchant," as these statements strike me as unprovable and uncertifiable in that charming, academic way.

[garthsj]

May 2005

384 p. , 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Cloth 0-300-10693-9 $45.00

Would reverse on the way-back machine go forward in time?

Well ... I assumed, knowing the world of academic publishing, that the book had been sent out for peer review many times before Yale U.P. would consider publishing it ... and knowing that we have many esteemed jazz scholars/historians/aficionados on this list, I wondered if anyone had read the page proofs, or been sent the manuscipt for review. (I say this as I have two such manuscripts, one on "Fifties Television," and one "Film Audiences" sitting on the corner of my desk at this very moment while publishers await my "thumbs up or thumbs down" ... Such Power!)

[AllenLowe]

also, it's misleading to say that Euro jazz musicians ONLY found their voices post-free jazz - what about Django? Jutta Hipp? Lars Gullin? Kenny G?

[couw]

outline of the book

[garthsj]

Thank you for finding that outline ... Geez .. some academics cannot resist exposing themselves on the internet! But it is a very useful document ... I wonder if he ever thought it would find its way to a forum like this for intense discussion ... he may live to regret it!

Garth.

[AllenLowe]

Good premise which will probably be an interesting book when dealing with the music and the musicians, less so when he starts digging into the theorists that he mentions (though, from an academic perspective, he probably has no choice); also I would disagree somewhat with:

"Whereas earlier American influences, both white and black, inspired imitation of the actual music, those of the free jazz pioneers mentioned above inspired emulation of the musical gesture: as African Americans had mastered jazz's Western premises to turn them to the service of Afrocentric expressions and aesthetics, so would the new generation of European jazz musicians master those (in free jazz, virtually exclusively) African-American premises"

this is a gross oversimplification, especially considering the whole picture of 20th century atonality and polytonality.

Edited January 5, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Leeway]

Europe became effectively the only market for this African-American gesture, after the mid-1970s or so. This made for both a flowering of the careers of artists such as Butch Morris, Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor, and a simultaneous new competition between such Americans and their European colleagues for work and recognition in Europe (and, most recently, internationally), as the Europeans with something new to say shook off their traditional roles as acolytes and second-billed, second-place acts. This ongoing tension and its current dynamics, both racial and national, are explored in this study;

I think this could be the most interesting aspect (if adequately addressed) of Heffley's study. There have been profound changes and significant developments on the European jazz scene ov erthe last decade or so. I wonder how much of that is tied up with the rise of "anti-Americanism" in Europe (and elsewhere), such that iti has caused a cultural fissure between America and Europe.

P.S. I hope this discusion doesn't get too "intellectual"- I won't be able to enjoy the music B-)

Edited January 5, 2005 by Leeway

[Nate Dorward]

"Whereas earlier American influences, both white and black, inspired imitation of the actual music, those of the free jazz pioneers mentioned above inspired emulation of the musical gesture: as African Americans had mastered jazz's Western premises to turn them to the service of Afrocentric expressions and aesthetics, so would the new generation of European jazz musicians master those (in free jazz, virtually exclusively) African-American premises"

this is a gross oversimplification, especially considering the whole picture of 20th century atonality and polytonality.

The phrasing here suggests to me that Heffley's borrowing from George Lewis's essay on improvised music from 1950 to the present & its binary between "Afrological" & "Eurological" aesthetics.

[A Lark Ascending]

I end by fusing the historical and personal significance of the music as an expression of something at once timely and timeless: a direct expression of the human body (including, naturally, its mind) unmediated by the mental maps of Western musical-literate traditions; and a mythical evocation of the primal tribal collectives that gave rise to those traditions, from an archaic ground shared with the rest of the world. I convey all this through a mix of my own musings and other scholarship that suggests it, and in the setting of Vienna during a performance there by one of the European groups discussed above, drawing on the contrasts and resonances of the musical/cultural-historical landmarks of the former and the radical sounds of the latter to make my points.

I can see that by reading this book I'm finally going to understand Garbarek!!!!

[couw]

he may live to regret it!

Garth.

From surfing some on his site I get the impression the guy has a very healthy sense of humour. He would probably agree with the critique.

[Simon Weil]

Well, the outline does make it sound interesting/worth buying. My sense of it, from reading the text, is that he's too theory-derived rather than intuition-derived (now I'm going to get shot). What I mean by that is he's got his bunch of theories - and is forcing his facts into them somewhat. Not to say that there aren't valid insights (even substantial ones) to be had by applying those particular theories to this particular situation, just that there's a sort of discipline to just how much theory you apply.

My sense is the deconstructive element in Euro-Free is core and exists in and of itself. His ideologically charged theories construct it as a response to America.

Reading between the lines.

Simon Weil

[couw]

from the site:

In my bid for notoriety as an original thinker, I offer the following theory:

• fact--German free jazz, especially in its percussion players, distinguished itself from American jazz primarily by disrupting the horizontal flow of metered, hierarchical swing and centralizing the accents that were previously marginally ornamental to it--thus vertical, let us say, sudden invasions by single moments of the temporal flow, each moment divorced from the concept of flow's regularity and metrical hierarchy (i.e., a string of equidurational beats, some stronger than others);

• reason--the postwar generation of German jazz musicians, even in the West, got their jazz education primarily from Willis Conover's Voice of America (VOA) broadcast, which was always plagued by a roving signal, and often a jammed one. The programming of everyone from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker thus would always be experienced by these wide-open, hungry musical prodigies in their formative years as some Cage-like gesture of collage juxtaposing the jazz and electronic whistles and noise (Geräusch, the name of a sub-style of German improvising currently popular with the younger players, as we will see in Chapter Ten).

(Of course, none of the players themselves give credence to my brilliant revelation, but what do they know? I will expand it into a paper [in English, of course], publish it in an academic journal that would sniff with haughty confusion at my real work, then get a tenure-track job in a major university as a "promising scholar," and let the players eat cake!)

[AllenLowe]

As I mentioned, I knew Mike years ago, he's a good and intelligent guy, and this could be an interesting work. The main problem is something I see in a lot of theory-based works (purusant to what Simon Weil has written, above): in many of these books I find that the theory is presented and than the examples given to support, which is fine, but that the writers tend to overstate, as there are ALWAYS exceptions, many many (unmentioned) exceptions (I've been reading Simon Frith's book on rock and roll and he is especially guilty of this). It is as though they set up an ideological/theoretical construct and feel bound to defend it and ignore anything that contradicts. This is an occupational hazard, I fear; I look forward to the book that simply (or not-so-simply) engages the Euro musician and his/her work, without having to prove it is utterly unique or part of a specific trend or isolated or outside of Afro-historical parameters or whatever other boxes such points of view tend to squeeze them into. Having said that, well, he does have to deal with peer review and that does entail a certain amount of intellectual posturing.

[A Lark Ascending]

That proposal helps explain why so many impenetrable books get published. The poor chap is having to write in academic-speak to get the attention of the academic publishers. The quote by couw shows the sort of humour that, if used, would make the book an interesting read.

There are many good books on European jazz just waiting to be written...I doubt if one book could encompass its breadth and different tributaries, without oversimplifying. But a straight narrative of how jazz developed in Europe from its beginnings to the present, unsullied by grandiose theories, would be most welcome.

I suspect Stuart Nicholson will probably be very quick off the mark with one; unfortunate in that he has a bee in his bonnet. We're bound to get the facts-arranged-to-fit-a-theory type book referred to above.

As a sideline the BBC will be showing a three part documentary on the history of British jazz at the start of February. There will be a bit of a hulabaloo surrounding it including special concerts at the Barbican. Details here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressrele...tish.shtml#jazz

Only a sliver of the European picture, but interesting nonetheless. I wonder if there'll be an accompanying book?

[AllenLowe]

Hey, isn't British "jazz" a little bit like British "food?" In other words, an oxymorn -

(hey, really, I'm just kidding)

[A Lark Ascending]

That's rich coming from the land of the quarterpounder, the big Mac and the Supersize Me!

[Also just kidding!]

[AllenLowe]

would you like fries with your mutton?

[A Lark Ascending]

would you like fries with your mutton?

That's just the Scots! The diet of colonials who have learned their place...unlike some I might mention!

[Cyril]

What is European Jazz???

It's just that the European countries are not really into each other.

Also, there's not much promotion about other countries, and I'm sure there are good things happening in for example Germany, but there's just no promotion to promote the music.

But, you have to remember that it's not only the UK, Italy, France, etc. ( I never heard of Swedish jazz)!

[A Lark Ascending]

What is European Jazz???

It's just that the European countries are not really into each other. 

Also, there's not much promotion about other countries, and I'm sure there are good things happening in for example Germany, but there's just no promotion to promote the music.

But, you have to remember that it's not only the UK, Italy, France, etc. ( I never heard of Swedish jazz)!   

http://www.swedejazz.se/links.html#3

Fascination with jazz of one anothers' neighbours is arguably the story of contemporary jazz in Europe.

Here was the line-up of one weekend jazz festival in the UK during 2004:

Stacey Kent and her Musicians (US + UK)

Esbjörn Svensson Trio (Sweden)

Stimmhorn (Switzerland)

John Law’s European Quartet ‘In Extremis’John Rae's (England/France)

Celtic Feet / Hungarian Collaboration (Scotland/Hungary)

Ballamy/Carstensen Duo (England/Norway)

Louis Sclavis -’Napoli’s Walls’ (France)

Gianluigi Trovesi / Gianni Coscia Duo (Italy)

Brian Kellock (Scotland)

Système D (Netherlands/Senegal)

Soweto Kinch Group (England)

Amsterdam String Trio (Netherlands)

Mirabassi/Biondini Duo (Italy)

Renaud Garcia Fons Quintet (France/Spain)

Courtney Pine Band (England)

The Uk audience was very much into this music.

Edited January 5, 2005 by Bev Stapleton

[A Lark Ascending]

This book is now being advertised as available.

I somehow think readers will be in for a bit of a shock if the publishers blurb is anything to go by:

http://www.yalebooks.co.uk/yale/display.as...&x=44&y=12&DC=2

[Guest che]

I found this recent reference to a new book in the Yale U.P. catalog ... has anyone read this yet?

NORTHERN SUN, SOUTHERN MOON

EUROPE’S REINVENTION OF JAZZ

Mike Heffley

May 2005

384 p. , 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Cloth 0-300-10693-9 $45.00

Until the 1960s American jazz, for all its improvisational and rhythmic brilliance, remained rooted in formal Western conventions originating in ancient Greece and early Christian plainchant. At the same time European jazz continued to follow the American model. When the creators of so-called free jazz--Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, and others--liberated American jazz from its Western ties, European musicians found their own distinctive voices and created a vital, innovative, and independent jazz culture.

Northern Sun, Southern Moon examines this pan-Eurasian musical revolution. Author and musician Mike Heffley charts its development in Scandinavia, Holland, England, France, Italy, and especially (former East and West) Germany. He then follows its spread to former Eastern-bloc countries. Heffley brings to life an evolving musical phenomenon, situating European jazz in its historical, social, political, and cultural contexts and adding valuable material to the still-scant scholarship on improvisation. He reveals a Eurasian genealogy worthy of jazz’s well-established African and American pedigrees and proposes startling new implications for the histories of both Western music and jazz.

Mike Heffley is a writer, composer, and jazz scholar. He has a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and is the author of The Making of Anthony Braxton.

I think a book like this is long overdue and I look forward to reading it.

Che.