doi:10.1558/jazz.v9i1.28934
Editorial
Welcome to this issue of the Jazz Research Journal. The articles in this issue provide further demonstration of how the breadth of current and historical jazz practice continues to inspire and provoke methodological diversity and innovation from scholars, with insightful results. The articles cover New Orleans revivalism, post-bop and contemporary jazz, and the employment of autoethnographic, historical-documentary and narratological methods.
In ‘Becoming a follower of the Merseysippi Jazz Band: An approach from ethnography, autoethnography and social world analysis—a study in resocialization’, Richard Ekins returns to a musical milieu in which he was formerly active as an ‘enthusiast, record collector, trumpet player, bandleader and record producer’ to become a follower of one of the longest established traditional jazz bands in the UK. He notes the importance of studying what may be the ‘dying embers’ of this significant strand of British jazz history, not just because this is timely, but because it informs our understanding of how older jazz practices are sustained to produce rich strata within particular scenes.
Present-day jazz musicians also provide ethnographic material for Sven Bjerstedt’s work in ‘The jazz storyteller: Improvisers’ perspectives on music and narrative’. Bjerstedt privileges musicians’ discourse to explore how they conceive and explain their improvisational practice. Specifically, he investigates the multiple ways in which ‘storytelling’ emerges as a common metaphor for the ways in which musicians and listeners understand jazz improvisation. This has implications not only for the musicological study of improvisation, but for jazz pedagogy and studies of reception too.
Discourse, this time in print, is the focus of the final contribution in this issue: ‘Frontierism, intellectual listeners and the new European wave: On the reception of Dutch jazz in DownBeat, 1960–1980’ in which Loes Rusch explores the relationship between America and European jazz through a close study of reportage. The foremost jazz periodical announced its international intentions in the early 1960s, but the manifestation of this new focus over the proceeding decades is illustrative of the complexities of the worldwide development of jazz. Understanding European jazz in various types of dialogue with American jazz remains a live challenge for scholars. Close studies through which deep-seated historical attitudes emerge provide a useful way to pursue this.
Despite this obvious diversity of subject matter and approach, these three authors share a fundamental approach to the subject which embraces, rather than seeks to minimize, their personal perspectives and experiences. Most obviously, this manifests itself in the locations which are points of focus in the articles—Liverpool, Sweden and The Netherlands. Jazz Research Journal remains committed to furthering the study of jazz outside America, in the belief that it tells us not only about the music in these particular locations, but that this is a significant and distinct element of history and contemporary practice of jazz. As such, these articles make important contributions towards achieving a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the music, which must include assessment of jazz as global or transnational music. But beyond this, the study of jazz has much to offer to our understanding of the world over the past century or so, providing a lens for studying continuity and change, celebrating societal achievements and critiquing mistakes. This is a point that all of us with interest in and knowledge of jazz should be ready to trumpet.