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tony whyton 16 / EUROPE AND THE NEW JAZZ STUDIES I n his 1988 article ‘‘Some Problems with Jazz Research,’’ Lewis Porter described the way in which jazz scholarship had, until that time, been largely an amateur pursuit. Porter suggested that the growth and development of jazz and black music studies in the United States would eventually transform the way in which the music was discussed and understood (Porter 1988, 204). In the postwar period, when jazz had been the subject of professional study, writings had borrowed heavily from the field of formalist musicology and echoed the analytical methods developed in relation to Western classical music. Musician scholars such as Gunther Schuller, for example, argued for jazz to be recognized as art, demonstrating a passion for great jazz through the discussion and analysis of landmark recordings. From the 1950s on, these e√orts, coupled with the writings of critics such as Martin Williams and Marshall Stearns, signaled a move toward the creation and celebration of a jazz canon in the United States, a body of masterworks that constitute the core of the jazz tradition. For example, Williams ’s Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, and his collected writings grouped under the title The Jazz Tradition, embodied this aesthetic by reifying jazz history and presenting the music as a unified and unproblematic continuum of periods and styles. Come the 1990s, the professionalism that Porter described resulted in a growth in new musicology, where a new generation of scholars began to question the methods that had been used to date. Bruce Johnson, for example, examined the problem of jazz scholarship and the way in which formalist musicology, coupled with a focus on jazz recordings, denied the importance of orality/aurality in jazz (Johnson 1993). Equally, scholars such as Robert Walser challenged the logic of using formalist methods developed in classical music to explain jazz, and suggested that new methods of transcription and analysis were required to capture the intertextual and signifying qualities of the music (Walser 1993). The 1990s o√ered a sea change in the development of jazz research, with scholars challenging the ground upon which jazz history had been written to date. Writings such as Scott DeVeaux’s ‘‘Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography’’ and John Gennari’s ‘‘Jazz Criticism: Its Development and Ideologies’’ o√ered groundbreaking examinations of the discourse of jazz history and served to shape subsequent writings on the subject. DeVeaux’s work highlighted the political function of jazz historiography and the ideological implications of canon formation. In describing the tradition as a construct, his work destroyed any claim to a natural or 367 Europe and New Jazz Studies organic development of jazz history. Instead, DeVeaux explored the way in which history and the notion of tradition are often constructed to serve the needs of the present and to reinforce the myths and values of certain writers, commentators, or groups. Together, these writings signaled a shift in approach for musicology toward what later would be described as the New Jazz Studies. From the 1990s on, the study of jazz has been opened up to di√erent methodological and disciplinary interests, and the New Jazz Studies has marked an investment in cultural and critical theory and a commitment to cross-disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives . Edited volumes such as Krin Gabbard’s Jazz among the Discourses (1995a) and Representing Jazz (1995b) and Robert O’Meally’s The Jazz Cadence of American Culture (1998), for example, demonstrated how the study of jazz could be enriched by perspectives from outside formalist musicology. Drawing on writings from film studies, African American literature, fine art, and cultural studies, these texts illustrated how traditional understandings of jazz could be revised and examined in new ways. Today, the portrayal of jazz as a coherent and unproblematic tradition is confronted head-on by New Jazz Studies scholars. The history of the music is subject to conflict and contestation; jazz is a critical discourse that has changed and adapted over time, feeding into issues of race, gender, class, identity, and place. The New Jazz Studies draws attention to the political and ideological backdrops in which jazz is created and, most importantly, the discipline has given rise to voices that were previously excluded from jazz history, from women to the musicians themselves. Today, the New Jazz Studies encapsulates a vast array of critical positions, and yet, despite this plurality of approach, the engagement with jazz outside of American contexts has been limited. Ironically, in dispelling several mythologies about...

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