Episode 2: Is This Jazz (w/ Seth T.)

What is the state of jazz in contemporary American culture? Maurice and Luke reconnect with their friend Seth, an independent jazz scholar and musician who shares his perspective cultivated by his reading and practice. Seth gives a historical overview of how the genre evolved through some of its most impactful contributors. In addition, he provides commentary on the relationship between jazz and white spectatorship and imitators (Jack Harlow maybe catches some strays).

 

Seth’s reflections urge us to think about the refined exploitation in the music industry and in black cultural expression more broadly. 

 

**Disclaimer: Luke’s segregation take may make certain folks blush and offend others; in the spirit of Rough Drafts, he is unserious (though not uninformed). Despite what he says, he looks forward to seeing his mother come holiday season and is a strong supporter of a multicultural democracy :)

 

Sources:

Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D.G. Kelley (2010)

https://www.harvard.com/book/9781439190463 

 

As Serious As Your Life: Black Music and The Free Jazz Revolution By Val Wilmer (2018)

https://mastbooks.com/products/as-serious-as-your-life 

 

Free Jazz/Black Power By Philppe Carles and Jean-Louis Comolli; translated by Gregory Pierrot https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/F/Free-Jazz-Black-Power 

 

Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of Music by Gerald Horne

 

References:

How it Feels To Be Colored Me, by Zora Neale Hurston (1929)

https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/619238/D12_How_it_Feels_to_be_Colored_ZNH_students__1___1___1_.pdf 

 

Blues People: Negro Music in White America  by Amiri Baraka

https://archive.org/details/bluespeoplenegroexp00bara 

https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/91518/original/Baraka+-+The+Modern+Scene.pdf 

 

Solar Myth

https://metrophiladelphia.com/solar-myth-john-coltrane-birthday/ 

screening director Shahkeem E. Williams’ new short film ‘Speakn’ Trane’ (written and produced by John Coltrane Symposium founder Anyabwile Love,  

 

On the Road by Jack Kerouac Howl by Allan Ginsburg

 

Soul (Disney Pixar)

 

Fact Checks: 

Sun Ra was definitely Black Arts Movement 

Immanuel *Wilkins* (not wilkerson)