Jazz & The Explosion Of Genre: Music, Culture, and History Between 1970 and Today

Catalog description

This discussion seminar examines the diverse streams of jazz and improvised music, its history, culture, and entanglements across musical genres between 1970 and today. Why start in 1970? - Because this is where jazz history courses tend to end as jazz’s avid fusioning with allegedly contrasting styles such as rock, funk, hip hop, folk, and pop made the question of genre increasingly complex. The examination of one seminal album a week will serve as a course guide. We will build deep listening skills, listen in various settings, and use different playback devices (vinyl to digital) to critically reflect on and challenge our own habits of music consumption. Furthermore, critical readings and writing assignments accompany each album to prompt further exploration of topics surrounding genre, culture, identity, race, and the interplay between tradition and postmodernism. Music proficiency preferred but not required.