MUSIC 7333

Jazz, Fusions, Discourses: New Jazz Studies and "Broken Middle" Interdisciplinarity

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2022-2023.

Kevin Fellesz (2011) counters the frequent dismissal of fusion ("ain't rock, ain't jazz") as fertile ground for reconceiving its ain't-ness as a "broken middle," a liminal non-genre used to "trouble, perplex, and contest" categories of thought (discourses) about this music. Relatedly, "new jazz studies," especially since the landmark Jazz Among the Discourses (Krin Gabbard, ed., 1995), draws freely from a welter of disciplines and methodologies outside established critical-historical modes. Our seminar asks whether and how the "broken middle" concept might fruitfully push "new jazz studies" interdisciplinary approach to new sorts of questions, methodologies, and musics. We begin with jazz scholarship and seek to apply "broken middle" thinking to those musical scenes that are central to the seminar members' interests.

When Offered Fall.

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