JAZZ ENCOUNTERS - Foundations and potentials of a jazz-oriented music mediation

Deadline for contributions: May 31, 2025

Even if the concept of music mediation can be applied to diverse practices and styles of music, it is currently realized “with a focus primarily on so-called Western art music respectively classical music” (Chaker and Petri-Preis 2022, 11). Jazz is a widely acknowledged music genre, which is played in jazz clubs and increasingly also traditional concert halls and taught at (music) schools as well as in higher music education in many parts of the world. But while music mediation has grown remarkably in the classical concert life, in the field of jazz it is still in its early days.

Developments can be observed on a smaller scale: Some festivals and venues host concerts for children or include workshops and outreach activities in their schedules, very few organizations such as Jazz at Lincoln Center have developed huge educational programs, and individual musicians and bands are working on alternative approaches to encounter people through their music. For around ten years now first jazz related initiatives are dedicating themselves to various aspects of music mediation, such as the Europe Jazz Network, running projects about Social Inclusion through Creative Music and Jazz for Young People, and the annual trade fair jazzahead! in Bremen, Germany (EJN n.d.; Siedenburg 2018, 1).

Nevertheless, there is only very little research and exchange about music mediation in jazz. Besides the traditional field of jazz research, which is strongly influenced by musicology (Pfleiderer and Zaddach 2019), there are attempts to establish a discourse on jazz education research (Norgaard 2024) as well as artistic research in jazz (Kahr 2022). Between those disciplines music mediation remains a relatively blind spot in the jazz-related academic world. In 2024 a conference on music mediation in jazz took place at the Gustav Mahler Private University of Music in Klagenfurt (Austria), which revealed a variety of exciting perspectives and approaches as well as a great desire for professional and academic exchange. It gave rise to the idea of dedicating the third issue of the International Journal of Music Mediation to the topic of music mediation in jazz. We intend to turn the spotlight on foundations and potentials of a jazz-oriented music mediation.

Proposals for articles may fall into the following areas, or suggest others:

1. Understandings and theoretical foundations:
If we talk about the mediation of jazz, we must reflect our understanding of jazz. Jazz can be seen as a diverse concept that “conveys different though related meanings: 1) a musical tradition rooted in performing conventions that were introduced and developed early in the 20th century by African Americans; 2) a set of attitudes and assumptions brought to music making, chief among them the notion of performance as a fluid creative process involving improvisation; and 3) a style characterized by syncopation, melodic and harmonic elements derived from the blues, cyclical formal structures and a supple rhythmic approach to phrasing known as swing.” (Tucker 2001, 903) Even though Mark Tucker’s definition includes a wide range of jazz-related aspects, there are still many more, and there is not always a consensus within the jazz community as to what jazz is or is not (DeVeaux 1991, 528).

Music mediation projects in the field of jazz might, for instance, emphasize improvisational and interactive processes (Monson 1996), present certain heroes and myths of the jazz tradition (Whyton 2010), tap into the transcultural potential of jazz (Schunter 2022), or connect with ideals such as freedom and democracy (Jazz at Lincoln Center 2024). What historical, cultural, music-theoretical, practice-related, or societal aspects of jazz do mediators focus on in different jazz mediation formats? How do different understandings of jazz and different underlying theoretical and philosophical assumptions influence specific mediation practices?

2. Potentials and (new) perspectives:
Music mediation is attributed to have “a transformative power in relation to the ways in which music can be produced, experienced and perceived both individually and collectively” (Chaker and Petri-Preis 2022). In what ways can music mediation efforts transform the performance and listening practices in jazz – including new venues and audiences, creating new concepts for audience involvement, collaborating with other art forms or finding new forms of (verbal) presentation and explanation of jazz? How can encounters of various audiences with different forms and aspects of jazz be achieved? What are the distinctive practices and specific challenges of music mediation in the field of jazz?

Along with generational changes among musicians but also among festival programmers, new perspectives on the role and potential of jazz mediation may develop. Nadin Deventer, the producer of the JazzFest Berlin, for example, emphasizes a desire to break new ground. She expresses a “commitment to diversity and inclusion” and the wish to offer “something for all audiences every year” (Leidinger and McGee 2024). How can music mediation activities contribute to a more inclusive jazz scene and to overcome the “androcentric state of the genre” (ibid., 139)?

What ideas from the general discourse on music mediation can be applied to jazz and what assumptions may be challenged by a jazz-oriented view on music? What new perspectives on music mediation can be developed through the lens of jazz, as a music characterized by improvisation and interaction?

3. (Prospective) practitioners and framework conditions:
In order to unfold the “innovative potential” of music mediation (Chaker and Petri-Preis 2022) for the field of jazz, it seems necessary to cultivate areas of rapprochement and intersection between the social worlds (Strauss 1978) of music mediation and jazz. Where and how can this happen? The circumstances for the involvement of classical musicians in music mediation have been researched to a certain degree (Petri-Preis 2022), but it is uncertain to what extent this can be transferred to jazz, with its quite different working frameworks (e.g. far less permanent employment) and specific beliefs (e.g. a critical discourse on the formal learning of jazz in higher education, Prouty 2005, 79).

Who engages in music mediation in jazz, and how do the specific working conditions of the jazz scene, including institutional structures and funding, influence their work? How do jazz students and professionals encounter concepts of music mediation and what do they need to integrate these concepts into their professional identities? Where does music mediation find its place in the curricula of today’s higher jazz education and what might future developments look like?

Exploring these questions will help foster an informed discourse on music mediation in jazz. We encourage contributions from theoretical, empirical, and artistic research as well as reflections on practice and portraits or interviews with jazz-related music mediation practitioners. If you are interested in writing a book review or conference report, please contact us with your suggestions.

Deadline for contributions: May 31, 2025

Bibliography

Chaker, Sarah and Axel Petri-Preis (eds.). 2022. Tuning up! The Innovative Potential of Musikvermittlung. Bielefeld: transcript.

DeVeaux, Scott. 1991. “Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography”. Black American Literature Forum. 25(3), Literature of Jazz Issue, 525-560.

EJN - Europe Jazz Network. n.d. “Activities”. Accesses July 13, 2024. https://www.europejazz.net/activities.

Jazz at Lincoln Center. 2024. “Let Freedom Swing”. Acessed July 13, 2024. https://jazz.org/education/school-programs/let-freedom-swing/jazz-and-protest.

Kahr, Michael (ed.). 2022. Artistic Research in Jazz. Positions, Theories, Methods. New York, Abingdon: Routledge.

Leidinger, Nora and Kristin McGee. 2024. “Breaking boundaries in festival programming: Gendered and cultural transformations at the JazzFest Berlin”. Popular Music History, 15(2-3), 137-155. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.26942.

Monson, Ingrid. 1996. Saying something. Jazz improvisation and interaction. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press.

Norgaard, Martin (ed.). 2024. Jazz Education in Research and Practice. Vol. 5. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Petri-Preis, Axel. 2022. Musikvermittlung lernen. Analysen und Empfehlungen zur Aus- und Weiterbildung von Musiker_innen. Bielefeld: transcript.

Pfleiderer, Martin and Wolf-Georg Zaddach (ed.). 2019. Jazzforschung heute. Themen, Methoden, Perspektiven. Berlin: Edition Emvas.

Prouty, Kenneth E. 2005. The History of Jazz Education: A Critical Reassessment. Journal of Historical Research in Music Education. 26(2), 79-100.

Schunter, Julian. 2022. “Jazz als Melting Pot. Überlegungen zum Konzept der Transkulturalität in der Jazzpädagogik“. In Die Jazzpilot*innen. Jazzvermittlung und Demokratieförderung, edited by Deutsche Jazzunion e.V. Berlin: Deutsche Jazzunion e.V., 36-39.

Siedenburg, Ilka. 2018. Jazz für Kinder! Potentiale und Herausforderungen zwischen Improvisation und Groove. zeitschrift ästhetische bildung ZAeB Jg. 10 2018 Nr. 1. Accessed July 13, 2024. http://zaeb.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Siedenburg_finfin.pdf.

Strauss, Anselm. 1978. A Social World Perspective. In Studies in Symbolic Interaction, vol. 1, edited by Norman K. Denzin. Greenwish: Jai Press, 119-128.

Tucker, Mark. 2001. “Jazz”. In New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 12, 2nd edition, edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 903-926.

Whyton, Tony. 2010. Jazz Icons. Heroes, Myths and the Jazz Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.