Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

- To provide students with a thorough working knowledge of how Jazz has evolved as a global culture since 2000, combining a critical study of the music’s developments in the USA, Europe, Africa and the Far East with the experience of making music in ways that relate to lecture content.

- To give students the opportunity to apply the insights and understandings from lectures, seminars, screenings and personal research on literature and repertoire to a hands-on practical encounter with challenges defined by cultural, socio-economic and political dynamics of the contemporary music context.

Outline Of Syllabus

- A series of 10 lectures introduce students to the recent history, repertoire and criticism of Jazz as distinct from the manner in which its music and culture have been subject to a deeply engrained systemic racism that trivialises its meaning and purpose through the reinforcement of crude stereotypes and diverts focus away from the music’s vital contemporary relevance and ongoing influence.

- The lectures are supported by seminars in small groups where key elements introduced in lectures are discussed in greater depth and critical scrutiny alongside a weekly requirement for seminar participants to report on one new/newly discovered work from the repertoire of 21st century Jazz.

- The module as a whole is supplemented by non-mandatory Wednesday evening screenings, fortnightly, in the Culture Lab cinema space; alternate Wednesday evening improvisation sessions are also open to students on the module as potential means to further apply what they have learned in class.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

- A more expansive and in-depth knowledge of the broader spectrum of contemporary Jazz and its historical roots and origins

- A fuller knowledge and understanding of how specific ventures and initiatives in different parts of the world have helped established a living culture that is socially and politically grounded and informed

- A much more comprehensive and insightful understanding of how the ideas behind/within the music and its development are materially manifest in the playing experience

- A more nuanced and informed understanding of how distinct styles and traditions influence each other and overlap in ways that are not always evident or obvious from popular and reductive narratives.

Intended Skill Outcomes

- An improved ability to analyze contemporary Jazz through specific examples and by applying specific critical positions, informed in part by first-hand experience of applying core dynamics to actual performance

- Greater skill in making critical links and identifying cultural cross-references

- Learning to discern and identify core critical dynamics from the aesthetic characteristics (not just semantic content) of a particular aspect, dimension or approach in Jazz and practicing the ability to apply those to specific, pertinent examples

- Learning to forge critical insights on cultural phenomena that are not necessarily (or initially) guided by reading critical texts, rather by using one’s accumulated listening experience and the experience of trying things out in real-life playing conditions, and skills to eke out critical perspectives

- Learning to articulate immersive listening and participation discursively and critically

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Through an innovative approach to combining historical-cultural, critical-theoretical study, discussion and research (lectures and independent study) with the experience of applying their accumulated insights and understandings to actual playing in groups, students will gain a much more thorough grounding in the aesthetics and meanings of contemporary Jazz and how they relate to key political contexts (including Black Lives Matter, class conflict and the global rise of populist right wing politics) in a post-imperial, post-colonial world. Rationale for exceeding 33 contact hours relates to the practical, performative engagement element in this module.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The final essay assessment will reflect the extent to which the student has engaged with the course materials as a means to developing more nuanced and informed insights into how Jazz functions today, its relevance to broader social and cultural issues and narratives and its relationship to its own roots and traditions and the wider culture.

The single essay (max. 4,000 words) requires the student to develop a question of their own, drawing on the various critical frameworks introduced and discussed in class and apply them to materials they select themselves.

General Notes

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