Strategic Afro-modernism, dynamic hybridity, and bebop’s sociopolitical significance

Abstract

Purpose – I argue that one can articulate a historically attuned and analytically rich model for understanding jazz in its various inflections. That is, on the one hand, such a model permits us to affirm jazz as a historically conditioned, dynamic hybridity. On the other hand, to acknowledge jazz’s open and multiple character in no way negates our ability to identify discernible features of various styles and esthetic traditions. Additionally, my model affirms the sociopolitical, legal (Jim Crow and copyright laws), and economic structures that shaped jazz. Consequently, my articulation of bebop as an inflection of Afro-modernism highlights the sociopolitical, and highly racialized context in which this music was created. Without a recognition of the sociopolitical import of bebop, one’s understanding of the music is impoverished, as one fails to grasp the strategic uses to which the music and discourses about the music were put.

Design methodology/approach – I engage in an interdisciplinary study of jazz via analyses and commentary on selected texts from several scholarly disciplines.

Findings – To acknowledge the hybridity and social construction of jazz esthetics in no way nullifies the innovations and leadership of African American jazz musicians whose artistic contributions not only significantly shaped modern jazz in the mid-twentieth century but also whose musical voices continue to sound and set esthetical standards in contemporary expressions of jazz (and beyond).

Originality and value – My chapter is highly interdisciplinary, bringing philosophical explanations of race, discourse, and the ontology of music into conversation with numerous sociological and (ethno)musicological insights about jazz.

Citation

Nielsen, C.R. (2013), "Strategic Afro-modernism, dynamic hybridity, and bebop’s sociopolitical significance", Music and Law (Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Vol. 18), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 129-148. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1521-6136(2013)0000018009