Jazzbrief aus Darmstadt
Jazzletter from DarmstadtMärz 2006 / March 2006
"Der Jazzbrief" hieß eine Publikation, die Aktivitäten des Jazzinstituts Darmstadt beleuchtete, kleinere Beiträge publizierte, die sich aus der täglichen Arbeit des Jazzinstituts ergaben. Wir haben uns entschlossen, den Jazzbrief fürs erste elektronisch fortzuführen. Hier wollen wir Gedanken und Diskussionen öffentlich machen, die wir im Jazzinstitut führen, laden alle Leser dazu ein, sich an diesen Diskussionen zu beteiligen und uns ihre eigene Meinung mitzuteilen. Wir berichten über Sammlungszuwächse und sonstige Aktivitäten. Es handelt sich bei den Beiträgen auf dieser Seite nirgends um feststehende "Wahrheiten" über den Jazz, sondern um eine Sammlung von Notizen, Gedanken und Diskussionsbeiträgen.
"The Jazzletter" was a publication in which the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt reported about some of its activities and published short essays, results from the daily work at the Jazzinstitut. We decided to continue the Jazzletter electronically, publishing some of our thoughts and internal discussions and inviting everyone to participate and tell us what they think. We also report about additions to the jazz collection of the Jazzinstitut and other acitivities. This is a collection of notes, thoughts and discussions more than a statement of "truths" about jazz.
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Content of this page:
"Worldjazz". Eine kurze Definition
Anfrage:
Können Sie uns eine kurze Definition von Worldjazz geben?
Unsere Antwort:
Weltmusik – World Jazz
Mitte der 60er Jahre prägte man den Begriff der Weltmusik, um die vielfältigen Beziehungen zwischen Rock, Pop, Jazz und den unterschiedlichsten Formen von Volksmusik zu bezeichnen. Weltmusik stand für eine stilistische und geistige Offenheit, aber auch für den Respekt vor anderen Kulturen. In den letzten Jahren hat sich der Begriff "World Jazz" durchgesetzt. Er bezeichnet die Auseinandersetzung von Jazzmusikern mit kulturellen Traditionen unterschiedlichster Weltregionen. Im Vordergrund von "World Jazz" steht die jazzmusikalische Improvisation, die Einflüsse sind oft klanglicher oder instrumentenspezifischer Art. Aber auch Themen, Harmoniesysteme, rhythmische Modelle nicht-westlicher Musikkulturen beeinflussen Musiker, inspirieren sie zu neuen Wegen, in denen ihnen der Umgang mit anderen Kulturen letzten Endes (und scheinbar ein wenig paradoxerweise) die Möglichkeit bietet, sich selbst auszudrücken. "World Jazz" ist damit ein Phänomen einer globalisierten Welt, in der die Information über andere Kulturen genauso leicht ist wie der Umgang mit Musikern aus anderen Gegenden der Welt selbstverständlich. Der Begriff "World Jazz" hat damit viele Dimensionen, er kann europäische Jazzprojekte bezeichnen, die sich mit indischer oder afrikanischer Musik auseinandersetzen, er kann dialogische Projekte von Musikern unterschiedlicher Kulturkreise beschreiben, aber auch beispielsweise afrikanische Musik, die sich in Paris oder New York mit den Einflüssen aus der neuen Wahlheimat auseinandersetzen. "World Jazz" ist also keine klare Klangsprache, sondern steht für die kulturelle Offenheit, eine Offenheit, die im Jazz selbst angelegt ist, der sich ja seit Beginn immer als eine hybride Musik verstanden hat, für die ihre eigene Tradition genauso wichtig ist wie das Einbringen und kreative Verarbeiten fremder Elemente.
(Wolfram Knauer)
Query:
Could you give us a short definition of the term "world jazz"?
Our response:
World music – world jazz
In the mid 60s the term "world music" was coined to denote the manifold relationships between rock, pop, jazz and the different forms of folkloric music from all over the world. World music stood for a certain openness in style and mind, but also for the respect towards other cultures. In recent years the music industry has coined the term "world jazz". It denotes the musical discourse of jazz musicians with cultural traditions of different regions of the world. The main ingredient in "world jazz" remains improvisation as is usual in jazz; "world" influences often comprise sound or instrument specifics. Also, melodic themes, harmonic systems, rhythmic models of non-western musical cultures influenced musicians, inspired them to travel along new roads on which their discourse with other cultures offered them (even if this may sound like a paradox) a way to express themselves. "World jazz", thus, is a phenomenon of a globalized world in which information about other cultures are as easy to obtain as it is to meet musicians from the world over. The term "world jazz", thus, has many implications. It can denote European jazz projects which make use of Indian or African traditions; it can denote dialog projects of musicians from different cultural spheres; it can denote African music in Paris or New York entering into a musical discourse with jazz and other influences from their new adopted homeland. "World jazz", then, is no clearly defined style, but denotes open ears as they are inherent in jazz, a music, after all, which identified as a hybrid art from its beginnings, a music for which its own tradition has always been just as important as the creative inclusion of new elements.
(Wolfram Knauer)
Jazz in Germany.
An e-mail query & our responsee-mail query
Jazz in Germany
In looking at your site my question is...can a German understand what Jazz is? So many doctors and professors, all in secure positions, discussing and attempting to play what goes on in a Black man´s soul. Is this some sort of joke or an attempt to create a fictive world that exist in the minds of Germans.
Can some one give me an answer?
Regards, [name withheld]our response:
Re: Jazz in Germany
Dear [name withheld],
thank you very much for your mail. Good question, indeed. And it's not so much about Germans than about all non-Americans. Or even all non-African-Americans. I do not know about your background, so I am not sure what made you ask the question. (Are you African American yourself? Do you think jazz should remain in the African American cultural circles? Or was it mainly curiosity?)
And I do not know about all of those doctors and professors in secure positions playing jazz... Sure, we do have conservatories over here where some of our musicians found a position enabling them to share their knowledge, but few of those really have professor's chairs or even "secure positions". And those who do, may deserve them or not. It sure does not make them better or worse musicians.
Anyhow, here are a couple of thoughts about your main question.
Jazz is an African American music. It started within the Black community and it is being kept alive within the Black community. I just came back from the USA: I was in Chicago and, as every time when I visit over there, I realize that jazz and its background within the African American community are closely related, that it, indeed, may be impossible for someone outside of that community to understand the function the music fulfils within it.
Yet: Jazz conquered the world. Not just as a music fun to listen to, a music that all the world gratefully acknowledges African Americans for, but also as a music which encourages people all across the planet to follow the example of jazz, take up those musical "language skills" they find in jazz and add their own identity, in order to play themselves. "Play yourself, man!" is what Black musicians often said when asked what it means to be a good jazz musician. Yet, "playing oneself" in Germany or in France or in Japan or wherever else will mean something different from playing yourself in an African American community in the United States. So, at one point European musicians realized that in order to fully acknowledge the lesson of jazz they had to "emancipate" themselves from the African American source, not by leaving its tradition completely, but by adding their own individual experiences. Musical experiences, cultural experiences.
You assume musicians playing jazz are attempting to play "what goes on in a Black man's soul". Well, that would be impossible. For me (and that is my personal opinion) that's not all that jazz is about. More appropriate is: to attempt to play what goes on in one's own soul. "Play yourself, man!"
Is Europeans playing jazz than an aggressive act against African Americans, an act of appropriation of another man's culture? I think: No. It is an act of utmost respect and of gratefulness about the fact that African Americans shared one of the most resourceful ideas of the 20th century with the world, an idea based on their own tradition, soaked in their own heritage of spirituality and sorrow. In Coltrane I believe I hear the song of the Black man. And know as well, that I will never fully understand it, as Coltrane plays with all the cultural experiences of his own life, his religious life, his experiences of a Black man in a racist society. I might be able to grasp aspects of it intellectually, but I will never be able to fully feel it. Yet: Coltrane touches me. He touches me deeply as do so many other jazz musicians. They can make me joyful and they can make me cry. They touch some basic feeling in me as a human being. That's what music is about, for me.
In Chicago I've been to a place called the Velvet Lounge, a club on the near South Side owned by tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson. I do not know whether you have heard from it or where you, actually, are from. I heard saxophone player Douglas Ewart and his Community Inventions ensemble. It is a neighborhood bar and a great place. And it humbled me because it made me realize again that jazz still does have that function within the African American community, still is both a spiritual and a political voice - perhaps not listened to by many but extremely strong and creative.
Then, last weekend, I visited the "German Jazz Meeting" in Bremen, Germany, a showcase festival introducing many young German bands to an international audience. And I realized that within the younger generation (most of the players there were in their 20s and early 30s) jazz has become part of their own youth experience, as a music and as a way to express themselves. I listened to bass clarinetist Rudi Mahall from Berlin who loves Eric Dolphy yet found a way to incorporate his own musical experiences, his German roots (and we righteously have problems talking about those) into the music. Or to trombonist Nils Wogram who reflects the technique of Black virtuoso J.J. Johnson as well as that of his German colleague, the late Albert Mangelsdorff. Or to young musicians whose conception of jazz is that jazz is just one part of their many influences, that actually they would like to call it something else, not because they want to dissociate themselves from the African American roots of the music but rather from intellectual connotations often associated with jazz during the last few decades, connotations brought about perhaps by the very process of musicians "emancipating themselves" from those African American roots. These young musicians incorporate other forms of Black music, soul, gospel, hiphop, yet do not want to emulate being Black themselves. Hey, this is their youth as well - with the music industry making Black music a veritable world influence.
None of the musicians at the German Jazz Meeting (and it were 14 bands presenting themselves there) tried to "create a fictive world", attempted "to play what goes on in a Black man's soul". They all tried to play what goes on in their own soul. And sometimes they didn't succeed. Because they didn't listen deeply enough - to the example of Black musicians just as well as to themselves. But jazz helps them on their way. It helps them on their way to become musicians who know how to touch people, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually. Thus, I am glad there is jazz in Germany. I am grateful for this music that may have taken quite a different way over here, yet still acknowledges where it comes from. I know that many of the music's originators are not happy with some of the directions jazz takes in Germany (or Europe), but then, that's what happens if children grow up and learn how to be themselves, how to "play themselves".
I hope this does answer your question at least a small bit. I am glad you asked, because, yes, it is important to ask, it is important for you as it is for me and should be for all: Where do I stand; what is my position; where do I come from; do I still acknowledge my source(s) sufficiently; where will I be going; what would my ancestors do, influential people in my life, if they were in my place?
Warm regards from Germany,
(Wolfram Knauer)
Stuart Nicholson also responded to this. His comments can be read here.
