The making of jazz through its intermediaries

Thanks to his work, Olivier Roueff lays a new stone in the building of jazz knowledge produced in recent years in France (without concern for exhaustiveness, see for example the historical works of Tournès, Legrand, Gumplowicz, Fabiani, Jamin and Williams or recent sociological research by Becker and Faulkner, Coulangeon, Lizé, Perrenoud and Buscatto).

Its original ambition lies in the choice of the angle of study, namely “ categories of perception and evaluation of jazz as developed and prescribed by intermediaries » (p. 13). How indeed did jazz intermediaries – critics, programmers, producers or broadcasters – participate in orienting not only the definitions given to music supposedly belonging to jazz, but also their modes of “ consumption » by music lovers ?

The author thus aims to better understand both the developments that jazz has undergone over the last century – its musical definition, its modes of appreciation – and the progressive transformations of the experiential systems organizing its private and public listening.

Drawing on a solid corpus made up of journalistic and theoretical documents on jazz, interviews with jazz actors and observations of two jazz clubs during an investigation carried out over more than 15 years, Olivier Roueff gives to see the history of jazz as it was made in France over a long century. The demonstration is thus set up according to a chronological logic.

Of cake walk to the to hot jazz

In the first part, Olivier Roueff focuses on the creation of a musical genre, jazz, between 1902 and 1936. Jazz becomes at the same time an aesthetic corpus, a social space and a specific form of musical experience. It is the time traveled between the first literate receptions of a music hall dance, the cake walkand the constitution of a legitimate musical genre, the hot jazz. The first chapter, “ The advent of (Afro-)American pulse rhythm (1903-1912) » shows how the reception of music hall dance, the cake walksign from 1902, the first valorization, among hedonistic bourgeois, of this pulsating rhythm linking rhythmic processes to eroticized movements associated with specific ethnoracial origins. Two specific characteristics of this dance help to build new artistic tastes: a syncopated musical rhythm and a choreographic practice promoting improvisation. However, the jazz band, when it burst onto the French scenes in 1917, embodies these musical, racial and social traits in new forms.

Chapter 2 “ The evocative powers of the jazz band (1917-1926) » describes how the jazz band, which has become a modernist marker of literate circles, is used in the literary and musical fields as the incarnation of artistic innovations carried by avant-garde artists and critics. “ With the Negro magazine and jazz-spectacle, a clear distinction has stabilized between the experience of a jazz negro (“ savage “, “ erotic » and rather centered on the pulsing rhythm) and that of American jazz (“ civilized » and rather focused on orchestration games). » (p. 125). These categories of appreciation will finally transform into a musical genre, made up of a pantheon, a canon and specific institutions, through the creation of the hot jazzthis is the subject of the third chapter “ Hot jazz or the art of discophiles (1928-1939) “. Centered on the record, jazz “ black » and the figure of the instrumentalist as artist, the hot jazz is gradually defined as a musical genre by the first jazz theorists and critics (like Hugues Panassié or André Schaeffner) and slowly established among record enthusiasts through radio broadcasts, dedicated magazines or the Hot club from France. As opposed to straight jazzTHE hot jazz supposes, according to its defenders, the use of pulsating (Afro-)American rhythm and the implementation of solo improvisations considered expressive, even inspired. Hot jazz would thus be structured by “ an imperative of eroticized ethnoracial authenticity » (p. 156).

Jazz as a world and as an experience

The second part this time concerns the constitution of a specific social universe between 1940 and 1978: specialization of producers, formation of a specific market, empowerment of consecration bodies, definition of a jazz “ authentic », domestication of the public. In chapter 4 “ The jazz club, the concert and the domestication of audiences (1941-1954) » appears the transformation of jazz into a “ music to listen to “, a “ music musician “, transformation favored by the arrival of be-bop whose harmonic complexity and rhythmic virtuosity embody a purist definition of jazz as music in itself, in opposition to jazz “ traditional “. “ During the 1950s, the system of intermediation of jazz was therefore stabilized around an erudite genre which should be appreciated in concert or at a jazz club, an ambivalent synthesis of ascetic and hedonistic forms of literate culture. » (p. 218).

Chapter 5 “ Free jazz experiences (1960-1978) » outlines the evolution of jazz through one of its radical developments, free jazz, implemented by a new generation of critics and musicians in parallel with modal jazz and at hard bop. Through the free jazz a highly politicized French musical avant-garde is developing, relying in particular on festivals and so-called counter-cultural associations (jazz action). The abandonment of the harmonic grid in favor of free collective improvisation marks this new musical style carried by young, cultured and committed journalists. A new legitimate and autonomous musical style is thus gradually being established, European improvised musica new model of contemporary creativity specific to jazz and still widely supported today by public institutions.

Contemporary jazz experiences

A third and final part finally deals with contemporary forms of jazz experiences through the observation of two jazz clubs located in Montreuil and Marseille. While Pelle-Mêle is a jazz club from Marseille specializing in heritage jazz, Instants Chavirés is a jazz club from Montreuil specializing in experimental jazz. According to the author, these two clubs embody two ideal-typical figures of contemporary modes of reception of jazz in France. Chapter 6, “ Jazz in the second degree Pelle-Mêle (Marseille, 1979-2000) », establishes an obvious link between a certain way of playing and listening to jazz, with respect for the great masters and the past rules of jazz, and developments in cultural industries and learning methods. Jazz constitutes a heritage to be admired and transmitted, made up of a consecrated repertoire, adored great masters, rules and mastered improvisation processes. But heritage is alive, respect for the past does not happen without the active involvement of musicians in a personal reinterpretation of the repertoire. At Instants Capvirés, as indicated in chapter 7 “ Music for seeing: Instants Chavirés (Montreuil, 1991-2001) ”, is implemented conversely the “ creative jazz hub » (p. 316). The fruit of both aesthetic and political radicalization, the programming of this jazz club welcomes the aesthetic avant-garde of jazz, European improvised music. Experimentation and improvisation, carried out on stage, in a collective and spontaneous manner, are valued.

This work, based on a beautiful empirical investigation carried out over a long period, shows with finesse the ways in which a musical style is constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed over time, at the intersection of multiple social, political or economic issues. Jazz was thus immediately established as a music belonging to literate culture in its hedonistic version. The effects that these processes of creating a musical style have on its various actors are also skilfully described, from listening to a concert to playing music on stage through the enunciation of a record review. Olivier Roueff could sometimes delve deeper into areas left in the shadows and thus further enrich our understanding of the history of jazz in France. Let’s take an example: the author repeatedly indicates the character “ androcentric ” Or “ male » of jazz without digging into the analysis. However, this would surely have made it possible not only to better understand why women were (and remain) so absent among jazz musicians, critics or producers, but above all to understand even more finely the musical forms neglected, devalued or denigrated in the past. thread of jazz history. In other words, a more significant female presence in the world of jazz and/or a less extreme valorization of values ​​“ masculine ” by its protagonists would perhaps have translated into a completely different history of jazz, of its categories of perception and evaluation of “ good music », and this at different major moments of transformation of the very definition of jazz.

But this criticism does not detract from the certain interest that jazz enthusiasts as well as sociologists and art historians will find in reading this work.