Dynamic canons: how the Pulitzer prize, documentary film, and the US Department of State are changing the way we think about jazz

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Content DYNAMIC CANONS:
HOW THE PULITZER PRIZE, DOCUMENTARY FILM, AND THE U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE ARE CHANGING THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT JAZZ

by

Matthew Alan Thomas

________________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORICAL MUSICOLOGY)

August 2011

Copyright 2011 Matthew Alan Thomas
ii
Dedication

This manuscript is dedicated to my wife Christina Whitten Thomas,
my partner and editor in chief.

iii
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Mina Yang and the members of my dissertation
committee, Dr. Bryan Simms and Dr. Nick Cull, for their mentorship and constructive
criticism. I would also like to thank Nasar Abadey, Mark Sherman, Susan John, and Jasna
Radonjic for sharing their perspectives on the Rhythm Road tours.
iv
Contents

Dedication ii

Acknowledgements iii

List of Musical Examples v

List of Figures vi

Abstract vii

Introduction
Ornette Coleman in Concert 1
Jazz Canons 4
Case Studies in the Canonization of Jazz (1995-2010) 14

Chapter 1. Jazz and the Pulitzer Prize 22
Wynton Marsalis’s Blood on the Fields (1994 rev. 1997) 23
Ornette Coleman’s Sound Grammar (2006) 47

Chapter 2. Jazz in Documentary Film 66
Ken Burns’s Jazz (2001) 69
Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke (2006) 85

Chapter 3. Jazz on Tour with the US Department of State 110
The Rhythm Road Tours (2006-2010) 113
Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Tours (1995-2010) 136

Conclusion 146
Contested Identity 147
Wynton Marsalis’s Swing Symphony in Concert 150
Dynamic Canons 157

Bibliography 159
v
List of Musical Examples

Musical Example 1. Jon Hendricks quotes “Summertime.” 29

Musical Example 2. Dizzy Gillespie solos on “Hot House.” 33

Musical Example 3. Marcus Printup and Russell Gunn quote “Hot House.” 35

Musical Example 4. Marsalis, movement III: “You Don’t Hear No Drums.” 39

Musical Example 5. Milton Babbitt, All Set for Jazz Ensemble. 40

Musical Example 6. Marsalis, movement I: “Calling the Indians Out.” 42

Musical Example 7. Marsalis, movement XI: “Forty Lashes.” 43

Musical Example 8. Benny Maupin’s bass clarinet ostinato. 44
Musical Example 9. Ornette Coleman quotes “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” 51
Musical Example 10. Denardo Coleman plays a hip hop beat. 52

Musical Example 11. Ornette Coleman quotes “If I Loved You.” 56

Musical Example 12. Joe Henderson playing Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan.” 58

Musical Example 13. Ornette Coleman quotes Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan.” 58

Musical Example 14. Ornette Coleman quotes “As Time Goes By.” 59

Musical Example 15. “St. James Infirmary” as sung by Wynton Marsalis. 89

Musical Example 16. Levees Theme in When The Levees Broke. 91
Musical Example 17. Frazier Theme - Countermelody in Inside Man. 97
Musical Example 18. Frazier Theme - Piano Version in Inside Man. 98
Musical Example 19. “Follow the Ring” Cue in Inside Man. 98

vi
List of Figures

Figure 1. Ornette Coleman’s “Sleep Talking” as performed on Sound Grammar 55
Figure 2. Ornette Coleman’s “Turnaround” as performed on Sound Grammar 57
Figure 3. Shelton Alexander “Blessed are the Ones” 101
Figure 4. Styles Represented in the Rhythm Road Tours (2006-2010) 117
Figure 5. Gender of Rhythm Road Musicians (2006-2010) 119
Figure 6. Origins and Destinations of the 2010 Rhythm Road Tours 120
Figure 7. Thelonious Monk Institute International Tours 137
with the US Department of State (1995-2010)

vii
Abstract
Many factors, including government sponsorship, institutional patronage, and
influential documentary films have contributed to the creation of an official jazz canon.
However, jazz performers create living, dynamic canons using techniques of intertextual
reference. This dissertation presents several case studies on the representation of a jazz
canon by individual artists, documentary filmmakers, and cultural institutions. Chapter one
discusses how jazz canons are invoked and criticized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning works of
Wynton Marsalis and Ornette Coleman. Chapter two presents contrasting views of the
relationship between tradition and living culture as portrayed in two influential documentary
films: Ken Burns’s Jazz and Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke. Chapter three examines
American jazz diplomacy in the post-Cold War era focusing on the United States State
Department’s partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Thelonious Monk Institute of
Jazz. In conclusion, I contend that jazz performers create dynamic canons that supplement,
and sometimes subvert official canons.

1

Introduction: Ornette Coleman in Concert

Few would deny that Ornette Coleman occupies a central position in the
standard canon of American jazz. When I went to hear Coleman perform at UCLA’s
Royce Hall on November 3, 2010, it was clear from the artist’s biography in the
program that he is confident of his canonical status. Coleman’s bio reads like a
textbook description of a classical modernist composer, highlighting the innovative
and controversial moments in his career. The quartet, which included Tony Falanga on
acoustic bass, Al MacDowell on electric bass, and his son Denardo Coleman on
drums, played many of Coleman’s best known standards including “Sleep Talking” and
“Turnaround.” Even though he was playing from his own canon of standards, the
ensemble varied the tempo and groove of each piece, emphasizing the value of
attending a live performance.
Several of Coleman’s standard licks stood out in his performance at Royce
Hall. The first is his paraphrase of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” which he
recorded during an improvised solo in “Jordan” from his album Sound Grammar.
During this concert, Coleman played the same paraphrase at least half a dozen times.
Like a preacher who repeats a phrase in his sermon, Coleman kept coming back to
“What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” affecting a sort of instrumental evangelism. The
religious connection is further reinforced through the title “Jordan” which, in name
alone, conjures connections with African American gospel music.
Another characteristic Coleman lick is his trademark squealing, which can
make his saxophone sound like James Brown’s soulful shouts. At the UCLA concert,
the emcee announced that Coleman would be performing on saxophone, trumpet, and
2
violin, yet the violin sat untouched on a stand to his left hand side through the entire
concert. During the few times he reached for the trumpet, it was to deliver a brief
series of squeals. I hear these moments as ecstatic shouts of glory, praise, and carnal
joy.
Several times during the performance, I heard him play a few ascending and
descending major scales, something that even beginning improvisers are taught to
avoid. I could not help asking myself, could anyone else get away with this? Is
Coleman getting lazy or was he commenting on music pedagogy? The combination of
the serious and the trivial is an aspect of Coleman’s playing that has offended the ears
of some critics and endeared him to fans for decades. Like other avant-gardists,
Coleman’s persistence has weathered the storm of criticism until his music has been
accepted into a mainstream canon.
One of the clear highlights of the evening was an improvised performance
based on the famous prelude of J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 in G Major. Falanga
bowed the entire prelude on his acoustic bass, repeating it until the improvisation was
finished, while MacDowell plucked out chords on his electric bass. Coleman’s son
Denardo changed the feel several times during the piece, alternating between hip-hop
and up-tempo swing. Ornette’s own improvisation on this piece was puzzling to say
the least. At times, Coleman seemed unaware of what the rest of the ensemble was
doing as he indulged in unrelated noodling and honked out a few notes too dissonant
to be intentional.
By using Bach’s piece as a point of departure for collective improvisation,
Coleman’s ensemble challenges the listener’s notion of a “standard” tune and
demonstrates that they do not segregate the jazz canon by style, race, or nationality.
3
For Coleman’s ensemble, the music of Bach is as suitable a basis for improvisation as
the music of Gershwin or Ellington.
Coleman’s enthusiasm for collaboration is another one of the enduring
strengths that shined through in this performance. The concert featured appearances
by two guest artists. Vocalist Mari Okubo’s most interesting addition to the
performance was provided by her jewelry reflecting the stage lights across the hall.
Obuko’s unintelligible wailing never stayed on a discernable pitch long enough for me
to tell whether or not she was capable of signing in tune. I was pleasantly surprised by
the performance of rock bassist Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame, who was invited
on stage to close the concert. As a longtime jazz aficionado, Flea has been asserting
himself in the local jazz culture of Los Angeles more frequently in recent decades. He
appeared in Bruce Weber’s documentary on Chet Baker, and has recently taken up the
trumpet, taking lessons at the University of Southern California and performing with
the Cal Tech jazz combo. I was afraid that Flea would take out his trumpet on stage
with Coleman, but fortunately he stuck to the instrument he knew best. Flea, who has
a reputation for enthusiastic stage presence, showed that he could hang pretty well
with Coleman’s celebrity bassists on the first tune and was able to blend well with the
bottom heavy texture. Although he was not featured in any solos, the eyes of the entire
concert hall remained fixed on the green-topped head-banger for the rest of the set.
After sharing the stage for Coleman’s obligatory standing ovation, Flea
unceremoniously grabbed his guitar case and bolted.
Coleman’s performance raises some questions about the canonization of jazz.
How did jazz come to be presented as concert music? How did the music of Ornette
Coleman, considered to be experimental and avant-garde in the 1960s, eventually win
4
acceptance as a classical music? It was clear from the response of the audience in
Royce Hall that Coleman has achieved canonical status. As I stood with the rest of the
audience following Coleman’s standard encore “Lonely Woman,” I felt that we were
applauding Coleman’s legacy as much as the quality of his performance. No doubt that
many feared that it would be the last time they would hear this legend live in concert.
Was it Coleman’s longevity and extensive list of albums and awards that confirmed this
status or was it something else? Something in the music? Something that the audience
could hear if they listened closely? Coleman’s performance was ripe with intertextual
references to his own music and the music of others. In effect, we were listening to his
view of a musical canon. I didn’t go listen to Ornette Coleman to be impressed by the
virtuosity of his performance; I went to hear how he would interact with tradition.
Intertextual reference is one method that jazz musicians use to construct canons and
this performance confirmed Coleman’s reputation for using quotation to celebrate
other music. Although the concert featured a brief nod to JS Bach, the clear focus of
Ornette’s improvisation was gospel music, with the melody to “What a friend we have
in Jesus” functioning as a recurring motive throughout the program. For Coleman,
classic hymns hold as much aesthetic value as Bach’s cello suites and both provide
fertile grounds for improvisation.

Jazz Canons
A canon is generally recognized as a body of work that that has demonstrated
enduring visibility and positive critical reception many years after it was created. The
continued revival of a work is often taken as a sign of canonical status. For example,
George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess could be considered to have entered the canon when
5
the Metropolitan Opera revived the work in 1985.
1
On the other hand, Gershwin’s Of
Thee I Sing won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, but was never revived.
2
A second
feature of the canon in Western music is that canonized works are believed to possess
universal and transcendent value. Popularity alone is often insufficient to warrant
canonization among critics and historians, who reserve the final say in evaluating
transcendent value.
The idea of an official jazz canon that is based on a certain group of composers
and repertoire is a concept that achieved fruition in the latter decades of the 20th
century. Admittedly, there were those who deified artists during their lifetime, such as
Sonny Stitt’s emulation of Charlie Parker. In the 1960s and 70s, the ensembles of
Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington made a living well past the decline of the big
bands by touring with their old hits. The creation of a repertoire-based canon of
performance emerged in tandem with the rise of jazz anthologies such as Martin
Williams’s The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz (1973) and the foundation of
institutional jazz education programs.
There are still some questions about whether canonization is an active or
passive process. Are authors and critics responsible for the creation of canons, or are
canons created through a process of natural selection in which the best works continue
to be discussed and performed? Critics undoubtedly play a role in shaping canons, and
are often motivated by interests that go beyond objective measurements of musical
quality, including the formation and promotion of nationalist cultural canons. Walter

1
Rodney Greenberg, George Gershwin (London: Phaidon, 1998) p.196

2
Lehman Engel claimed this was because the comic dialogue became quickly dated. See Robert Wyatt
and John Andrew Johnson eds. The George Gershwin Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)
p.195
6
Wiora has identified cross-cultural aspect of musical canons, including the tendency to
divide canons into classical, and popular, and experimental categories.
3
The concept of
a universalist canon also connected with a dominant national culture is most closely
associated with German music. The subjective aspects of canon formation have been
of increasing scholarly interest since the 1990s. Jim Samson has pointed out that “taste
creating” institutions such as journals and music publishers aided in the promotion of
a canon of European art music in the 19th century.
4
In addition, intuitional scholarship
has tended to support avant-garde artists in favor of commercial artists, creating a
divide been between official and popular canons.
Rather than fixate on an answer to the question of whether canons are
subjectively constructed or an outcome of natural selection, this study proposes the
alternate view that musicians create canons through intertextual reference. Coleman’s
improvisations refer to music across genres, supporting the idea of a canon of great
music that transcends stylistic boundaries. In contrast, Wynton Marsalis, another
musicians discussed extensively in my study, stands out for his use of intertextual
reference for the purposes of promoting an official canon, and his music generally
maintains the division between popular and art music.
Against the backdrop of awards, revivals, and other previously recognized taste
making institutions, jazz musicians form canons mainly through the process of
intertextual reference in improvisation. Although musicians of many styles indicate

3
Walter Wiora, Die vier Weltalter der Musik (Stuttgart, 1961, 2/1988; Eng. trans., 1965) and Walter Wiora,
ed. Die Ausbreitung des Historismus über die Musik: Aufsätze und Diskussionen (Regensburg, 1969)
4
Jim Samson. “Canon (iii).” In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.libproxy.usc.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/40598 (accessed
March 17, 2011)

7
influence through quotation, this method is especially prominent in jazz improvisation.
The process of critical troping in jazz builds upon the rhetorical practice of Signifyin(g)
in African American music.
5
Jazz performers create individually nuanced canons by
referring to other artists in their improvised solos. These canons are not fixed and
unchanging but fluid and dynamic, subject to the influences and tastes of each artist. I
believe that an argument about which works/artists do or do not belong in “the
official” jazz canon can be misleading. There are many competing canons created by
different cultural groups for different purposes. Each musician has his or her own
changeable opinion about which are the greatest artists and works. Rather than attempt
to arrive at a universal consensus, it may be more productive to listen to how
musicians invoke and comment upon tradition in their performances. Jazz musicians
listen to performances (live and recorded), absorb what they admire, and assimilate
elements of the artists they admire into their own vocabulary. Historically informed
artists such as Ornette Coleman and Wynton Marsalis often reuse familiar material for
the purposes of critical commentary in order to promote their individual view of the
jazz canon.

Jazz as a Classical Music
Today, jazz is considered by many to be America’s most original and
sophisticated artistic export. Some even call jazz America’s classical art form.
The clearest indication that jazz has “arrived,” however, may be its
institutionalization in the American academy and in elite institutions such as
the Smithsonian Institution, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center.
6

5
Gates Jr., Henry Louis. The Signifyin(g) Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (New York,
Oxford University Press, 1988)

6
Gregory Thomas, “The Canonization of Jazz and Afro-American Literature.” Callaloo 25:1 (2002)
p.288
8
The canonization of jazz is supported by several assumptions. First is the idea
that jazz is an art music that demands higher technical standards of performers and
composers than other forms of popular music. Many would agree the technical
virtuosity required to emulate a John Coltrane solo is comparable to the skill
demanded to play the cadenza of a Mozart piano concerto. Second is the idea that jazz
is capable of elevating the spirit in a way that other forms of music cannot. This builds
upon the view of classical music as a transcendent art form, important for all people
and all times. Third is the establishment of a text-based canon that provides a body of
literature for analysis and performance. Recordings and transcriptions constitute the
principal texts and literature of the jazz canon. The establishment of a standard
repertoire is a prerequisite for establishing a conservatory style music education
program. Classic recordings form the most fundamental element of the jazz canon
because recordings allow improvised performances to be analyzed and emulated, just
as notated scores provide the basic material for analysis in classical music.
In the past, Jazz has been tied to contemporary popular music and jazz
musicians have used popular dance rhythms, melodies, and harmonies of popular
tunes as a point of departure for improvisation. Yet in recent decades, jazz musicians
have turned increasingly to universities and nonprofit institutions such as Jazz at
Lincoln Center for patronage. When jazz enters the conservatory, the focus tends to
shift towards mastering the musical language of a limited number of artists and works
drawn from a mainstream jazz canon. In the conservatory, jazz also tends to lose its
connections with popular music, which was never the product of universities.

9
Another issue in canonical jazz is not a question of philosophy but of
patronage. Practicing musicians are concerned primarily with finding gigs that enable
them to make a living doing what they love to do. Musicians who place a strong
priority on the preservation of historical styles recognize the potential for securing
institutional support by partnering with traditional patrons of classical music. In order
to appeal to private patrons who view themselves as the cultural elite, these jazz
musicians may choose to present their music as exclusive and separate from popular
music. Like European classical music, jazz is increasingly marketed as a status symbol
and signifier of cultural refinement.

The Threat of Canon
In recent decades, the subject of a jazz canon has emerged as a central issue in
jazz scholarship. William Weber, Joseph Kerman, and Lydia Goehr have described
how a canon of European classical music emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, in which the works of certain composers were promoted as eternal and
transcendent.
7
Carys Wyn Jones has shown how the reception of classic rock albums
has reinforced a canon centered around values of youth, rebellion, hedonism, and
nihilism.
8
In a similar manner, Krin Gabbard, Gary Tomlinson and others have

7
Joseph Kerman argues that a classical canon developed in the nineteenth century as a product of
German romanticism. He distinguishes between repertories determined by performers and canons
determined by critics. See Joseph Kerman, “A Few Canonic Variations,” Critical Inquiry 10 (1983)
pp.107-26 ; William Weber challenges Kerman’s argument, positing that a canon arose from
performance of sacred choral works in the eighteenth century. See William Weber, “The Eighteenth-
Century Origins of the Musical Canon,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 114 (1989), pp.6-17 ; Lydia
Goehr contends that a classical canon emerged around 1800 as listening to instrumental music became a
secular ritual for the European bourgeoisie. Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An
Essay in the Philosophy of Music. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)

8
See Carys Wyn Jones. The Rock Canon: Canonical Values in the Reception of Rock Albums (Aldershot and
Burlington: Ashgate, 2008)
10
commented on the formation of a jazz canon. Just as the establishment of American
concert halls and symphony orchestras around the turn of the twentieth century
reinforced the tradition of European classical music in America, the formation of jazz
institutions such as Jazz at the Lincoln Center and the Thelonious Monk Institute have
helped establish jazz as a rival form of classical music. Furthermore, the creation of
monumental anthologies such as the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz and the
recordings accompanying the Ken Burns documentary on jazz reinforce a mainstream
jazz canon. However, the promotion of “classic” jazz by institutions, anthologies,
public figures, documentary films, and the US government raises questions about the
influence of extra-musical factors on the development of a jazz canon.
Some writers who connect jazz with modernism, such as Ronald Radano and
Eric Nisenson, argue that a jazz canon threatens the oppositional, progressive
character of jazz music.
9
Gary Tomlinson contends that despite attempts by Amiri
Baraka and others to distance themselves from Euro-centric modes of discourse, jazz
historians have adopted trends of canonization similar to those found in Western art
music.
10
Other critics of a hegemonic jazz canon criticize the subjective exclusion of
female artists and experimental jazz styles.
11
In spite of this criticism, Krin Gabbard
and Gregory Thomas agree that the adoption of similar models for jazz criticism has

9
Ronald Radano, “Jazz since 1960,” in Cambridge History of American Music, David Nicholls ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) pp.448-470 ; Eric Nisenson, Blue: The Murder of Jazz
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997)

10
Gary Tomlinson, “Cultural Dialogics and Jazz: A White Historian Signifies,” Black Music Research
Journal 11 (1991) pp.244-245

11
Marcia Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993)

11
aided in the acceptance of jazz by universities and other elite institutions.
12
Several
scholars, including DeVeaux, Gabbard, and Radano, claim that the narrative structure
of canonical jazz histories creates a misleading sense of continuity.
13
As an alternative
to focusing on “great” artists and “major” works, these musicologists consider the
social and cultural factors surrounding the production and reception of jazz.
Other writers, such as Stanley Crouch and Gregory Thomas, promote the
canonization of jazz as an affirmation of African American culture.
14
Wynton Marsalis,
Stanley Crouch, Albert Murray, and Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) are among the most
avid supporters of canonization. Gregory Thomas presents JALC as an attempt by
black critics and musicians to resist appropriation by white critics and other institutions
including the State Department.
15
In contrast, Fred Ho contends that jazz, as the
music of oppressed African Americans, has been resistant to the process of
canonization.
16

Recent jazz diplomacy programs sponsored by the US Department of State,
hearkening back to the Cold War jazz ambassador tours, promote jazz as symbol of
American pluralism. The State Department’s cooperation with the Jazz at Lincoln

12
Tomlinson, p.3 and Thomas, p.289

13
Scott DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1997) p.4 ; Krin Gabbard ed. Representing Jazz (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995) p.1 ; Radano,
“Jazz Since 1960,” p.469

14
See Stanley Crouch, “Play the Right Thing” The New Republic 12 February 1990, pp.30-37 and Gregory
Thomas, “The Canonization of Jazz and Afro-American Literature,” Callaloo 25 (2002) pp.288-308

15
Thomas, "The Canonization of Jazz and Afro-American Literature." p.289

16
Ho writes, “For the most part, “jazz” has never looked back to the past as “classical” music has -
fixated upon finer and finer degrees of perfection in the interpretation of past “classic” treasures.
Rather, “jazz” has been about the present (“Now’s the Time”) and the future (“Space is the Place.”)”
Fred Wei-han Ho, “What Makes “Jazz” the Revolutionary Music of the 20th Century, and will it Be
Revolutionary for the 21st Century?” African American Review 29:2 (1995) p.285

12
Center and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz has contributed to the promotion of
an official jazz canon. However musicians and administrators associated with each of
these institutions convey philosophical differences about the relationship between jazz
and popular music, suggesting that the nature of this canon remains contested.
At the heart of the debate about a jazz canon is the issue of race. In Blues People,
Amiri Baraka argues that the achievements of black innovators were overshadowed by
commercially-successful white imitators. While Baraka admits that jazz “was a music
capable of reflecting not only the Negro and a black America but a white America as
well,” he contends that this was only possible because white musicians could copy the
stylistic features of jazz.
17
Others acknowledge multi-cultural influences in jazz. In his
own writings, Duke Ellington acknowledged the innovations of black and white jazz
musicians.
18

The issue of race applies to the scholarly debate on canon in more subtle ways.
For Marsalis, Murray, Crouch, and Thomas, the construction and acceptance of a jazz
canon represents the recognition of the artistic achievements of African Americans in
a nation that promoted legal segregation until the 1960s. Some opponents of the
canonization of jazz may fear the encroachment of a music rooted in African
American culture upon the domain of Western art music. Other critics, including
Ronald Radano and Gary Tomlinson, are concerned that canonization marginalizes
eclectic artists such as Anthony Braxton and Miles Davis.
19

17
Blues, he insisted, remained inaccessible to white Americans. See Amiri Baraka, Blues People
(Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1995, ©1963) p.149

18
Duke Ellington, Music is My Mistress. Cited in Bryan Simms ed. Composers on Modern Musical Culture
(New York: Schirmer Books, 1999) p.268

19
Tomlinson, pp.229-264 and Ronald Radano, New Musical Figurations: Anthony Braxton’s Cultural Critique
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)
13
The problem of canon is further confounded by the inconsistent application of
the label “jazz” to a wide variety of music and musicians.
20
For Aaron Copland, Virgil
Thompson, Theodor Adorno, and many other critics in the 1920s and 30s, “jazz”
referred to Tin Pan Alley songs and ragtime piano music.
21
The “free” style of Ornette
Coleman in the 1960s and fusion experiments of Miles Davis in the 1970s further
challenged definitions of jazz. Many African American artists in the 1960s, including
Lester Bowie, Muhal Richard Abrams, Dizzy Gillespie, and Duke Ellington,
conscientiously declined to describe their music as “jazz” due the pejorative use of the
term in popular culture and music criticism. Since the 1980s, Wynton Marsalis, Albert
Murray, and Stanley Crouch have attempted to define jazz as blues and swing played
on acoustic instruments. For the purposes of this study, my analysis will apply to
selected artists who either choose to describe their music as jazz or are promoted as
jazz artists.
The discourse on canon is also influenced by the ongoing debate between the
aesthetic viewpoints of modernism and postmodernism. Postmodern scholarship has
raised awareness of the subjective aspects of canon formation and have complained of
the exclusive nature of canons. In Jazz among the Discourses, Krin Gabbard argues that
“ideological forces masquerade as disinterested aesthetics in the discourse around all
canonical works.”
22
Without denying the existence of objective measurements of
musical quality or attempting to deconstruct the classical canons of Western culture,

20
Krin Gabbard, “The Word Jazz” in The Cambridge Companion to Jazz, eds. Mervyn Cooke and David
Horn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) pp.2-6

21
Bryan Simms ed. Composers on Modern Musical Culture (New York: Schirmer Books, 1999) p.235-236

22
Krin Gabbard ed. Jazz Among the Discourses (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995) p.2

14
we may acknowledge the existence of multiple canons created by different cultural
groups in different contexts. Sometimes, these canons overlap and compete for
influence; in other instances canons remain the private domain of a select audience.
Every performing musician is aware of the influence of canons on the reception and
consumption of music.

Case Studies in the Canonization of Jazz (1995-2010)
This study will present several case studies on the representation of a jazz
canon by individual artists, public-sponsored institutions, documentary films, and the
United States government. Chapter one will compare and contrast two Pulitzer Prize-
winning jazz compositions: Wynton Marsalis’s Blood on the Fields (1997) and Ornette
Coleman’s Sound Grammar (2006). The awarding of the Pulitzer Prize in music to
Wynton Marsalis for his composition Blood on The Fields marked the first time a jazz
artist had received this award. For some, the award signaled a decline in aesthetic
standards.
23
To others, it represented a significant step in the recognition of jazz as art
music.
The music and aesthetics of Wynton Marsalis play an important role
throughout this dissertation. Marsalis is an outstanding and controversial figure in the
contemporary arts community who has won fame and notoriety as a performer, jazz
educator, and composer. As an accomplished trumpet player in both classical and jazz
styles, he appears uniquely qualified to evangelize the aesthetic merits of jazz to the

23
When the Pulitzer committee changed the award criteria to include sound recordings in 2004, USC
faculty composer Stephen Hartke complained of a downgrading of art music. See Fred Kaplan, “Sour
Note: When Will the Pulitzer Prize in Music Get it Right.” Slate April 19, 2006 (Accessed 10 April 2008),
http://www.slate.com/id/2140177/

15
public and a skeptical critical establishment accustomed to the traditions of European
based concert music. Although his music has enjoyed favorable reception in some
circles, Marsalis has been criticized for policing the boundaries of jazz. Some have
accused Marsalis of stylistic retrenchment and commercially-driven neo-classicism. In
the words of Ronald Radano:
Marsalis’s influence – both as a small-group leader and, more recently, as
artistic director of Lincoln Center’s jazz program – has brought wide acclaim
to the neo-bop movement, fueled by a marketing community that remains
invested in the rhetoric of continuity and coherence.
24

On the other hand, supporters of Marsalis, such as Gregory Thomas, have linked his
leadership of Jazz at the Lincoln Center with a broader movement to win recognition
for the artistic accomplishments of African Americans.
25
In Robert Walser’s opinion:
What is at stake in debates such as those Marsalis has sparked is nothing less
than our collective memory of what jazz has been - which shapes our sense of
what it is and will be.
26

In 1997, the same year that Marsalis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Blood on
The Fields, two books were published that summarized opposing viewpoints of
Marsalis’s role as arbiter of the jazz canon. Eric Nisenson argued that the canon
enforced by Stanley Crouch, Albert Murray, Wynton Marsalis, and Jazz at Lincoln
Center presents an exclusive and static narrative of jazz history.
27
Tom Piazza, on the

24
Ronald Radano, “Jazz since 1960,” in Cambridge History of American Music, David Nicholls ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) p.468

25
Gregory Thomas, “The Canonization of Jazz and Afro-American Literature,” Callaloo 25:1 (2002)
p.289
26
Robert Walser, ed. Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)
p.334

27
Eric Nisenson, Blue: The Murder of Jazz (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997)

16
other hand, praised Marsalis for defending tradition.
28
As director of Jazz at the
Lincoln Center, Marsalis has assumed a curatorial role in the presentation of jazz
history. In his polemics as well as in his original compositions, Marsalis indicates which
styles should and should not be included in the jazz canon.
My analysis will begin with a musical analysis of Wynton Marsalis’s Blood on the
Fields in order to asses how his music Signifies on the music of other jazz artists and
styles. Blood on the Fields is a programmatic work inspired by the experience of African
American slaves just as Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown, and Beige (1943) was a “tone
parallel” (Ellington’s term) to the history of the American negro. Samuel Floyd
describes how William Grant Still and Duke Ellington advanced Harlem Renaissance
ideals through the “elevation” of Negro folk idioms in concert works. I suspect that
Marsalis’s efforts to promote a jazz canon can also be linked to the Harlem
Renaissance ideals. By presenting a large-scale programmatic jazz composition in a
concert setting, Marsalis was promoting jazz as a form of classical music. How do
Marsalis and the musicians of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra represent and Signify
upon a jazz canon in Blood on the Fields? Are Marsalis’s stylistic influences limited to
canonical jazz figures such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington or does his
musical palette include non-canonical artists?
29
Marsalis has often been criticized for

28
Tom Piazza, Blues Up and Down: Jazz In Our Time (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997)

29
Monson demonstrates techniques for understanding intertextuality in improvised jazz solos. See
Ingrid Monson, Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1996)

17
his repudiation of “free” jazz, yet closer examination reveals an ambivalent attitude
toward experimental artists.
30

Whereas Marsalis is often identified as the spokesman for a neoclassical jazz
aesthetic, Ornette Coleman is best known as a pioneer of the free jazz style. When
Coleman’s album Sound Grammar was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2006, the
concept of a neoclassical jazz canon as advanced by Marsalis was destabilized.
Although both Pulitzer Prize-winning albums were the subject of heated debate in the
press and trade journals, these influential works have not yet been placed in a critical
context. I will evaluate the critical reception of each work in conjunction with a
musical analysis conducted from a listener’s perspective.
In the second chapter, I will compare the representation of jazz in two
prominent documentary films: Spike Lee’s When The Levees Broke (2006) and Ken
Burns’s Jazz (2001).
31
First, I will present an analysis of Spike Lee’s documentary on
Hurricane Katrina, explaining how the soundtrack, produced by Terence Blanchard,
uses Louis Armstrong’s recording of “St. James Infirmary” as a recurring motive
illustrating the importance of jazz in New Orleans culture.
32
Both Marsalis and
Blanchard are featured in interviews offering musical and political commentary.
Ken Burns’s other films, including Baseball, The Civil War, and The War, focus
on iconic aspects of American culture and his documentary series on jazz presents, in

30
Gregory Thomas has drawn attention to interviews in which Marsalis expresses admiration for the
free jazz artist Ornette Coleman. Gregory Thomas, “The Canonization of Jazz and Afro-American
Literature.” Callaloo 25 (2002) p.296

31
Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Geoffrey C. Ward, Jazz, 10 videodiscs, PBS distributed by Warner
Home Video, 2000, DVD.

32
Spike Lee dir. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, 3 videodiscs, HBO Video, 2006, DVD.
The soundtrack was released as a separate album see Terence Blanchard, A Tale of God’s Will, Blue Note
094639153220, 2007, CD.

18
his view, “the most comprehensive treatment of jazz ever committed to film.”
33

Despite this claim, nine of the ten segments in the series focus on jazz before 1960. In
addition, the musical selections in the film closely reflect the stylistic preferences of the
film’s leading spokesman Wynton Marsalis, who speaks passionately in defense of jazz
history rooted in his own New Orleans heritage. Although Burns’s and Lee’s films vary
significantly in focus and content, both affirm a jazz heritage rooted in New Orleans
culture and the music of Louis Armstrong. While Burns’s film aims at constructing a
linear history of jazz, Lee’s film presents a more localized view of jazz history,
representing two opposing views of the jazz canon.
The third chapter will pick up where Penny Von Eschen’s exemplary survey of
musical diplomacy left off, exploring representations of a jazz canon in selected tours
sponsored by the US State Department since the end of the Cold War including the
2010 Rhythm Road Tour and a series of tours by the Thelonious Monk Institute of
Jazz between 1995 and 2010. Evidence suggests that there may be disagreement
between official and individual representations of jazz on these tours. The Rhythm
Road may be part of a broader effort by the State Department to construct a “national
brand” centered on traditional jazz.
34
While the Rhythm Road program administrators
may promote a more conservative view of the jazz canon, many of the musicians
represent a much broader view of the canon while on tour. In order examine this issue
more closely, I interviewed musicians and administrators involved with the State
Department tours about their perception of a jazz canon. I conducted a survey of

33
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns. Jazz: A History of America’s Music (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2000) p.ix

34
Owens describes how nations develop and promote a national brand through cultural diplomacy. See
Wally Owens, “Making a National Brand,” in The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations,
Jan Melissen ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) pp.169-179
19
primary source documents drawn from State Department press releases, domestic and
foreign press reports, and websites and blogs maintained by musicians who
participated on the tours.
My dissertation examines how influential figures, public-sponsored institutions,
documentary films, and the US State Department have influenced the establishment of
a jazz canon. My methodology will include an analysis of recordings and videos based
on close listening, interviews with musicians and administrators, and reviews of live
performances. Among the theories discussed in the literature review, I will focus on
the interpretation of intertextual reference as an act of Signifyin(g) as defined by Gates
and Floyd. According to these writers, Signifyin(g) is a technique of rhetorical troping
in African American literature and music in which artists transform familiar material
for purposes of critical commentary. Like “jazz,” Signifyin(g) can be a vaguely defined
and overused term. However, it is a particularly useful theory for explaining rhetorical
devices in jazz and for understanding jazz in a postmodern context. By focusing on
differences between jazz artists and styles, I believe that some musicologists have
overlooked the wealth of meanings to be found in the transformation of borrowed
material.
This dissertation will attempt to show how jazz performers construct and
comment on canons through intertextural reference. I argue that the jazz canon is not
simply a list of composers and works, but a fluid and dynamic process confirmed in
the Signifyin(g) language of performers. The dynamic nature of canon is reflected in
the various ways in which performers quote or refer to other artists and styles as a sign
of respect or derision. Although Marsalis’s and Coleman’s Pulitzer Prizes display
increasing acceptance of jazz as a serious classical music by the critical establishment, a
20
better indication of canonical status may be heard in the Signifyin(g) references of the
performers themselves. The documentary films of Ken Burns and Spike Lee
demonstrate the ongoing struggle to frame the jazz canon in different ways. Whereas
Burns tends to emphasize the universal and transcendent aspects of jazz, Lee connects
the jazz canon directly to the living African American culture of New Orleans. The
sponsorship of institutions such as Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Thelonious Monk
Institute of Jazz, and the US Department of State has contributed to the canonization
of jazz as a tool for American cultural diplomacy. However, the musicians who
participate on these tours represent the canon in varied and dynamic ways, highlighting
the contested nature of American musical identity.
Rather than trying to condense the diverse aspects of American music into a
single identity, Charles Hiroshi Garrett argues that American music is characterized by
ongoing confrontation between myriad musical identities and American musical
culture is characterized by conflict rather than consensus.
35
In other words, it is
difficult to claim that one artist or style best embodies the spirit of America because
musicians present so many different ideas about what it means to be American. Garrett
consequently rejects the concept of cultural assimilation and the idea of a homogenous
American culture. In his view, individual songs represent “sites of cultural debate”
where national identity is negotiated rather than defined. Garrett’s notion of contested
identity meshes well with the way jazz musicians construct canons in performance. A
composition or performance becomes a site in which identities are negotiated and
called into question. Even as Burns’s official jazz canon has adopted the mythological
structure of birth, death, and resurrection, promoting Ellington and Armstrong as the

35
Charles Hiroshi Garrett, Struggling To Define A Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2008) pp.215-216
21
Bach and Beethoven of jazz, performers demonstrate that history lives in more subtle
ways, in a musicians timbre or in a phrase passed on from one jazz musician to
another.
22
Chapter 1: Jazz and the Pulitzer Prize

Since the Pulitzer Prize for music was established in 1943, the award has been
granted primarily to composers of concert music in the Western classical tradition.
Many have criticized past committees for overlooking African American composers as
well as popular music and jazz. The Pulitzer Prize has been awarded to only two jazz
composers: Wynton Marsalis for his composition Blood on the Fields in 1997 and
Ornette Coleman for his live album Sound Grammar in 2007.
36
Although their prizes
stirred some controversy, their awards indicate growing acceptance of jazz as a classical
music and affirm the status of Coleman and Marsalis in an official musical canon.
While the Pulitzer Prize is a significant indicator of general trends in music criticism
and represents one type of canon forming institution that could be said to represent an
official canon, a more vital indicator of canonical status can be heard in the Signifyin(g)
references of jazz performers. I propose that the musical language of jazz musicians
constitutes another type of canon building process in which performers appropriate
the sounds of influential artists and use quotation and stylistic reference to invoke and
comment upon tradition. Against the backdrop of the critical reception of each work
as reflected in published reviews, I will focus on interpreting specific quotations and
stylistic allusions based on close listening and score analysis.

36
The original criteria for the award were: “For a distinguished musical composition by an American in
any of the larger forms, including chamber, orchestral, choral, opera, song, dance, or other forms of
musical theater, which has had its first performance in the United States during that year.” J. Douglas
Bates, The Pulitzer Prize: The Inside Story of America’s Most Prestigious Award (New York: Carol
Publishing Group, 1991) p.143. In 2004, the criteria were changes to: “For a distinguished musical
composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during
the year.” A statement by the Pulitzer Prize Board. (June 1, 2004)
http://www.pulitzer.org/files/musicchanges.pdf (Accessed February 20, 2009)
23
Most of the critical attention paid to Wynton Marsalis has been focused on his
often controversial polemics rather than on his compositions and performances. While
it is widely acknowledged that Marsalis favors a definition of jazz that is focused on
blues, swing, and bebop, his compositions often allude to a broader range of styles. By
examining the score and recording of his oratorio Blood on the Fields, I hope to challenge
assumption about Marsalis’s work. I will also examine Ornette Coleman’s album Sound
Grammar. Despite obvious differences in their musical philosophies, Coleman’s
ensemble also relies on a tradition of Signifyin(g) quotation and allusion. Both Marsalis
and Coleman use quotation and stylistic references in order to construct individualized
canons that indicate reverence or disdain for certain artists and styles.
37

Wynton Marsalis’s Blood on the Fields (1994 rev. 1997)
Wynton Marsalis composed Blood on the Fields for jazz ensemble and three
vocalists in 1994. The composition tells the story of two Africans sold into slavery in
America. Jesse, a former African prince, initially rebuffs the affections of Leona, a girl
of humble origins. Seeking the advice of the local sage Juba, Jesse tries to escape but is
captured and returned to slavery. Over time, Jesse overcomes the class differences that
formerly separated him from Leona, and the couple finds support in their love and
hope for freedom.
Despite some controversy surrounding issues of eligibility, Wynton Marsalis
received the Pulitzer Prize for Blood on the Fields in 1997. At that time, the Pulitzer Prize
criteria required that a work must be premiered in the year that the prize was awarded.
The first version of the work was premiered at the Lincoln Center on April 1, 1994,

37
For a discussion of the differences between performers’ and critics’ canons in classical music see
Joseph Kerman, “A Few Canonic Variations,” Critical Inquiry 10 (1983) pp.107-26.

24
recorded in 1995, and released in 1997. Marsalis was able to find a loophole by
submitting a revised version of the score that was “premiered” at Yale University on
January 28, 1997.
38
The score published by Boosey and Hawkes in 1997 contains
minor differences compared to the recording released during the same year.
Not all critics were impressed with Blood on the Fields. Journalist Fred Kaplan
described Blood on the Fields as a “ponderously boring work.” He added:
When I saw it that year [1997] at Lincoln Center, Marsalis’s home turf, one-
third of the audience left at intermission, and it wasn’t because the music was
difficult.
39

New York Times critic Theodore Rosengarten condemned Marsalis and the Lincoln
Center for presenting the work as an addition to an Afro-centric jazz canon.
Rosengarten wrote:
By commissioning Mr. Marsalis to write Blood on the Fields, which had its
premiere in 1994, Lincoln Center intended to add to the jazz canon. [Lincoln
Center director] Mr. Gibson and Mr. Marsalis agree on the basics: the bop
movement, together with New Orleans jazz and swing, constitute the classic
jazz genre. The canon, they say, must be based on the blues...The heritage
preserved in the Lincoln Center’s view of the jazz canon scarcely reflects white
participation and the commissions to write new works have not gone to whites
since the program began in 1987.
40

Parallels between Marsalis’s and Ellington’s Works

In order to understand how Marsalis signifies on the past, it is important to
understand the history of the troubled relationship between jazz and the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1965, Duke Ellington premiered his hour-long concert of sacred music for jazz

38
The Pulitzer Prizes http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/1997-Music (Accessed March 21, 2011)

39
Fred Kaplan, “Sour Note: When Will the Pulitzer Prize in Music Get it Right.” Slate, April 19, 2006,
http://www.slate.com/id/2140177/ (Accessed 10, April 2008)

40
Theodore Rosengarten, “Songs of Slavery Lifted By a Chorus of Horns.” The New York Times, vol.146,
no.50 (Feb 23, 1997)

25
ensemble, soloists, tap dancer, and choir entitled In the Beginning God (also know as a
Concert of Sacred Music or the First Sacred Concert). In a program note at the
premiere, Ellington explained, “This is the most important thing we have ever done.”
41

Ellington’s First Sacred Concert represented his ecumenical philosophy that jazz was
pioneered by African Americans but had become a global and multi-racial art form.
Ellington demonstrated this diversity by pairing his African American ensemble with
an ethnically diverse church choir. Despite the ambitious aspects of the work and
Ellington’s record of accomplishment, the Pulitzer Committee declined to consider
Ellington for a special citation that year. When interviewed by Nat Hentoff about
being passed over for the Pulitzer Prize, Ellington famously replied:
Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to be famous too young…What
else could I have said?...In the first place, I never do give any thought to prizes. I
work and I write. And that’s it. My reward is hearing what I’ve done, and
unlike most composers, I can hear it immediately.
42

Ellington intended to compose an opera on the subject of African American
history. Although the opera, entitled Boolah, was never completed, Ellington described
his he described his Black, Brown, and Beige as a “tone parallel to the history of the
American Negro.”
43
Despite Ellington’s uncontested central position in the jazz canon,
his large-scale works were met with lukewarm reception by critics and are still not as
well-known as his shorter compositions for big band. In this light, Marsalis’s Prize may
be viewed as a symbolic redemption of Ellington’s extended works.

41
Tony Gleason, A Concert of Sacred Music At Grace Cathedral. Jazz Casual Productions, DVD, 2005
[1965].

42
Cited in Mark Tucker, ed. The Duke Ellington Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) p.363

43
ibid, p.160-165.

26
In his compositions and his writing, Wynton Marsalis makes a concerted
attempt to associate himself with Ellington’s legacy. By composing an extended work
of his own on the subject of slavery, Marsalis may have been attempting to redeem the
critical reception of Ellington’s large-scale works and to secure a place for himself in
the jazz canon.
In scope and instrumentation, Blood on the Fields work bears some resemblance
to In the Beginning God and other compositions by Duke Ellington.
44
In the program
notes to his First Sacred Concert, Ellington explained that the six note theme of the
work was based on the first six syllables of the Bible “In the beginning God.”
45

Marsalis uses a similar technique in Blood on the Fields, in which each of the movements
is preceded by a spoken introduction and an improvised instrumental solo based on
the number of syllables of the text.
46
Other similarities to Ellington’s style include the
use of growls, homophonic big band voicing, stratospheric lead trumpet playing, and
invocation of a wide variety of styles with particular emphasis on blues and gospel
traditions.
Marsalis closely matches Ellington’s reduced big-band instrumentation. For
example, Ellington’s score for Ko-Ko (1940) calls for five saxophones, three trumpets,

44
Similarities in instrumentation and programmatic content were pointed out by Wolfram Knauer in
“From Ellington to Malcom X: Vom Umgang mit Texten/Libretti im Jazz,” in Jazz und Sprache, Sprache
und Jazz: eine Veröffentlichung des Jazz-Instituts Darmstadt. Edited by Wolfram Knauer. Darmstädter Beiträge
zur Jazzforschung, vol. 5, Hofheim: Wolke, 1999. pp.121-141.

45
Tucker, The Duke Ellington Reader, pp.371-372.

46
In the performance notes to the score published in 1997, Marsalis explains, “The recitations that
precede many of the movements are to be read by the conductor and all the instrumentalists, with the
conductor facing the ensemble and setting the pace. Prior to each sentence, a designated soloist
(excepting the pianist and drummer) sets the tone by improvising in concert C minor for a few
moments, using the number of syllables in the upcoming sentence.”

27
three trombones, guitar, piano, bass, and drums.
47
In comparison, Marsalis’s score to
Blood on the Fields calls for four saxophones (occasionally doubling on clarinet), three
trumpets, three trombones, three vocal soloists, piano, bass, and drums.
48
Ellington’s
First Sacred Concert also featured three vocalists and a rhythm section without guitar.
49

Marsalis’s high note introduction to the first movement recalls the style of Ellington’s
lead trumpet player Cat Anderson, who was featured with a similar introduction to the
opening movement of his First Sacred Concert.
50

Marsalis’s decision to feature Jon Hendricks as a vocal soloist also establishes a
direct connection to Ellington’s legacy. Hendricks was featured as a soloist in the First
Sacred Concert performed at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1965.
51
“David
Danced Before the Lord” from the First Sacred Concert features Hendricks
improvising a scat solo over a hard-driving swing groove. In movement IVb of
Marsalis’s Blood on the Fields, entitled “Soul for Sale,” Hendricks performs a scat solo in
similar circumstances.
52
In this and other instances, Marsalis signifies on works that
engage with the African American experience.

47
Duke Ellington, Koko. EMI Robbins Catalog Inc., 1940.

48
Wynton Marsalis, Blood on the Fields. Boosey & Hawkes, 1997.

49
Soloists: Jimmy McPhail, Jon Hendricks, Esther Marrow + dancer Bunny Briggs. Ensemble: Choir, 5
saxophones, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, piano, bass, drums.

50
Gabbard might characterize this as phallic Signifyin(g). Krin Gabbard,“Signifyin(g) the Phallus:
Representations of the Jazz Trumpet,” in Jammin’ at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema. Krin
Gabbard ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) pp.138-159

51
The premiere was filmed by Ralph Gleason. The film credits incorrectly identify Jon as Joe. Tony
Gleason, A Concert of Sacred Music At Grace Cathedral. Jazz Casual Productions, DVD, 2005 [1965].

52
“Soul for Sale” is movement IVb in the score and track No.5 on the recording.

28
Signifyin(g) in Blood on the Fields

What does it mean when a musician quotes a melody in an improvised solo?
According to the theory of Signifyin(g), first applied to African American literature by
Henry Louis Gates and then applied to musical analysis by Samuel Floyd, such
quotations function as rhetorical tropes on the original source material.
53
Floyd points
outs that quotations can function as a form of criticism, raising questions about the
relationship of the new work to the original source of the quotation. He elaborates on
this claim:
The key to effective criticism lies in understanding the tropings and
Signifyin(g)s of black music-making, for such practices are criticism - perceptive
and evaluative acts and expressions of approval and disapproval, validation and
invalidation through the respectful, ironic, satirizing imitation, manipulation,
extension, and elaboration of previously created and presented tropes and new
ideas.
54

One of the most rewarding aspects of listening to an improvised performance is to
share in the recognition of a quotation or stylistic reference. Of course, some listeners
may not be familiar with the source of the quotations and miss the reference entirely.
For listeners who recognize the quotation, however, a sense of group identity is
enhanced by shared knowledge of a musical tradition.
55
Another level of meaning is

53
Floyd writes: “We come to see that jazz improvisations are toasts - metaphoric renditions of the
troping and Signifyin(g)(g) strategies of African American oral toasts. In other words, musical
Signifyin(g) is troping: the transformation of preexisting musical material by trifling with it, teasing it, or
censuring it.” Samuel Floyd, Jr., The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United
States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) p.8

54
Here, I adopt Gates’s spelling of the term Signifyin(g). See Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., “Ring Shout! Literary
Studies, Historical Studies, and Black Music Inquiry,” Black Music Research Journal 11:2 (Fall 1991) pp.
265-87.

55
As an example of Signifyin(g) in the jazz tradition, Thomas Owens refers to Miles Davis’s quotation
of popular songs in his improvised solos as “often overlooked musical puns.” Thomas Owens, Bebop:
The Music and Its Players (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)
29
added by considering the context of the quotation. Does the quotation Signify
ambivalence, respect, or mockery? The performer’s intention encompasses only part of
the interpretation. Each listener will interpret the reference based on his or her own
subjective experience. Each quotation raises questions about the source material,
inviting listeners to draw their own conclusions about the meaning of the reference.
In “Soul for Sale,” Jon Hendricks sings the part of a potential buyer at a slave
market who speaks the following text:

I like my Negroes real, simple but plentiful of feelin’
Think we can make a deal?
Nine hundred! What? Have you lost your mind?
I call that stealin’!
Picks, hammers, plows and hoes, a passel of northern dress clothes.
Oh, and I’ll take those Negroes. Soul for sale.

These lines are followed by an improvised scat solo by Hendricks, which quotes the
melody of George Gershwin’s “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess over a vamp in D
minor, the same key as “Summertime.” Hendricks quotes the entire antecedent phrase
and part of the consequent phrase at the beginning of his solo. The motive is further
transformed as the improvisation continues as shown in the following example.

Musical Example 1. Jon Hendricks quotes “Summertime.”
“Soul for Sale.” (4:45-5:00) Wynton Marsalis. (Blood on the Fields.
Columbia, 1997. Recorded: New York, NY, January 22-25,
1995.)

30

While this could be viewed as an unconscious quotation, the context within
Marsalis’s work suggests a more nuanced interpretation. I propose that Hendricks
responded to Marsalis’s text with an intentional quotation of “Summertime” in order
to comment upon the “noble savage” stereotype implied in this famous song.
56
In his
book Love and Theft, Eric Lott describes how minstrel conventions are occasionally
reappropriated by black authors. Martin Delany, for example, appropriates Stephen
Foster’s minstrel song “Old Uncle Ned” in his 1861 novel Blake, with a new
abolitionist text to express black nationalist sentiment.
57
Hendrick’s appropriation of
Gershwin’s “Summertime” serves a similar function in Blood on the Fields. It pays
homage to Gershwin’s standard tune while also Signifyin(g) on the simplistic
characterization of African American characters in Porgy and Bess. Hendricks’s
quotation acknowledges that Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess has contributed to the jazz
canon, but it also draws attention to the more subtle and complex issues of race
relations. To what extent were Gershwin and his librettist DuBose Heyward
capitalizing on stereotypes about African Americans? Is Bess’s character as portrayed
in “Summertime” a sympathetic heroine or minstrel stereotype?
Duke Ellington was among the earliest commentators to suggest that
Gershwin’s opera misrepresented African American culture. In an interview with
journalist Edward Morrow, Ellington said of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, “it does not use
the Negro musical idiom… It was not the music of Catfish Row or any other kind of

56
For more on the “noble savage” stereotype see Robert Walser, ed. Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) p.334

57
Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993) p.236

31
Negroes.”
58
Later in the article, Ellington was quoted using uncharacteristically harsh
language, “the times are here to debunk such tripe as Gershwin’s lamp-black
Negroisms, and the melodramatic trash of the script of Porgy.”
59
In another article,
Ellington claimed that his criticism of Gershwin was taken out of context, yet
maintained that “Gershwin’s music, though grand, was not distinctly or definitely
Negroid in character.”
60

Like Ellington, Marsalis is concerned about the misrepresentation of African
Americans in mainstream culture. In an article published in the New York Times,
Marsalis lamented the persistence of the noble savage stereotype in jazz
historiography.
61
Marsalis connects this stereotype with a misunderstanding of Louis
Armstrong’s music. Marsalis wrote:
For too long, people have attributed Armstrong’s spiritual depth and technical
fluidity to the supposed fact that he didn’t know anything about music,
couldn’t read music and played in the hallowed halls of prostitution, knife
fights and murder.
62

This quote demonstrates Marsalis’s desire to emphasize the craft of
Armstrong’s improvisation over innate ability attributed to his race or upbringing.
Marsalis argues that even though Armstrong didn’t receive classical training, his

58
Mark Tucker ed. The Duke Ellington Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) p.115

59
ibid, p.117

60
ibid, p.118

61
Marsalis wrote: “My generation finds itself wedged between two opposing traditions. One is the
tradition...that tells anyone who will listen that jazz broke the rules of European conventions and created
rules of its own that were so specific, so thorough and so demanding that a great art resulted...The other
tradition, which was born early and stubbornly refuses to die, despite all the evidence to the contrary,
regards jazz merely as a product of noble savages - music produced by untutored, unbuttoned
semiliterates for whom jazz history does not exist.” Wynton Marsalis, “What Jazz Is - and Isn’t,” New
York Times (July 31, 2988) pp.21, 24 reprinted in Walser Keeping Time, p.335

62
ibid, p.336
32
technique was honed by long hours of careful practice. By acknowledging that
Armstrong’s genius was a result of effort as well as talent, he is encouraging young
musicians to respect and take on the technical demands of jazz improvisation. In the
tradition of Armstrong and Parker, who subverted the stereotype of the naive black
entertainer with masterfully crafted improvised solos, Hendricks rebukes the image of
the “Tomming” performer with a clever quotation in “Soul for Sale.”
In the recording of Blood on the Fields, we can hear many other invocations of
influential musicians including Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie. By invoking the
styles of other players, each performer casts his vote as to who belongs in the jazz
canon. In the introduction to the second movement “Move Over,” tenor saxophonist
Wes Anderson improvises a solo based on the spoken introduction to the movement.
Anderson’s breathy tone and loose vibrato recalls the signature sound of the legendary
tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.
63
By imprinting part of Hawkins’s sound in his
own playing, Anderson affirms the canonical status of Hawkins.
In “Back to Basics,” trumpet soloists Marcus Printup and Russell Gunn are
featured in an improvised exchange that quotes the melody of the bebop standard
“Hot House.”
64
Example 2 shows the end of Dizzy Gillespie’s improvised solo and the
first part of the “Hot House” melody transcribed from a 1945 recording by the Dizzy
Gillespie All Star Quintet. Note in particular Gillespie’s highly chromatic 16
th
note
lines, emphasis on the upper register, and frequent use of neighbor tones.

63
To hear the similarity in tone color, compare the intro to “Move Over” with Hawkins’s 1962
recording of “Self Portrait (of the Bean).”

64
“Hot House” is a contrafact composed by Tadd Dameron, over the chord progression of Cole
Porter’s “What is this Thing Called Love.”
33
Musical Example 2. Dizzy Gillespie solos on “Hot House.”
“Hot House.” (1:58-2:32) Tadd Dameron. Performed by Dizzy
Gillespie and His All Star Quintet. (Verve: Recorded May 11,
1945)

34
The following example shows a transcription of the improvised dialogue
between Printup and Gunn in “Back to Basics.” In measures 4-6, Russell Gunn quotes
the “Hot House” melody. Then a few bars later, Marcus Printup picks up and
transforms the motive. When Gunn recognizes that his call has been answered by
Printup, he invokes Gillespie’s style in his own improvised solo in measure 21. By
quoting this standard tune and invoking the style of Gillespie in their improvised
exchange, the trumpet players are acknowledging Gillespie’s foundational role in the
development of bebop, a connection that is also reinforced in the title “Back to
Basics.”
As evidence that this was a conscious quotation, the trumpet players used the
same motive at the beginning of their improvised exchange on a televised performance
of excerpts from Blood on the Fields broadcast by PBS in 1997.
65
Although Marsalis’s
score indicates only chord changes and background riffs during this solo section, a
variation of the “Hot House” melody is played as a riff shortly after the trumpeters
finish their dialogue, indicating that Marsalis was also in on this Signifyin(g) joke.

65
The show was part of the PBS show entitled “Best of Sessions at West 54th Street.” A video of this
performance is currently available on YouTube. The Hot House quotations can be heard at 4:50 and
6:20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHlq506RJgA (accessed January 29, 2011)
35
Musical Example 3. Marcus Printup and Russell Gunn quote “Hot House.”
“Back to Basics.” (6:50-7:32) Wynton Marsalis. (Blood on the
Fields. Columbia, 1997. Recorded: New York, NY, January 22-
25, 1995)

36

A critical difference between European and African American musical
traditions concerns the attitude towards influence and the use of borrowed material.
According to some theorists in the European tradition, demonstrating the influence of
other artists is evidence of creative inferiority.
66
In contrast, John Murphy shows how
African American jazz musicians use quotation to affirm the influence of other
artists.
67
In “Back to Basics,” Printup and Gunn use quotation to affirm the canonical
status of Parker and Gillespie and the chief exponents of bebop. The quotation of
Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House” melody also acknowledges Dameron’s contribution to
the jazz canon. Marsalis has described Dameron as a modernist innovator.
68
In 1988,
Dameron’s music was featured along with the music of Duke Ellington and Max
Roach as part of a Classic Jazz concert series at the Lincoln Center. This series could
be viewed as part of Marsalis’s attempt to confirm the core artists and repertoire of the
jazz canon. It should be viewed as no accident that Gunn and Printup, as protégés of
Marsalis, would be inclined to confirm Dameron’s canonical status during a
performance of Blood on the Fields.

66
See Constantin von Sternberg, “On Plagiarism,” Musical Quarterly, 5 (1919) pp.390-397 and Harold
Bloom, “Introduction: A Meditation upon Priority and a Synopsis,” in The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of
Poetry, 2
nd
ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) pp.5-16

67
John Murphy describes how tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson demonstrated the influence of Charlie
Parker by quoting and transforming a motive from Parker’s solo from “Buzzy” in two of his own
performances. See John P. Murphy, “Jazz Improvisation: the Joy of Influence,” The Black Perspective in
Music. 18:1-2 (1990) pp.7-19

68
Marsalis wrote, “What distinguishes Dameron is how successfully he transformed the sound and the
substance of the jazz ensemble through skillful adaptation of the innovations of Charlie Parker and
Dizzy Gillespie. His work is difficult and beautiful, which is what I consider the greatest challenge in
modern music.” Wynton Marsalis, “What Jazz Is - and Isn’t,” New York Times (July 31, 1988) pp.21, 24
reprinted in Walser Keeping Time, p.338

37
In “Back to Basics,” the character Jesse has been captured and whipped for
trying to escape. Marsalis uses this fictional story about the beating of a runaway slave
as an allegory for his view of jazz history. In a PBS interview, Marsalis confirmed that
the trumpet players in “Back to Basics” were communicating with the audience using
non-verbal language:
This was at the point where the man is realizing that his way of looking at the
world is not going to take him closer to freedom. And he just received a
terrible beating when he tried to run away, but he wasn’t equipped with the
right information to be free. So he comes back, and all of the forces of nature
are talking to him. And the band represents the forces of nature, and I’m him.
But I’m like laughing, crying, and making all these different sounds, and the
band is telling you like, you know, I told you so, I told you so.
69

Jesse’s escape attempt represents the efforts of avant-garde and fusion artists to break
from the foundation of blues and swing. His beating represents the growing divide
between experimental artists and listeners, a situation that is remedied only by a return
to his roots. This scenario may also be compared to what Stanley Crouch calls the
“sellout” of jazz.
70
After experimenting with fusion and avant-garde styles, jazz
musicians have, in Crouch’s view, come back to their roots in blues, swing, bebop, and
New Orleans jazz.
The allegory of Jesse’s beating may also be interpreted as Marsalis’s personal
struggle to reconcile his identity as an accomplished classical performer and jazz artist.
Marsalis’s conservatory training may have provided the foundation for excellent
technique, but did it equip him with “the right information” to achieve musical
freedom? Having established his reputation as a classical prodigy, his attention turned

69
Charlayne Hunter-Gault “Jazzing the Pulitzer.” (April 9, 1997)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/april97/marsalis_4-9.html

70
Stanley Crouch, “On the Corner: the Sellout of Miles Davis” in Considering Genius (New York: Basic
Civitas Books, 2006) pp.240-256
38
to constructing an identity centered around strong African American role models. For
Marsalis, Armstrong and Ellington served as the equivalents of Bach and Beethoven,
providing inspiration and models for achievement as a talented African American
musician. In his interview, Marsalis declared that his own growling and wailing on the
trumpet represents Jesse’s voice after his beating. In this section of Blood on the Fields,
Marsalis affirms that the music of Armstrong and Ellington provided the foundation
for his development as an artist. For Marsalis, their music promises a way for future
jazz musicians to win back the ears of the public.

Marsalis’s Relationship with Fusion and the Avant-Garde
While Marsalis’s composition celebrates the heritage of bebop and swing, it
also criticizes certain movements within the jazz and classical avant-garde. In an
interview for Callaloo magazine, Marsalis expressed disapproval of avant-garde jazz
artists who fail to “pay their dues” by demonstrating technical mastery of their
instrument and familiarity with blues-based and harmonic approaches to
improvisation.
71

Marsalis supplements the dramatic narrative of Blood on the Fields with subtle
references to styles that may lie outside his view of an authentic blues-based tradition.
One example of this type of reference occurs as the horn players employ growls and
other mimetic sounds to accompany Jesse’s description of conditions on the slave ship
in movement III, “You Don’t Hear No Drums.” Jesse’s lament is followed by a unison
blues riff sung by the entire ensemble, leading into a pointillistic section at letter R
shown in Example 4.

71
Lolis Eric Elie, “An Interview with Wynton Marsalis,” Callaloo 13:2 (1990), 271-290.

39
Musical Example 4. Marsalis, movement III: “You Don’t Hear No Drums.”
Blood on the Fields (Boosey & Hawkes, 1997) volume 1, p.85

In an interview, Marsalis explained that this texture is intended to simulate the
sound of a banjo, “I tried to make the band sound like a big banjo by using a
pointillistic type of style, where I’ve had six or seven different members hit one note
apiece.”
72
On a deeper level, this texture may also be interpreted as a reference to the
fusion of jazz elements with European avant-garde techniques in Third Stream Jazz as
demonstrated in the following excerpt from Milton Babbitt’s All Set for Jazz Ensemble
(1957).

72
Hunter-Gault, “Jazzing the Pulitzer.”
40
Musical Example 5. Milton Babbitt, All Set for Jazz Ensemble.
(Associated Music Publishers Inc., 1957) p.42

Although Babbitt’s piece includes rhythmic syncopations and some
instruments commonly found in a jazz ensemble, it employs serialized pitch and
certainly does not swing. Marsalis’s pointillistic section in Blood on the Fields may be
criticizing the fusion experiments of composers such as Milton Babbitt and Gunther
Schuller, who sought to combine elements of the European avant-garde and African
American jazz styles, traditions that, in Marsalis’s view, are incompatible. The
improvisations of Cecil Taylor may also be included in Marsalis’s Signifyin(g) trope,
because for Taylor’s work has more in common with the European avant-garde than
the blues. In an interview with Frank Stewart Marsalis said:
41
Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Steve
Coleman, David Sanborn, Miles Davis - when he was still with us -
have all said, repeatedly, that they don’t play jazz and don’t want to. It’s
the critics who insist that their music is jazz.
73

In this interview, Marsalis insisted that swing and blues were the fundamental elements
of jazz and pop music and the classical avant-garde is not a legitimate part of that
tradition.
The pointillistic section in Marsalis’s work is followed by hard-driving swing as
Jesse’s thoughts turn to freedom. Within the context of Blood on the Fields, Marsalis’s
references to fusion and avant-garde are associated with slavery while Jesse’s freedom
is represented by a return to swing and blues.
Marsalis uses free improvisation in a limited and controlled setting in order to
complement the dramatic narrative of in Blood on the Fields. On the surface, he uses it to
celebrate African American traditions. On a deeper level it suggests the corrupting
influence of fusion and the European avant-garde on jazz. The first instance of
collective improvisation occurs in the opening instrumental section, “Calling the
Indians Out,” and may be interpreted as a celebratory reference to the African
American tradition of the ring shout. The score calls for selected horn players to
improvise “random wild sounds” while a tuba player plays a composed melody as
shown in the following example.

73
Wynton Marsalis and Frank Stewart, Sweet Swing Blues on the Road (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1994) p.141

42
Musical Example 6. Marsalis, movement I: “Calling the Indians Out.”
Blood on the Fields (Boosey & Hawkes, 1997) volume 1, p.17

On other occasions, Marsalis uses collective improvisation as a signifier of
disorder rather than freedom. After the ship arrives in America, Jesse is sold as a slave
and decides to escape. Although there is no text in the eleventh movement, “Forty
Lashes,” the use of cacophonous group improvisation suggests to the listener that
Jesse’s escape attempt has failed and he has been recaptured. As punishment for trying
to escape, Jesse is whipped, and the score indicates “Pandemonium” one measure
before letter E as shown in example 7. Here, disorderly collective improvisation is
associated with the violence and the cruelty of slavery.

43
Musical Example 7. Marsalis, movement XI: “Forty Lashes.”
74

Blood on the Fields (Boosey & Hawkes, 1997) volume 2, p.321

Despite Marsalis’s criticism of Miles Davis’s pro-fusion outlook, Marsalis uses
some of the same techniques used by Davis’s ensemble in his fusion album Bitches
Brew. For example, “pandemonium” indicated in the example above is followed by an
ostinato played by two bass clarinets at letter E. This ostinato, which is repeated in the
final movement of Blood on the Fields, “Due North,” is reminiscent of the groove played
by bass clarinetist Benny Maupin on Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew as shown in following
example.

74
On page 321 of the score, the movement is incorrectly titled “You Don’t Hear No Drums.” It should
be “Forty Lashes.”
44
Musical Example 8. Benny Maupin’s bass clarinet ostinato.
“Bitches Brew.” (2:55-3:50) Miles Davis. (Bitches Brew. 1970.
Recorded: New York, New York, August 19, 1969)

The similarity between these examples is not to be found in a melodic or
rhythmic quotation but in the instrumentation and function of the ostinato. Here
Marsalis may be Signifyin(g) on what he considers “legitimate” elements in Davis’s
fusion album. While Marsalis may consider Davis’s fusion experiments to be a step in
the wrong direction, he may also wish to point to parts of Davis’s music that derive
from the “legitimate” sources of blues and African American work songs. Despite
differences in stylistic approach, both Marsalis and Davis use groove-based ostinati,
suggesting that their music is not as mutually exclusive as some critics would have us
believe.
At the end of the work, Jesse and Leona escape together. Marsalis’s story
advocates cooperation among African Americans by finding strength in their heritage
and by appropriating and mocking the culture of the societal majority. I agree with
Alex Stewart’s observation that Blood on the Fields demonstrates the ideological
influence of Marsalis’s intellectual mentors, Stanley Crouch and Albert Murray.
75
Yet,
Marsalis’s eagerness to foreground his racial identity in an “elevated” concert work

75
Alex Stewart, “Blood on the Fields: Wynton Marsalis and the Transformation of the Lincoln Center
Jazz Orchestra,” in Making the Scene: Contemporary New York City Big Band Jazz (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2007) p.278-308

45
hearkens even further back to the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance.
76
As before, hard
driving swing accompanies Jesse and Leona’s joyful expectation of freedom, yet this
gradually gives way to disorder and group improvisation at the end of the movement
XIX “Follow the Drinking Gourd.” Has the couple been caught? As in Gershwin’s
Porgy and Bess, the fate of the couple is left unresolved. The dramatic parallel to
Gershiwn’s work is another example of Signifyin(g). Marsalis acknowledges that Porgy
and Bess is a canonical work intertwined with the jazz tradition, yet he also calls into
question the nature of that relationship. Thus the canon is not a fixed list of composers
and works but an ongoing dialogue among living artists and tradition.
Despite his apparent hostility to “free jazz,” Marsalis makes special exception
for Ornette Coleman, the artist often credited with pioneering the free jazz movement.
In an interview, Marsalis emphasized how Coleman’s earlier playing demonstrated the
influence of Charlie Parker, thus establishing a link with tradition. Marsalis wrote,
“Ornette Coleman sounds like Bird; he was playing rhythm changes on The Shape of
Jazz to Come.
77
Thus, Coleman’s “free” playing is deemed acceptable according to
Marsalis’s aesthetic criteria because it is rooted in the blues and because his earlier
recordings demonstrate mastery of Charlie Parker’s technique.
Marsalis identifies Coleman as an important figure in the jazz canon. In one
interesting anecdote, Marsalis attempts to reconcile differences in their stylistic
approaches:

76
Langston Hughes was opposed to the “elevation” of black music by emulating European concert
traditions celebrating instead the music of Bessie Smith and Duke Ellington. See Langston Hughes,
“The Negro Artists and the Racial Mountain,” The Nation, June 23, 1936, p.692-693

77
Robert Walser, ed. Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)
p.342

46
A few years ago I ran across Ornette Coleman in a music store. We talked for a
while and then he told me, “Don’t go back.” Now, it was interesting he would
say that, because he himself starts from way back. He exists outside the linear
history of the music, at once ahead of his time and way behind it, before jazz
began. He plays the way someone might have played before people figured out
how to improvise on harmonies, back when they just played melodies and
vocal effects...He is a supreme melodist, maybe the most melodic musician in
jazz history.
78

Marsalis’s tone in this excerpt is defensive. He seems offended by Coleman’s
suggestion that he is trying to “go back” to a previous era and responds by highlighting
Coleman’s own indebtedness to the blues tradition. Although Coleman may have
departed from the conventions of swing and bebop, his retention of blues inflections
allows him to retain a place in Marsalis’s canon.
Marsalis distinguishes between Coleman’s melodic, “blues-based”
improvisation and the “non-blues” free improvisation of his imitators and the
European avant-garde. In doing so, Marsalis echoes Baraka’s characterization of blues
as an “ethno-historic rite” intuitive for blacks and copied by whites.
79
He seems to be
willing to accept experimental black artists into the jazz canon, provided that their
playing is not only innovative but “blues-based,” that is, based in an African American
tradition. By identifying Coleman as a canonical figure, Marsalis separates him from the
criticism of other avant-garde artists such as Cecil Taylor. Although both Taylor and
Coleman are African American artists associated with free jazz, Taylor is rejected from
Maralis’s canon because his improvisation sounds too much like European avant-garde
music and not enough like blues. Free jazz then, in Maralis’s view, is only acceptable as
an extension of blues practice. Any attempts to break from this tradition are

78
Wynton Marsalis and Geoffrey C. Ward, Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (New
York: Random House, 2008) pp.119-120

79
Baraka, Amiri. Blues People. Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1995, [1963] p.149
47
considered inauthentic. In Blood on the Fields, we hear a more concerted effort on
Marsalis’s part to construct a narrative history of jazz by indicating which styles are
authentic and which are not.

Ornette Coleman’s Sound Grammar (2006)
Ornette Coleman uses Signifyin(g) references just as frequently as Wynton
Marsalis in his Pulitzer Prize winning album. However, Coleman’s aim is not to
construct a pedagogical canon but to celebrate a range of influences without creating a
stylistic hierarchy. Sound Grammar is a recording of a live performance in October, 2005
in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The album was released on September 12, 2006 on
Ornette Coleman’s own record label. The ensemble consisted of Ornette Coleman on
alto saxophone, violin, and trumpet, his son Denardo Coleman on drums, with
Gregory Cohen and Tony Falanga on bass. The somewhat unorthodox choice of
employing two bass players in a small jazz ensemble recalls Coleman’s collaboration
with bassists Charlie Haden and Scott LaFaro in his landmark recording Free Jazz
(Atlantic, 1960).
80
Throughout the album, Coleman and the members of his ensemble
invoke and interact with musical traditions through quotation and stylistic reference.
Whereas Marsalis emphasized distinctions between jazz and other styles, Coleman
celebrates similarities. For him, the music of Igor Stravinksy has contributed to the jazz
canon as much as Tin Pan Alley standards or blues improvisers.

80
Personnel for Free Jazz (Atlantic, 1960): Don Cherry (pocket trumpet), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet),
Eric Dolphy (bass clarinet), Ornette Coleman (alto sax), Charlie Haden (bass), Scott LaFaro (bass), Ed
Blackwel (drums), Billy Higgins (drums). The unique instrumentation on Free Jazz may have influenced
Miles Davis’s decision to feature two bassists and a bass clarinetist on his 1969 Columbia recording,
Bitches Brew Personnel for Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969): Miles Davis (trumpet), Bennie Maupin (bass
clarinet on tracks 1,2,4,5), Wayne Shorter (soprano sax), Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul (electric piano),
John McLaughlin (guitar), Dave Holland (bass), Harvey Brooks (electric bass on tracks 1,4,5), Jack
DeJohnette (drums), Lenny White (drums on tracks 1,2,4,5), Don Alias (conga), Jim Riley (shaker).

48
In 2007, Ornette Coleman was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Sound Grammar.
In 2007, the nominating committee consisted of Yehudi Wyner, who won the Pulitzer
Prize for Music in 2006, David Baker, a renowned jazz educator and professor of
music at Indiana University, Ingrid Monson, professor of African American music at
Harvard University, New York disc jockey John Schaefer, and music critic John
Rockwell. With two outstanding jazz scholars on the nominating panel, it is not
surprising that Coleman’s album was selected as one of the three finalists.
81

Coleman’s Pulitzer would not have been possible without the revision of the
prize criteria in 2004 that allowed the submission of a recording in lieu of a score.
82

Journalist Jeremy Eichler defended the changes that allowed Sound Grammar to be
eligible for the Pulitzer concluding that Coleman was an “unassailable choice” for the
award.
83
Eichler’s review reflects the prevalent view among music journalists that
Coleman deserved a Pulitzer because of his lifetime achievement and as compensation
for the exclusion of jazz artists in the past.

81
The other finalists were Grendel by Elliot Goldenthal and Astral Canticle by Augusta Read Thomas.

82
The criteria were changed from “For a distinguished musical composition of significant dimension by
an American that has had its first performance in the United States during the year,” to “For a
distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the
United States during the year.” The board cited their desire to include a broader range of American
musical styles. See “The Pulitzer Prize for Music: It’s Time to Alter and Affirm” A statement by the
Pulitzer Prize Board. (June 1, 2004) http://www.pulitzer.org/files/musicchanges.pdf (Accessed
February 20, 2009)

83
Eichler wrote, “As should hardly need to be said, excluding jazz from consideration as serious
American music is indefensible. And this year, as the first jazz artist to win the Pulitzer since the prize
expanded its criteria, Coleman is an unassailable choice.” Jeremy Eichler, “The Right Note; Classical
Music Has Nothing to Fear From Pulitzer Going to Jazz Artist.” Boston Globe (April 22, 2007) p.N1

49

In defense of the Pulitzer board’s decision, Yehudi Wyner spoke out about the
need to recognize the aesthetic value of jazz, “the idea that jazz, this most vital and
participatory American art form, was in no way recognized and was actually shunted
aside, it’s scandalous. It’s unconscionable.”
84
For an award that is supposed to
celebrate the best work of the year, his comments seem quite defensive. They reveal
that he and other board members were painfully aware of past oversights and their
decision may have been informed by the desire to atone for them. Although the
Pulitzer is not supposed to be a lifetime achievement award, Coleman’s award
recognized his enduring talent for small group improvisation with multiple drummers
and bassists.
After receiving the award, Coleman told the New York Times, “I’m glad I’m an
American and I’m glad to be a human being who’s a part of making American qualities
more eternal.”
85
Coleman’s reaction suggests that he viewed the award as an
acknowledgement of his place within the canon of American music.
Sound Grammar was generally well-received by critics. Paul de Barros gave the
album a five star review Downbeat magazine.
86
In a review of a live performance in New
York, jazz critic Gary Giddins praised Coleman’s eclecticism, lyricism, and ability to

84
Like composer Stephen Hartke, Yehudi Wyner advocates the establishment of separate award
categories in the Pulitzer Prize for music. See Eichler, “The Right Note.” p.N1

85
Howard Mandel, Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz (New York: Routledge, 2008)

86
Paul de Barros, “Sound Grammar” Downbeat 73:11 (November 2006) pp.78-79
50
evoke nostalgia.
87
A dissenting critical voice was heard from Terry Teachout, who
argued that Sound Grammar did not deserve the award because it was not a composition
of significant dimension and was not one of Coleman’s best albums. Judging the album
on the pre-2004 rules, Teachout argued that Sound Grammar did not meet the prize
criteria.
88
He appears to have overlooked the fact that the “significant dimension”
requirement had been removed along with the need to submit a score when the prize
committee changed the rules in 2004. Teachout suggested that Coleman received the
Pulitzer Prize in order to “atone for past blunders by playing an arbitrary game of
catch-up.”
89

It is not my intention to judge whether or not Sound Grammer is a masterwork
worthy of canonical status. Instead of making an argument for or against Coleman’s
canonical status, my goal is to examine how Coleman and the musicians in his
ensemble interact with tradition and create their own dynamic canon in the process of
improvisation. Although it remains to be seen whether Sound Grammar will continue to
be celebrated by critics, much can be learned about Coleman’s own conception of the
jazz canon by listening for Signifyin(g) references in this recording. In this

87
Giddins wrote, “Coleman’s pieces still cross generic borders, but they do so more cheerfully than
aggressively, suggesting an oddly universal equation that partakes of classical music, rock, blues, and
country melodies. Coleman may, indeed, be the last great melodist trafficking in the sphere of irresistibly
hummable tunes, alternately happy and sad, that strike us in those unprotected areas of naïve pleasure
that survive childhood.” Gary Giddins, “Something Else; Jazz,” The New Yorker (14 April 2008) p.78.
This description of the ability of Coleman’s melodies to evoke nostalgic feelings echoes Adorno’s
critique of Mahler. See Theodor Adorno, “Mahler Today,” in Essays on Music. Richard Leppart ed.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) pp.603-611

88
He wrote, “Whatever its other virtues, Sound Grammar is clearly not a large-scale composition, nor
does it break any new stylistic ground for the celebrated and influential avant-garde saxophonist.” Terry
Teachout, “Jazz Wins a Pulitzer; Did Ornette Coleman Deserve His Prize?” Wall Street Journal (Eastern
Edition) (April 28, 2007) p.14

89
ibid.

51
performance, the attentive listener will notice numerous intertextual references that
demonstrate an active dialogue with tradition.
Both Marsalis and Coleman use of Signifyin(g) references to celebrate African
American musical traditions. In “Jordan,” the second track on Sound Grammar,
Coleman’s improvisation frequently draws upon blues and gospel idioms. Over a
double-time walking bass line, Coleman paraphrases the gospel standard “What a
Friend we have in Jesus” during an improvised solo as shown in the following
example.
90

Musical Example 9. Ornette Coleman quotes “What a Friend We Have in
Jesus.” “Jordan.” (1:06-1:12) Ornette Coleman.
(Sound Grammar. Sound Grammar, 2006. Recorded:
Ludwigshafen, Germany, October 14, 2005)

Unlike Marsalis, Coleman’s ensemble openly celebrates the influence of
popular music. A reference to contemporary popular music can be found in Denardo
Coleman’s employment of a rhythm often used in popular styles such as drum and
bass or hip hop as shown in following example.

90
Transcribing the solos of Ornette Coleman is particularly challenging because he rarely plays exactly
on the beat and his rhythm section usually avoids an even pulse. As it may not be possible to notate
rhythms precisely, I have approximated the general rhythm in these examples. I most cases, I want to
draw attention to melodic quotations.
52
Musical Example 10. Denardo Coleman plays a hip hop beat.
“Jordan.” (3:53-3:59) Ornette Coleman.
(Sound Grammar. Sound Grammar, 2006.
Recorded: Ludwigshafen, Germany, October 14, 2005)

The third track, “Sleep Talking,” is adapted from Coleman’s tune “Sleep Talk,”
which was first recorded in 1979 on the album Of Human Feelings. Coleman’s
interpretation of this tune has changed significantly since the earlier recording. In the
1979 recording of “Sleep Talk,” bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma and percussionists
Denardo Coleman and Calvin Weston freely appropriate the sounds of popular music
of the late 1970s with a beat adapted from funk and disco. Their electric groove has
more in common with Earth Wind and Fire’s 1978 hit “September” than the acoustic
swing of 50s post-bop. Like Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman felt that the sounds of
popular music were inseparable from jazz. The 1979 recording juxtaposes the sounds
of contemporary popular dance music with a melody from the classical avant-garde.
Yet on Sound Grammar, Coleman returns to the acoustic sound of his albums from the
late 60s. By 2006, many critics and adjudicators had accepted the elevation of jazz
above other forms of popular music and believe that association with dance music
diminishes its artistic quality. Ornette Coleman’s improvisation on “Sleep Talking”
seems to acknowledge this trend by frequently quoting standards and invoking an
acoustic sound that hearkens back to Free Jazz. This should not be accepted without
irony however. In a classic example of musical Signifyin(g), Coleman shows that he
53
knows what critics are looking for, while at the same time mocking current trends in
jazz and celebrating his own classical status in the history of jazz.
The melody of “Sleep Talking” quotes the opening bassoon motive from Igor
Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
91
Coleman’s rather obvious quotation was noted by
several reviewers, but few endeavored to explain its potential meaning. Perhaps
Ornette Coleman is drawing a comparison between Stravinky’s role as a controversial
pioneer among the European avant-garde and his own status as an innovator within
the jazz avant-garde. As we know, the riot-provoking premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite
of Spring eventually gave way to acceptance of his music into the canon of Western
music. Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz also garnered extreme reaction as demonstrated in
the double review in Downbeat magazine.
92
In his five star review of Free Jazz, Pete
Welding wrote:
It does not break with jazz tradition; rather it restores to currency an element
that has been absent in most jazz since the onset of the swing orchestra -
spontaneous group improvisation.

John Tynam retorted:
The only semblance of collectivity lies in the fact that these eight nihilists were
collected together in one studio at one time and with one common cause: to
destroy the music that gave them birth.

91
Other artists have also quoted this motive. For example, Kelly Fischer Lowe points that Frank Zappa
quoted The Rite of Spring and other pieces in his song “Amnesia Vivace”

as an inside joke for his fans.
Lowe writes, “Zappa includes these works in his songs to see if anyone else can hear them, and the ones
who can then become part of the in-group.” See Kelly Fischer Lowe, The Words and Music of Frank
Zappa. (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) p.8

92
Pete Welding and John A. Tynam, “Double View of a Double Quartet,” Down Beat (January 18, 1962)
p.28 reprinted in Walser Keeping Time, pp.253-255.

54
The reappraisal of this album near the end of the twentieth century, combined with the
broad acceptance of his music by critics, has confirmed Coleman’s acceptance into the
jazz canon.
93

Coleman creates a Signifyin(g) trope by combining his Stravinsky quotation
with blues inflections. Coleman’s first solo is performed as an extension of The Rite of
Spring melody with a long improvised interlude between the A and B sections. His
second solo features a particularly lyrical melody ripe with sequences that include a
paraphrase of Irving Berlin’s song “It’s a Lovely Day” from the musical Call Me
Madame. These quotations demonstrate Coleman’s familiarity with the musical past
and situate his original work in relation to what has come before. By appropriating
melodies by Igor Stravinsky and Irving Berlin, Coleman testifies to their importance in
his personal jazz canon.
The performance utilizes the traditional intro-head-solos-head format as shown
in the following figure. The Rite of Spring quotation can be heard in the A section of the
melody.

93
See “Free Jazz Revisited” in Walser, Keeping Time, pp.395-400

55
Figure 1. Ornette Coleman’s “Sleep Talking” as performed on Sound Grammar
Time Event

Performer
0:01 Arco Melody (A) Tony Falanga
0:50 Head (A, B) Ornette Coleman
1:18 Alto Sax Solo (A... B)
2:38 Double Bass Solo Tony Falanga
3:32 Arco Melody (A)
4:53 Alto Sax Solo (A...) Ornette Coleman
5:26-5:50 Lyrical Melody, Sequences, Paraphrases Irving
Berlin’s “It’s a Lovely Day” from Call Me Madam

7:44 Arco Melody (A) Tony Falanga
8:09 Head (A, B) Ornette Coleman

In an interview, Ornette Coleman explained, “The thing I had in mind with the
melody was when you’re dreaming, do you hear music?”
94
Coleman’s rendition of
unconscious music making in “Sleep Talking” presents a unique blend of musical
signifiers that demonstrate the breadth of his personal canon.

The fourth track on Sound Grammar, entitled “Turnaround,” is a riff-based
blues tune previously recorded by Coleman on his 1959 album Tomorrow is the Question.
In his performance of “Turnaround,” Coleman signifies on the jazz tradition in several
ways. First, the riff-based melody recalls the New Orleans standard “Oh When the
Saints go Marchin’ In.” At the end of the head, Coleman’s improvisation begins with a
quote of the jazz standard “If I Loved You” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1949

94
Chris Vaughn, “At 76 Ornette Coleman releases a new CD that’s one of his best.” Knight Ridder
Tribune News Service (26 September 2006) p.1 The act of spontaneously creating music in one’s sleep was
eloquently described in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, as young Petya dreams that he is conducting an
enormous orchestra on the eve of his death in battle. See Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace. Translated by
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkohnsky. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007) p.1055

56
musical Carosusel as shown in measures 14-21 of the following example.
95
In his
composed melody and in his improvised performance, Coleman acknowledges that
blues, New Orleans standards, and songs from Broadway musicals are all integral parts
of the jazz canon.

Musical Example 11. Ornette Coleman quotes “If I Loved You.”
“Turnaround.” (0:26-1:00) Ornette Coleman. Ornette Coleman.
(Sound Grammar. Sound Grammar, 2006.
Recorded: Ludwigshafen, Germany, October 14, 2005)

Coleman also signifies on the meaning of “turnaround,” a standard jazz term
for a harmonic progression that leads back to the tonic key, for example iii-vi-ii-V-I.
Playing off the name of the tune, the harmony features an unusual turnaround. In the

95
This quotation was also noted in Paul de Barros, “Sound Grammar” Downbeat 73:11 (November
2006) pp.78-79

57
last phrase of the melody (mm.9-12 in example 11), a single motive is repeated over a
chain of ii-V progressions in the keys of Bb, B, A, and G before returning to the tonic
key of C major. The head is performed homophonically by the ensemble, without a
steady sense of pulse from the rhythm section, followed by a walking bass line that
enters about one minute into the performance. After three minutes, Denardo Coleman
leads the rhythm section into a double time section. When the ensemble returns to the
head after the improvised solos, they return to the free meter established at the
beginning of the tune, thus completing a rhythmic rather than a harmonic turnaround.
An outline of the ensemble’s rendition of “Turnaround” is shown below.
Figure 2. Ornette Coleman’s “Turnaround” as performed on Sound Grammar
Time Event

Performer
0:01 Head (12 Bar Blues) Ornette Coleman
0:26 Head (12 Bar Blues) Second Time
0:50 Alto Sax Solo
0:54 Ornette Quotes “If I Loved You”
2:30 Ornette Picks up on Denardo’s Double Time
Feel

3:06 Horn Cries
3:20 Head (12 Bar Blues)

In the fifth track “Matador,” the rhythm section invokes rhythmic patterns that
reference Afro-Latin dance music.
96
In addition, the bassists employ a polyrhythmic
bass line about four minutes into the piece, confirming that their canon includes Latin
American styles.
On the sixth track “Waiting for You,” the theme is introduced by Tony
Falanga on a bowed double bass in half-time before Coleman picks it up at regular

96
Samuel Floyd confirms that dance music is a frequent choice for Signifyin(g) variation in African
American music. See “Ring Shout” in Walser, Keeping Time, pp.401-409
58
speed. During his improvisation, Coleman plays a motive that outlines a minor 7
th

chord and strongly resembles the opening phrase of Billy Strayhorn’s standard
“Isfahan,” as shown in the following example.

Musical Example 12. Joe Henderson playing Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan.”
“Isfahan.” Billy Strayhorn. (Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn.
Verve, 1992. Recorded: September 3-9, 1991)

In his improvised solo, Coleman creates a sequence from this motive, transposing it
down a major second five consecutive times, following the order of a descending
whole tone scale as shown in the example below.

Musical Example 13. Ornette Coleman quotes Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan.”
“Waiting for You.” (1:52-2:00) Ornette Coleman.
(Sound Grammar. Sound Grammar, 2006.
Recorded: Ludwigshafen, Germany, October 14, 2005)

59

Several seconds later, Coleman quotes a fragment of the chorus from the jazz
standard “As Time Goes By” by Herman Hupfeld, made famous in the 1942 film
Casablanca.
97

Musical Example 14. Ornette Coleman quotes “As Time Goes By.”
“Waiting for You.” (2:16-2:18) Ornette Coleman.
(Sound Grammar. Sound Grammar, 2006.
Recorded: Ludwigshafen, Germany, October 14, 2005)

In the context of his flexible approach to tonality and meter, Coleman’s brief
quotations of familiar melodies sound like memories from childhood, fragments of the
past. The technique is analogous to a sound collage or mash-up, assembled from clips
of other recordings. At times, Coleman’s playing seems to acknowledge a nostalgic
longing for the past while also recognizing that it cannot be replicated. He conjures the
past with brief signifiers that require careful listening to detect. As we recognize the
source of the quotation, our attention may shift to the sentimental lyrics of “As Time
Goes By,” or it might evoke nostalgia for the film in which it first appeared. By
quoting familiar standards, Coleman may be drawing attention to the nostalgic nature
of the canon itself, which celebrates works of the past.

97
As an example of Signifyin(g) in the jazz tradition, Thomas Owens refers to Miles Davis’s quotation
of popular songs in his improvised solos as “often overlooked musical puns.” Thomas Owens, Bebop:
The Music and Its Players (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)

60

While I want to acknowledge Coleman’s leadership in these performances, the
improvisation of the rest of the ensemble is just as important. One of the most
interesting aspects of the eighth track “Once Only” involves the interaction between
Ornette Coleman and bassists Greg Cohen and Tony Falanga during their improvised
solos. In “Once Only,” we can hear how each of the bassists engage in an
improvisational dialogue with one another and converse with Coleman during his solo,
picking up and transforming motives in a conversational manner.
The final track of Sound Grammar, “Song X,” is a new interpretation of a tune
recorded with guitarist Pat Methany on a 1985 album of the same title. On the new
recording of “Song X,” Coleman’s extended dissonant violin solo problematizes the
issue of race. What Paul de Barros described as a “hoe down” flavor in this track many
be interpreted as a broader stylistic reference to country music.
98
As a style often
associated with the music of white southerners, this allusion is significant because it
highlights an often overlooked connection between jazz and country music.
99

Assuming that Coleman is aware of the association between fiddle playing and
minstrelsy, perhaps he intended to invert the Jim Crow stereotype. Instead of
presenting a caricature of a black country bumpkin, Coleman offers a parody of
dissonant sounds previously thought to be the exclusive property of the European
avant-garde. I suspect that this part of his performance was executed tongue in cheek
as he performed for an audience in Germany.

98
Paul de Barros, “Sound Grammar” Downbeat 73:11 (November 2006) pp.78-79

99
Roger Hickman has proposed that the country fiddle tune “Turkey in the Straw” was used as a
signifier of the Jim Crow minstrel character in DW Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation. Roger Hickman.
“The Birth of a Nation Photo Album: Five Snapshots of the Music for Film’s First Masterwork.” Paper
presented at the Winter Meeting of the Pacific Southwest Chapter of the American Musicological
Society. University of Southern California (February 28, 2008).
61
Coleman’s collaboration with prominent white jazz musicians, including
guitarist Pat Metheny and bassist Charlie Haden, suggests that Colman’s definition of
jazz acknowledges the authentic contribution of white musicians to the jazz tradition.
Coleman’s decision to include “Song X” on the album may also be viewed as a tribute
to Metheny, who recorded Coleman’s “Turnaround” on his 1980 double album 80/81
and collaborated with Coleman on the 1985 album Song X.
100

One the last track of the 1985 album Song X, entitled “Song X Duo,” Coleman
picks up on an ostinato played by Metheny in the last minute of the track and proceeds
to improvise a lyrical solo that seems out of place compared to the aggressive atonal
patterns that characterize the improvisation in his other recordings of the same tune.
In doing so, Coleman shows that he accepts multiple stylistic approaches as authentic
grounds for improvisation and refutes the claim voiced by critics such as Gerald Early
that free improvisation precludes listening and meaningful interaction between
musicians.

Conclusion
Marsalis’s and Coleman’s Pulitzers may be viewed by the public as a legitimate
sign that these artists have been accepted into the jazz canon. However, the
Signifyin(g) references to other artists and styles preserved in recordings of their works
may be more vital and dynamic indicators of the canonical status of a wide array of
artists. Despite their differences in stylistic approach, both artists use similar techniques
to construct dynamic canons.

100
“Turnaround” was the only tune on that album not composed by Methany.

62
Both the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Coleman’s ensemble share in
the act of Signifyin(g) improvisation during live performance. Both recordings
demonstrate historical consciousness through the use of musical signifiers including:
blues riffs, the wails and shouts of Duke Ellington’s ensemble, the virtuosity of Charlie
Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the nostalgic melodies of Broadways musicals, and the
down-home style of country fiddle music.
There are also significant differences between Blood on the Fields and Sound
Grammar. The former is a score-based composition for large jazz ensemble and the
latter is a mostly improvised performance by a small combo. The large scope of Blood
on the Fields and formal concert setting parallels the aesthetics of European
Romanticism while the concept and instrumentation recall the large-scale works of
Duke Ellington. Coleman’s compositions generally follow the jazz combo tradition of
head-based tunes. Since Coleman’s ensemble performed these tunes many times on
tour, they must have developed consistent elements between performances.
Another significant difference concerns a varying approach to group
improvisation. In Blood on the Fields, Marsalis calls for limited amounts of collective
improvisation in order to invoke dramatic states of chaos and disorder. In contrast,
Ornette Coleman’s approach to improvisation emphasizes responsive listening while
maintaining a tolerant attitude toward individual interpretation and expression. One
could argue that Coleman’s method of improvisation is not entirely “free,” because it
draws heavily on call-and-response interaction, Signifyin(g) quotation, and blues.
101

101
Marsalis heard the influence of Charlie Parker in Coleman’s playing on The Shape of Jazz to Come.
Robert Walser, Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History, p.342

63
David Ake argues that Marsalis’s album Standard Time represents a canon
rooted in African American tradition, which serves as a counterbalance to universalist
jazz histories.
102
In a similar manner, the improvised solos of the ensemble members in
Marsalis’s Blood on the Fields confirm the influence of outstanding African American
jazz musicians.
Marsalis also uses musical signifiers to reinforce his view of jazz as an African
American “high art,” with the potential for universal appeal and to represent American
democracy abroad. Bearing in mind that jazz artists once served as cultural
ambassadors during the Cold War, Marsalis’s elevation of jazz above popular music
may be motivated by an attempt to broaden sponsorship opportunities for like minded
artists. This view is influenced by practical considerations as much as ideology. As
performers of a technically demanding style of music that appeals to a smaller portion
of the marketplace than popular music, some jazz musicians may feel pressure to
oppose the encroachment of popular music in the academy and the concert hall,
viewing it as a potential drain of resources away from “their” music. I would suggest
that Marsalis’s conception of a jazz canon is not strictly exclusive of other techniques
and styles but is instead concerned with establishing the fundamentals of technique
and promoting awareness of the most outstanding performers associated with the
traditions of blues and swing. Few would dispute that those who would learn to play
jazz should know the music of Armstrong, Parker, Ellington, and Coleman.
Admittedly Marsalis’s canon is narrower than Coleman’s, who openly incorporates
popular and non-western music, as Miles David had also done.

102
David Ake, Jazz Cultures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) p.162

64
The awarding of the Pulitzer Prize to Marsalis and Coleman was significant for
several reasons. First, the board demonstrated its willingness to consider the aesthetic
merits of styles other than classical concert works. As a three-hour concert work, Blood
on the Fields is a composition that straddles the boundaries between classical music and
improvised jazz. Its similarity to the large-scale works of Duke Ellington acknowledge
Ellington’s place in Marsalis’s version of the jazz canon. The award does not canonize
Marsalis’s composition as much as it recognizes the historical consciousness of his
music. In a similar manner, Ornette Coleman’s Pulitzer Prize for Sound Grammar in
2007 celebrates his past collaborations and accomplishments. The album also
functions as a retrospective of Coleman’s career, as it features several previously
recorded tunes including “Sleep Talking,” “Turnaround,” and “Song X.” The award is
a symbolic affirmation that Coleman’s music, as exemplified by his small ensemble
performances, has achieved canonical status. Coleman’s performance at the Lincoln
Center on September 26, 2009 is further evidence that his music has been accepted
into a mainstream jazz canon.
While their awards confirm the increasing acceptance of jazz as a classical art
music by the critical establishment, Marsalis and Coleman demonstrate the contested
nature of the jazz canon as they negotiate their relationship with tradition in the
performance of their works. Rather than a simplistic denunciation of styles deemed
incompatible with his conception of the canon, Marsalis employs a sophisticated web
of Signifyin(g) references in combination with the dramatic narrative of the work to
comment on the history of jazz. In the score and recording to Blood on the Fields,
Wynton Marsalis celebrates the canonical status of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington,
Dizzy Gillespie, and Tadd Dameron while raising questions about the contributions of
65
George Gershwin, Miles Davis, and Third Stream jazz artists to the canon. Marsalis’s
work is closely connected to the musical aesthetics of Duke Ellington and his Pulitzer
Prize is a symbolic redemption of Ellington’s being passed over by the Pulitzer
committee in the 1960s. Rather than singling out artists and styles for praise or
reproach, Coleman’s ensemble appropriates diverse musical idioms ranging from
country fiddle music to hip hop. Through numerous references to the melodies of
standard tunes, Coleman acknowledges the existence of a jazz canon, yet he does not
attempt to segregate the contributions of Broadway composers from jazz interpreters.
Coleman’s paraphrase of The Rite of Spring invites the listener to draw a comparison
with Stravinsky’s pioneering role in the development of European classical music and
Coleman’s role as a pioneer of free jazz. This analysis suggests that the jazz canon is
much more than list of great artists and works. It is also a technique of dynamic
allusion employed by performers and shared with listeners.
66
Chapter 2: Jazz and Documentary Film

When Ken Burns released his ten-part film on the history of jazz on PBS in
2001, critics immediately took notice. Supporters praised the efforts of Burns and
Marsalis to elevate the status of jazz as art music and to educate the public about
America’s “indigenous art form.”
103
Detractors complained about the film’s nostalgic
bias in favor of jazz before 1960 and the representation of jazz as a uniquely American
music.
104
The series sparked the most intense discussion about the history and
aesthetics of jazz in several decades and the film has since become one of the most
important and controversial documents on the history of jazz produced.
Ken Burns and coauthor Geoffrey C. Ward construct a canon centered on the
music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, arguing that alternative approaches to
jazz since the 1960s, including avant-garde techniques and fusion, represent decadent
and misleading approaches that ultimately lead to the death of jazz.
105
Burns’s canon
recognizes blackness as a signifier of authenticity in jazz, yet his treatment of race in
the film marginalizes the complexities of personalities such as Miles Davis and Cecil
Taylor in favor of more familiar and comfortable images of Armstrong and Ellington,
who, despite their musical talents, continued to propagate stage personas associated

103
Gunther Schuller, “The Influence of Jazz on the History and Development of Concert Music,” in
New Perspectives on Jazz, David N. Baker ed. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1990) pp.9-24

104
Laura Macy, “Ken Burns’s Jazz: A discussion with Scott DeVeaux and Krin Gabbard,” (London:
Oxford University Press, 2001)
http://www.grovemusic.com/grove-owned/music/feature_jazz/jazz01.htm (accessed February 29,
2008)

105
Historian Geoffrey C. Ward co-wrote several PBS documentary series with Burns including The Civil
War (1990), Baseball (1994), The West (1996), Jazz (2001) and most recently, The War (2007). Ward also
collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on his book Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life
(New York: Random House, 2008)
67
with the minstrel tradition. One reasons for the film’s success is that it selected two
non-threatening personalities as the principal subjects of the documentary. Louis
Armstrong and Duke Ellington fit comfortably into accepted stereotypes of stage
behavior that was expected of African American musicians since the nineteenth
century: Armstrong as the smiling country bumpkin Jim Crow and Ellington as the
urbanite dandy Zip Coon. This is not to say that these musicians were pandering to
public expectations. Krin Gabbard has suggested that Armstrong affected some of
these mannerisms in order to be heard by a mainstream audience, and yet subverted
minstrel stereotypes in his virtuosic performance.
106
Burns’s film marginalizes figures
such as Miles Davis and Cecil Taylor perhaps because they represented more
unconventional versions of black masculinity.
107

Spike Lee’s documentary film When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
foregrounds the debates about jazz canon in a different way, connecting with a vibrant
localized musical culture. When the Levees Broke is a documentary film about Hurricane
Katrina that was first aired on HBO in August of 2006, one year after the hurricane’s
landfall. The film was generally well received by critics. Several commentators praised
Spike Lee’s non-narrative approach to the film. In a review published in Film Quarterly,
Ernest Callenbach applauded Lee for stepping out of the spotlight and allowing the
subjects to speak for themselves.
108
In the New York Times, Stephen Holden

106
Krin Gabbard “Signifyin(g) the Phallus: Mo’Better Blues and Representations of the Jazz Trumpet,”
in Representing Jazz (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995) p.104-125

107
Gary Tomlinson makes a similar argument about the marginalization of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew.
See Gary Tomlinson, “Cultural Dialogics and Jazz: A White Historian Signifies,” Black Music Research
Journal 11 (1991) pp.244-245

108
Ernest Callenbach, “Review of When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts by Spike Lee,” Film
Quarterly 60:2 (Winter, 2006-2007) pp.4-10

68
acknowledged the difference between Ken Burns’s and Spike Lee’s approaches. He
wrote:
Even with its formal musical trappings, “When the Levees Broke” is the
opposite of a Ken Burns documentary. Where Mr. Burns’s historical
panoramas examine momentous events from a magisterial distance, Mr. Lee’s
documentary boils with anger and a degree of paranoia.
109

Holden’s comment acknowledges stylistic differences between Lee and Burns.
Although the history of jazz is not the focus of Lee’s film, it documents the role of
living African American musical traditions in New Orleans in the aftermath of
hurricane Katrina. In contrast, Burns creates a retrospective narrative of jazz history.
Throughout the film, director Spike Lee and composer Terence Blanchard use
Signifyin(g) references to locate jazz within the context of a predominantly African
American culture in New Orleans rather than as part of a universal jazz tradition.
Blanchard highlights the struggle of strong black protagonists against institutional
injustice through the transformation of the New Orleans standard “St. James
Infirmary” and reuse of cues from his score to Inside Man (2006).
Wynton Marsalis plays a prominent role in shaping the narrative of both films
as a commentator and performer. In When the Levees Broke, Marsalis appears as one of
many representatives testifying to the importance of African American culture in New
Orleans. In Burns’s Jazz, Marsalis is presented as a mythological messiah figure who
symbolizes the legacy of Louis Armstrong and spearheaded a jazz renaissance in the
1980s.

109
Both Callenbach and Holden criticized the film’s presentation of unsubstantiated “urban myths,”
such as the belief among some survivors that the levees were blown up rather than breached. Stephen
Holden, “The Tragic Drama of a Broken City, Complete With Heroes an Villains.” New York Times,
August 21, 2006, Late Edition, East Coast, p.E8
69
Ken Burns’s Jazz (2001)
One of the most useful starting points in analyzing the critical reception of
Ken Burns’s Jazz is offered in a roundtable discussion about the film moderated by
Geoffrey Jacques.
110
Some of the strongest criticisms voiced in this discussion lament
the omissions of Burns’s film, especially the cursory treatment of jazz since the 1970s
and the simplification of race and gender politics. Several reviewers also find fault with
the focus on prominent geniuses at the expense of a broader jazz community.
The notable strengths of the film include seamless integration of narration,
interviews with prominent critics and performers, rare concert footage, and high
quality photographs and sound recordings. One of the strongest points is that the
pace of the editing demonstrates high sensitivity to the phrasing of the musical
examples. In general, it is an aesthetically pleasing film and whether or not one agrees
with the filmmakers’ historical narrative, it represents one of the best crafted
documentary films on the history of jazz to date.
Burns and Ward should not be faulted for constructing a narrative arch for
their film. Some of the film’s critics may overlook the practical need of the filmmakers
to appeal to a broad general audience through an engaging story focused on a few key
figures. This approach tends to deemphasize the role of the average musician in
musical culture but it enables the viewer to become emotionally invested in the
development of strong characters.

110
Includes reviews by Bernie Gendron, Sherri Tucker, and Krin Gabbard. See Geoffrey Jacques, “A
Roundtable on Ken Burns’s Jazz.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 13:2 (2002) pp.207-225
70
The story arch is structured around the metaphorical birth, death, and
resurrection of jazz.
111
According to Burns’s film, jazz was born in New Orleans,
reached maturity in the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, and was killed
by avant-garde and fusion artists such as Cecil Taylor and Miles Davis, who departed
from the “roots” of jazz by adopting decadent modernists aesthetics or “selling out” to
record companies. The resurrection of jazz in the 1980s is credited to Wynton Marsalis
and like-minded artists who sought a return to the populist aesthetics of Armstrong
and Ellington.
According to Burns and Ward, Louis Armstrong is credited with the invention
of swing, the revolutionizing of improvisation, and the transformation of American
singing. Although few would deny the influence of Armstrong and Ellington, the
language used in this film elevates these men to the status of demi-gods. Even the title
of the introduction chapter on Duke Ellington, “Blessed,” invites a comparison to the
birth of a biblical prophet.

The Decadent Jazz Avant-Garde
The tenth and final episode of Jazz, entitled “Masterpiece by Midnight,”
presents a negative view of the jazz avant-garde. Burns and Ward suggest that avant-
garde artists after John Coltrane were preoccupied with reinventing the musical
language, which further alienated jazz musicians from the public. The episode includes
an interview with trumpeter Lester Bowie who explains that the Art Ensemble of

111
Using Claude Lévi-Strauss’s stucturalist approach to the study of myth, it may be possible to conduct
a comparative analysis of the narratives of contemporary jazz history. See Claude Lévi-Strauss Chapter
11 “The Structural Study of Myth” in Structural Anthropology, (New York: Basic Books, 1963) pp.206-231
71
Chicago adopted the term “great black music” to avoid the negative connotations of
the term “jazz.” The voice of the omniscient narrator explains:
Not since the days of Black Swan records in the 1920s were African Americans
fully involved with every aspect of their art, from booking and recording to
promotion and distribution. But nothing the Art Ensemble of Chicago or any
other avant-garde black cooperative did seemed to be able to win back a black
audience. The Art Ensemble once found itself playing to just three people in its
own home town and attracted its largest following among white college
students [...emphatic pause...] in France.
112

In this episode, Ward and Burns suggest that although avant-garde collectives
such as the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and the
Art Ensemble of Chicago empowered black musicians, their experiments were
unpalatable for black listeners.
113

Burns and Ward claim that jazz lost its core black audience because musicians
were distracted by the decadence of fusion and the avant-garde. They suggest that the
vitality of jazz is related to the demographics of its audience, implying that jazz is no
longer authentic when the audience or performers are mostly white, or when black
performers are corrupted by the decadent aesthetics of European modernism.
114

The filmmakers present Cecil Taylor as the outstanding representative of the
jazz avant-garde after John Coltrane, although they marginalize Taylor because his

112
Episode 10 (20:38-21:30)

113
The film does not acknowledge alternate views of the role of the AACM such as those presented in
the in the scholarship of Ronald Radano, who faults standard jazz histories for overlooking the role of
Anthony Braxton and the AACM in nurturing an experimental African American musical tradition.

See
Ronald Radano, New Musical Figurations: Anthony Braxton’s Cultural Critique (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993)

114
A more nuanced assessment of who listens to jazz is presented in Scott DeVeaux, Jazz in America:
Who’s Listening? (Carson: Seven Locks Press, 1995)

72
modernist leanings supposedly isolated him from the populist roots of blues and
swing. The voice of the narrator declares:
Some critics called him a heretic and insisted that his music was not jazz at all.
Taylor came to symbolize everything they loved and everything they hated
about the avant-garde.

The filmmakers portray Taylor as both a pathetic and elitist character: an unemployed
musician forced to sell sandwiches to make a living while performing “imaginary
concerts” in his apartment for a non-existent audience. His role in this film is to act as
a straw man example for the jazz avant-garde, whose aesthetics and musical
philosophy are too easily dismissed.
The narrator announces, “Cecil Taylor once said that since he prepared for his
concerts, the audience should prepare too.”
115
Few would object if a classical artist
made this claim. Most would agree that some training and education is necessary in
order to appreciate art music. Clearly, musicians such as Taylor believed that jazz was
art music, and demanded attentive listening. Yet by paraphrasing Taylor out of context,
he is made to appear aloof and out of touch.
Taylor’s assertion is used in Jazz to set him up for rebuke by Wynton’s brother
Branford Marsalis. Although we do not hear the interviewer’s question in the film,
Branford is shown responding sharply:
That’s total self-indulgent bullshit as far as I’m concerned. I love baseball, but
I’m not going to catch a hundred grounders before I go to a game. That’s why
we pay to see them do what they do and to appreciate them.

Although Branford is indeed responding to a question about Cecil Taylor, an
examination of the interview transcript reveals that he was presented with a leading

115
Episode 10 (24:00)

73
question and his answer had a slightly different intent that the sound bite presented in
the film.
116
Branford’s claim in the film suggests that he is denouncing the
pretentiousness of the jazz avant-garde. However, the transcript shows that he was
actually criticizing the concept of jazz as classical concert music.
117
According to
Branford, jazz is not limited to a particular stylistic repertoire and need not be
presented with excessive formality. Branford’s conception of jazz emphasizes
spontaneous and informal interaction with a broad range of musical material and he
sees no problem with a jazz ensemble interpreting Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” or
laughing and joking on stage. Branford’s criticism of formal concert jazz performances
might apply more directly to his brother Wynton’s jazz series at the Lincoln Center
than Cecil Taylor’s “imaginary concerts” in his loft apartment.
Taylor’s view, as summarized by Ward, is a far cry from Milton Babbitt’s
assertion of indifference to public opinion as expressed in his article “The Composer
as Specialist.”
118
Nonetheless, the assimilation of modernist aesthetics is presented as a
primary reason for the supposed decline of jazz. Wynton Marsalis has also expressed
his view that adoption of European modernist aesthetics led jazz down a false path. In

116
We can see that Branford’s response has been edited in the film. The transcript reads: “Interviewer:
Do you think the audience likes to be educated? I know Cecil Taylor has said, “I prepare for my next
concerts. The audience has to prepare.” Branford Marsalis: “That’s total self-indulgent bullshit as far as
I’m concerned. I mean, you know, I love baseball. I mean, I’m not going to go and catch a hundred
grounders before I go to a game. I mean, that’s what ... we pay to see them do what they do and to
appreciate them...

“Branford Marsalis, Interview Transcript p.32-33
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/about/about_transcripts.htm (accessed April 28, 2010)

117
Although we don’t hear it in the film, Branford said the following in his interview: “And I think at
times, you know, people who call jazz “the black American classical music,” which is kind of like dopey
to me, I think at times we take that a little too seriously, when you see guys coming on-stage, it’s like
they’re at a funeral, playing and, you know, what...It’s ridiculous. It’s totally ridiculous, I mean, jazz is a
very spontaneous music and it’s very free, and when it’s free and spontaneous, funny things happen on-
stage, and when they’re funny, laugh. Talk to each other on-stage, you know?” ibid.

118
Milton Babbitt, “The Composer as Specialist” in The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt. Stephen
Dembski, Andrew Mead and Joseph Straus eds. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) pp.48-54

74
his book Moving to Higher Ground, Marsalis distinguishes Ornette Coleman’s authentic,
blues rooted playing from other jazz avant-gardists, who in his view, were imitating the
European avant-garde and betraying their black roots.
119

Miles Davis and the Death of Jazz
In the final episode of Ken Burns’s Jazz, Miles Davis’s embrace of popular
music traditions is presented as if it were an anathema to the history of jazz, even
though jazz musicians had been incorporated popular styles since the very beginning.
Although Davis’s music with his first and second great quintet is treated with religious
reverence in Burn’s film, Davis is marginalized for experimenting with rock fusion.
Adopting an argument from rock criticism, Davis’s artistic accomplishments are
overshadowed by his desire for commercial success, and Burns portrays him as a
sellout, an unrepentant musical Judas.
The filmmakers present the fusion music of Miles Davis as a naive attempt by
an aging jazz musician to win the attention of a younger audience and to cash in on the
latest trend in popular music. This episode presents the argument that Davis’s musical
choices were motivated by vanity and greed. First, Davis is framed as a self-conscious,
aging diva who envied rock and roll musicians that were drawing huge crowds of
young people. The setup begins with an interview with promoter George Wein, who
explains that when Davis saw Sly and the Family Stone at the Newport Jazz festival in
1969, “He could feel that he was old and out of date.”

119
Wynton Marsalis and Geoffrey C. Ward, Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (New
York: Random House, 2008) pp.120-121
75
Davis is also presented as a sellout. The narrator announces that the President
of Columbia Records told Davis that he should be playing for young rock fans in order
to sell more records. If the viewer accepts this statement at face value, Davis was
acting as the pawn of a record company. This line of reasoning mirrors Stanley
Crouch’s views as expressed in his article “On the Corner: The Sellout of Miles
Davis,” which emphasizes greed and vanity over any other influences on Davis’s
artistic choices.
120

In the Ken Burns film, no attempt is made to consider that Davis’s musical
choices were influenced by an underlying musical philosophy that had always
embraced popular music. Throughout his career, Davis demonstrated a willingness to
assimilate many styles of music. In collaboration with arranger Gil Evans, he
reinterpreted Gershwin’s folk opera Porgy and Bess in 1958. In his 1960 album Sketches of
Spain, Davis and Evans adapted the second movement from Joaquin Rodrigo’s
classical guitar concerto Concierto de Aranjuez. Davis’s musical tastes had never been
limited to one particular style of music, and it should come as no surprise that he was
inspired by the popular music of the late 1960s.
Bob Dylan encountered a similar reaction when he changed his style in the mid
1960s. Following his performance of “Like a Rolling Stone” at the Newport Folk
festival in 1965, critics accused him of abandoning his folk roots and selling out by
adopting the amplified sounds of rock and roll.
121
Why should fans be surprised or
horrified when the artists whom they love change their style? Are not artists expected

120
Stanley Crouch, “On The Corner: The Sellout of Miles Davis” in Considering Genius (New York: Basic
Civitas Books, 2006) p.240-257

121
Reviews by Irwin Silber and Paul Nelson cited in David Brackett, The Pop Rock and Soul Reader:
Histories and Debates (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) 2nd ed. pp.162-167
76
to mature and change over the course of their careers, or should they be expected to
play the same music for the rest of their lives once they have produced a body of hits?
This is one of the potential problems of a canon. While it imparts a sign of critical
recognition to musicians, it may inhibit the development of living artists.
Music makes strong first impressions. When an artist, performance, or song
makes a deep impression on us, we are often disappointed when another performance
by the same artist does not evoke a similar experience. In turn, we blame the artist for
failing to replicate that feeling.
122
The critics of Dylan and Davis may have been
motivated by their own emotional response to their music. Their fans had become
accustomed to their earlier music, and when these artists played something different,
their initial reaction was to deride it.
Davis is criticized for straying too far from the roots of jazz. Wynton Marsalis
declares that fusion was the first type of jazz that was not based on horns or singing,
thereby insinuating that these elements are prerequisites for “real” jazz. While
collective improvisation in New Orleans polyphony is deemed acceptable, group
improvisation in Davis’s fusion ensembles is singled out for criticism. Jazz critic
Gerald Early concludes that Davis’s fusion music was unsuccessful because there were
too many elements and people were not listening to each other, and the result was
“like playing tennis without a net.”
In the chapter entitled “Tennis Without a Net,” the narrator announces that
Davis “discarded the standards that had made him famous and replaced traditional
instruments with electric ones.” In his autobiography, Davis expressed resentment for

122
This is another problem with canons based on recordings; we expect live performances to sound like
recordings and become addicted to the convenience of being able to manipulate our own emotions at
will by playing recordings whenever we want to hear them.
77
the idea that his audience expected him to keep playing standards.
123
Nonetheless, the
filmmakers imply that Miles should have spent the rest of his career playing old hits
like Armstrong.
Burns’s narrative of fusion ends here even though the narrator declares that
Miles created a vast new audience for his music that would continue to explore the
fusion sound for decades. This point appears as an awkward footnote to a chapter
dedicated to framing fusion as an unsuccessful venture.
The chapter entitled “Good Evening Everybody” presents a sentimental
sendoff to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. While Armstrong and Ellington
certainly deserve a prominent place in any introductory narrative of jazz history, it
would be silly to suggest that jazz died with them. Yet this is exactly the claim that is
made in the final episode of Jazz. In order to downplay claims of editorial bias, the
death of jazz is heralded by Miles Davis, who is paraphrased as saying, “jazz is dead,
the music of the museum.” In his autobiography, Miles provides a more contextualized
description of jazz in the late 1960s:
Fewer and fewer black musicians were playing jazz and I could see why,
because jazz was becoming the music of the museum. A lot of musicians and
critics are at fault for letting it happen. No one wants to be dead before their
time, you know, when they’re twenty-one, and that’s what was going to happen
to someone who went into jazz.
124

While Miles agrees with Burns that there was a growing rift between jazz performers
and listeners, Davis has a different theory about the cause of the gap. Miles blames

123
Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989) p.231

124
ibid, p.352

78
white critics in particular for overemphasizing the importance of free playing, even
though not many people wanted to listen to it.
125

It is unsettlingly common for critics to associate the supposed decline of an
authentic black art (Count Basie, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters) with appropriation and
commercialization by white musicians (Benny Goodman, Elvis, and the Beatles). Burns
and Ward suggest that the arrival of the Beatles in North America and the ascending
popularity of rock and roll was a significant cause in the decline of jazz as a popular
music. It may only be considered a decline if one views jazz as independent from
popular music. If one accepts that jazz is connected to popular music, then it did not
die or decline but evolved with it. Even if we agree that jazz is essentially black music,
we must also accept that black musical styles continued to change. Since the early
twentieth century, jazz artists, both black and white, have used popular music as a
point of departure for improvisation. It makes sense that jazz musicians would
continue to appropriate and signify on the sounds of popular music as new stylistic
trends emerge.

Wynton Marsalis and the Resurrection of Jazz
An assumption underlying the film’s narrative is that the true essence of jazz is
acoustic, swinging interpretations of standards. According to Jazz, this tradition fell
into neglect after the death of Armstrong and Ellington and jazz was consigned to
oblivion until the return of the straight-ahead tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon from
Europe in 1976. From here the narrative skips directly to Wynton Marsalis, who is
credited with ushering in a jazz renaissance in the 1980s.

125
Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography p.271

79
According to the Burns and Ward myth, an intimate connection with the music
of Louis Armstrong was a prerequisite for the resurrection of jazz. They claim that
young African American musicians were generally ignorant of Armstrong’s legacy, until
the arrival of Wynton Marsalis, a musical prophet who embodied the spirit of
Armstrong. Marsalis’s introduction begins in the same nostalgic and reverent style as
his canonical predecessors: “Wynton Marsalis was born in New Orleans....” complete
with a smiling baby picture. In Burns’s myth, New Orleans is the musical Jerusalem,
the Holy Land and birthplace of the prophet Louis Armstrong and his prodigy
Wynton. Gary Giddins is among the first to pay tribute to Marsalis’s divine talent: “He
was the first young player I heard with something to say.”
Ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl wrote about the deification of composers in
the tradition of Western classical music describing how Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven
function as the holy trinity of music conservatories in the United States.
126
In a similar
manner, Burns’s narrative portrays Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington as the
equivalent of Old Testament prophets who lay the groundwork for the faith of jazz.
Charlie Parker and John Coltrane are presented as New Testament prophets who
faithfully build upon the work of their predecessors. In contrast, Miles Davis and
Cecil Taylor are portrayed as non-canonical prophets who are seduced by the
corruption of fusion and the avant-garde and succumb to the sins of vanity and self-
indulgence. Although John Coltrane is referred to as a “high priest” and a “saint,”
Burns and Ward suggest that he alienated his mortal listeners when he continued
further down the avant-garde path after Love Supreme.

126
Bruno Nettl, Heartland Excursions: Ethnomusicological Reflections on Schools of Music (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1995)
80
Perhaps the most unsettling aspect about the resurrection narrative is that the
filmmakers nominate Wynton Marsalis, a living jazz musician, as the jazz Messiah.
Christian saints are not eligible for canonization until a significant amount of time has
passed after their death to reflect upon the scope of their life’s work. Similar, albeit
unspoken, rules apply to the canonization of musical innovators in classical music.
One may be called a visionary but it is not until after their influence has been affirmed
by a critical mass of performers and critics that they may be accepted into the canon.
Despite Marsalis’s accomplishments as a performer and eloquence as a speaker,
many critics believe that Marsalis is not yet worthy of canonization, and is neither the
best representative of American jazz nor the sole heir to the musical throne of
Armstrong, as suggested by the Burns myth.
By granting Marsalis the status of musical Messiah, or at the very least, a saint,
Ward and Burns invited a torrent of skepticism by believers and non-believers alike. It
is easier to accept the idea of a historical figure as a saint than a living person because
the living are subject to a higher burden of proof than the legends of the past. In this
way, the canonization of jazz artists in Burns’s film shares some elements in common
with the canonization of Catholic saints. According to this tradition, a saint is made
eligible for canonization by performing miraculous acts or for being martyred in the
name of Christ. Similarly, a composer or performer is canonized for taking
revolutionary steps that enable music styles to advance beyond the conventional limits
of their time. This view of canonization attributes change to the will of an individual
genius rather than collective social forces or any other large-scale process.
In addition to canonizing some artists as musical saints, Ken Burns’s Jazz
marginalizes entire categories of artists. Although prominent female vocalists are given
81
some attention in Jazz, the contributions of female instrumentalists to the jazz
tradition are ignored.
127
One example in particular exemplifies this oversight. In the
final montage of “Masterpiece by Midnight,” a short clip of a big band is shown just
long enough for the viewer to realize that the fourth trumpet player on the right-hand
side is female. The viewer barely has time to acknowledge this before the editor cuts to
the next scene.
At the end of the final episode, “Masterpiece by Midnight,” the last two
decades of jazz are summarized by a list of names and concert footage of dubious
quality. Krin Gabbard notes that the final chapter of Ken Burns’s Jazz seems out of
place with the rest of the film; it presents a list of living jazz artists with little attempt
to contextualize their music or grant them any more importance than a footnote next
to the genius of Armstrong and Ellington.
128
Like many music history textbooks, the
film concentrates on framing a particular canon, relegating the music of the recent past
to an epilogue.

Laughing at Jazz
One of the outstanding examples of non-scholarly criticism of Ken Burns’s
Jazz can be found in a parody written by John Grabowski entitled “The Longest
Tootle.” In this excerpt, Grabowski takes direct aim at Marsalis’s confidence in
authoritatively demonstrating the sound of some of the earliest jazz musicians such as
Buddy Bolden, satirized here as the fictional Skunkbucket LeFunke.

127
Sherri Tucker documents the contributions of female jazz musicians, who were almost entirely
ignored in the Ken Burns film. See Sherri Tucker, Swing Shift: “All-Girl” Bands of the 1940s (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2000)

128
Cited in Jacques, “A Roundtable on Ken Burns’s Jazz,” p.214

82
Narrator: Skunkbucket LeFunke was born in 1876 and died in 1901. No one
who heard him is alive today. The grandchildren of the people who heard him
are not alive today. The great-grandchildren of the people who heard him are
not alive today. He was never recorded.
Wynton Marsalis: I'll tell you what Skunkbucket LeFunke sounded like. He had
this big rippling sound, and he always phrased off the beat, and he slurred his
notes. And when the Creole bands were still playing De-bah-de-bah-ta-da-tah,
he was already playing Bo-dap-da-lete-do-do-do-bah! He was just like gumbo,
ahead of his time.
129

Grabowski also lampoons the aura of Armstrong worship exuded in the film by critics
such as Gary Giddins, renamed in this excerpt as Giddy.

Giddy: Let’s talk about Louis some more. We’ve wasted three minutes of this
57-part documentary not talking about Louis.
130

Another complaint raised by Grabowski is that Armstrong’s commercial
recordings of the 1960s are granted higher musical importance than experimental
artists from the same era.
Narrator: In 1964, John Coltrane was at his peak, Eric Dolphy was in Europe,
where he would eventually die, the Modern Jazz Quartet was making
breakthrough recordings in the field of Third Stream Music, Miles Davis was
breaking new barriers with his second great quintet, and Charlie Mingus was
extending jazz composition to new levels of complexity. But we’re going to talk
about Louis singing “Hello Dolly” instead.
131

This particular spoof highlights one of the privileges of artists in Burns’s
canon. Once an artist has been elevated into the canon of genius, his work becomes
immune to the denigrating labels of “commercial.” While Miles Davis is easily labeled

129
John Grabowsky, “The Longest Tootle.” Salon.com (February 7, 2001)
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2001/02/07/ken_burns (accessed June 2, 2010)

130
ibid.

131
ibid.

83
as a “sellout” and panderer to pubic taste, Armstrong at his most commercial is
celebrated as a folk hero, unwilling to surrender the crown of popular music to rock
artists.

Ken Burns and The Essence of Jazz
The contradictions uncovered in Ken Burns’s Jazz bring attention to a
fundamental disagreement about the essential nature of jazz, a topic also broached by
Theodore Gracyk and Charles Hiroshi Garrett.
132
According to the narrative presented
in Ken Burns’s film, jazz is predominantly African American and male and is
exemplified by swing, blues, and bebop standards. An alternative definition accepts
jazz as a performance style intimately connected with popular music. Miles Davis was
not selling out when he made fusion records, he was simply acknowledging that
popular music had changed. By the late 1960s, the Broadway shows that once provided
the tunes of the standard repertoire were facing increasing competition from rock and
roll.
Popular music is always changing and jazz artists have always assimilated
popular songs and used them as a basis for improvisation. Jazz musicians of the past
did not usually shy away from the trends of their time, they appropriated and Signified
upon them. If there is an essential quality to jazz it might be the Signifyin(g) process of
improvisation and reinterpretation.

132
Gracyk challenges the underlying philosophical assumption that jazz can be reduced to a definable
essence. See Theodore Gracyk, “Jazz After Jazz: Ken Burns and the Construction of Jazz History.”
Philosophy and Literature 26:1 (2002) pp.173-187 and Charles Hiroshi Garrett, Struggling To Define A
Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008) pp.215-
216
84
Criticism of Jazz does not mean that its strengths should be ignored or that the
film cannot serve as a useful tool for teaching jazz history. However, it underscores the
dangers of relying on a single source to provide historical context and reinforces the
need for alternative views of jazz history, especially for jazz since the 1970s.
Contextualizing the uncertain territory of the recent past remains a daunting task for
the filmmaker or historian despite the steadily increasing body of scholarship on the
history of jazz.
Based on the criticism of Jacques, Tucker, Gabbard, DeVeaux, and Gendron,
documentary filmmakers would be well-advised to consider the following lessons
learned from Ken Burns’s Jazz: First, rely less on talking heads and sound bites.
Second, avoid the presentation of one living artist as the best representative of the
future of jazz. Third, acknowledge that jazz is a living art form. Fourth, include
dialogue among critics that acknowledge disagreement about the history of jazz. Fifth,
focus on living jazz communities, not just dead heroes. Sixth, discuss race and gender
in terms of empowerment, not just victimhood. Finally, include material of interest to
specialists as well as amateurs.

Burns vs. Lee
Comparing and contrasting Burns’s narrative of jazz history with the view of
jazz as presented in Spike Lee’s When the Levee’s Broke yields interesting insights.
Admittedly, the intent of Lee’s film is not to relate the history of jazz but to put the
disaster of Hurricane Katrina in context. However, jazz plays a prominent role in the
film and Lee foregrounds the voice of musicians from New Orleans. In Lee’s film jazz
musicians such as Terence Blanchard and Wynton Marsalis are featured in starkly
85
different ways than in Ken Burns’s film. Although there are some similarities in how
the jazz canon is framed, there are also some significant differences.
While Burns’s film aims to encapsulate the official canon, Lee takes the
concept of an official canon but puts a spin on it by focusing on living traditions. In
particular, the film shows how jazz fits into the context of African American culture in
New Orleans by featuring live performances by high profile New Orleans musicians
such as Blanchard and Marsalis, as well as other local musicians who depend on the
support of tourists for their livelihood, such as the Hot 8 Brass Band and Shelton
Shakespear Alexander. The inclusion of live performances by local musicians
complements Blanchard’s soundtrack, which establishes a dialogue between tradition
and contemporary culture. Lee’s film suggests that jazz is not an ossified museum relic,
but part of a living tradition connected closely with the experience of African
Americans. Blanchard’s score relies on intertextual references to classic standards and
his other film scores to complement Lee’s focus on how issues of race and class
exacerbated the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke (2006)
The unique treatment of jazz in When the Levees Broke builds upon Lee’s family
history as well as his longstanding collaboration with trumpeter and composer Terence
Blanchard. Lee met Blanchard after he had moved from New Orleans to New York in
the 1980s to replace Wynton Marsalis in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. As pointed out
by Krin Gabbard, Lee’s interest in jazz stems in part from his relationship with his
father Bill Lee, who composed and recorded original music for Spike Lee’s film about
a fictional jazz trumpeter Bleek Gilliam entitled Mo’ Better Blues (1990). Lee’s
86
collaboration with Blanchard began in 1990 when Blanchard recorded the trumpet
solos in Mo’ Better Blues and coached Denzel Washington on how to look like a trumpet
player.
133
This marked the beginning of a collaboration that has included at least
fourteen films since 1990.
The soundtrack includes an original score by Blanchard supplemented by
licensed recordings of several jazz standards and live performances by New Orleans
musicians. In Lee’s film, musicians play an active role in the storytelling process. In
addition to providing source music, they offer their own impressions of how the
disaster affected their families. Blanchard’s participation as composer as well as subject
adds an additional critical voice to the film. On a larger scale, the structure of the film
mirrors the traditional New Orleans funeral procession, which begins with a mournful
lament and ends with a joyful celebration.
Ken Burns’s Jazz relies primarily on the expository mode of documentary
filmmaking, which, according to Bill Nichols, uses the voice of an omniscient narrator
to deliver the story.
134
Interviews with critics and performers are used to affirm or deny
the canonical status of certain artists and styles. Lee’s When the Levees Broke,
emphasizes the participatory and performative modes, which foreground the
subjectivity of the filmmaker and invite those affected by the disaster to present their
own accounts, albeit through the mediated lens of the documentary filmmaker. As if to
emphasize this point, each of the subjects is shown holding a picture frame in the
credit sequence.

133
On an NPR interview, Blanchard lamented that the actor was unable to tell him how to look like
Denzel Washington.

134
Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001) pp.33-34

87
Among the modes of representation in documentary film identified by Nichols,
the poetic mode, which emphasizes visual associations, is most prevalent in montage
sequences that feature images and non-diegetic music without dialogue.
135
When the
Levees Broke begins with a montage sequence that combines archival footage of New
Orleans with scenes of the destruction caused by Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and
Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The montage is accompanied by a 1946 recording of Louis
Armstrong performing “Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans.”
136
This
scene activates a musical as well as a cinematic code, achieving an ironic balance
between the nostalgic tone of the lyrics, images of vibrant Mardi Gras celebrations,
and disturbing shots of the devastated city. Armstrong’s performance acknowledges
New Orleans as the birthplace of jazz but also situates his importance as a native son
of the city. The scene seeks to create empathy with the contemporary residents of the
city by acknowledging that their tribulations have deep historical roots. Lee uses this
pairing of music and image to encourage appreciation and support of a localized
African American culture in New Orleans rather than a universalist jazz canon.
This scene invites comparison with a similar montage sequence in Good Morning
Vietnam, which paired Armstrong’s rendition of “What a Wonderful World” with
images of warfare, violence, and protest. In Good Morning Vietnam, the montage
employs a “scoring against the picture” effect to highlight the disparity between the
grim reality of the Vietnam War and the nostalgic sentimentality of this song. Director
Barry Levinson’s pairing of escapist lyrics with arresting visual images acknowledges

135
Non-diegetic music is the background score provided by the composer in contrast to diegetic or
source music, which is created on screen.

136
Composed by Lou Alter and Eddy DeLange. Recorded by Louis Armstrong and His Dixieland
Seven October 17, 1946, Los Angeles, CA.
88
the public desire for distraction from the painful political changes underway in the
1960s. In a similar manner, Spike Lee’s choice of music acknowledges a disparity
between the sentimentality of Armstrong’s performance of popular songs and the real
problems faced by New Orleans residents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The
opening montage in When the Levees Broke highlights a history of celebration amidst
disaster by interspersing older shots of Mardi Gras celebrations with images of the
hurricane-devastated city.
Armstrong’s music is appropriate in each of these montage sequences because
it engages a hidden duality. Armstrong’s stage persona embraces both the “Tomming”
entertainer and the Signifyin(g) trickster.
137
Behind the superficial nostalgia of the lyrics
in these performances lies a deep awareness of the fissure in American society caused
by segregation. Spike Lee draws upon the Signifyin(g) quality of Armstrong’s ballad
performances to contextualize the crisis prompted by Hurricane Katrina. Armstrong’s
voice conjures memories of tradition and comfort as well as division and conflict. His
music is used in this film as a signifier of jazz tradition as well as acknowledgement of
deep social problems beneath a veneer of celebration.
The participatory mode, which emphasizes interaction between filmmaker and
subject, is also prominent throughout When the Levees Broke. By avoiding the voice of an
omniscient narrator, director Spike Lee and editor Sam Pollard bypass claims of
objectivity and historical distance and allow the subjects to assume a greater role in the
storytelling process. One such example occurs in Act 1, Chapter 5, as residents of the
Lower Ninth Ward describe the extent of the flooding. The scene is framed by a

137
Gabbard argues that Armstrong’s outstanding musicianship played against his superficially
complacent stage persona. See Krin Gabbard, “Signifyin(g) the Phallus: Representations of the Jazz
Trumpet” in Jammin’ at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema. Krin Gabbard ed. (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1996) pp.138-159
89
performance of “St. James Infirmary,” played first by the young Glen Hall III on his
trumpet and then sung by Wynton Marsalis. Why introduce this famous melody with
the amateur performance of a young boy instead of a polished rendition by Marsalis or
Blanchard, or a classic Armstrong recording? The juxtaposition of these performers
demonstrates the importance of intergenerational commitment to the preservation of
African American musical traditions in New Orleans. The melody and lyrics as
performed by Marsalis are transcribed in the following example.

Musical Example 15. “St. James Infirmary” as sung by Wynton Marsalis.
When the Levees Broke, DVD, 2006. Act 1, Chapter 5
(39:25-40:30)

(2nd verse)
Let her go, let her go, God bless her,
Wherever she may be,
She can look this whole wide world over,
She ain’t never find a sweet, sweet man like me.

(3rd verse)
When I die Lord, I want you to bury me,
in a boxback coat and my Stetson hat.
Put a twenty dollar gold piece in my pocket,
So the boys’ll know that I died standing pat.

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Blanchard’s use of “St. James Infirmary” highlights issues of class, race, and
conflict between an official vs. living musical tradition. Highlighting class disparity is a
priority for Lee in this film. Although Wynton Marsalis is portrayed sympathetically in
Levees, his dress and demeanor indicate that he is a member of the bourgeoisie rather
than one of the many struggling proletarians adversely affected by the hurricane. In
his review of Spike Lee’s film Mo’ Better Blues, Krin Gabbard writes:
It is extremely difficult to imagine Wynton Marsalis or Terence Blanchard
crossing class boundaries to abandon their affectless stage poses for more than
a moment.
138

Gabbard recognizes that when Marsalis appears in an immaculate suit, he is
making a statement that jazz is a refined and serious art form. Although Marsalis does
not dress down for his first appearance in When the Levees Broke, his demeanor is far
from affectless. In this scene, Marsalis appears in a suit in front of a textured
background in a studio setting, as he does in Ken Burns’s Jazz. Yet instead of
delivering a lecture or witty comment as he often does in the Burns film, Marsalis
appears for the first time in this film performing a slightly awkward vocal rendition of
“St. James Infirmary.” By emphasizing Marsalis’s vulnerability instead of his eloquence
or trumpet prowess, Lee invites the viewer to empathize with him as a New Orleans-
born musician. Yet the filmmakers do not attempt to disguise the class differences
between better-known musicians such Marsalis and Blanchard and local New Orleans
musicians, who depend on the support of tourists for their livelihood. Though
Blanchard is filmed amidst the rubble of the Lower Ninth Ward, he also appears in an
immaculate suit, as if he were in the main line of a New Orleans funeral procession. In

138
Krin Gabbard, “Signifyin(g) the Phallus: Representations of the Jazz Trumpet” in Jammin’ at the
Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema. Krin Gabbard ed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)
p.158
91
contrast, the members of the Hot 8 Brass Band are depicted in casual dress,
performing on the street for onlookers. With their inclusion in the film, Lee clearly
indicates that although they are not as famous or wealthy, members of this band
represent the musical culture of New Orleans as much as Marsalis or Blanchard. One
of the admirable features of Lee’s film is its acknowledgment of a range of musical
styles and social classes as authentic contributors to New Orleans culture. While Louis
Armstrong is identified as a canonical figure in Lee’s film, his conception of the jazz
tradition leaves room for living communities in addition to famous musicians.
The use of “St. James Infirmary” in Act 1, Chapter 5, also creates a textual
parallel to conditions faced by many storm survivors as they awaited evacuation in the
Superdome and elsewhere. The singer’s reference to the dead body of his lover
provides a morbid comparison to images of bloated bodies floating in the water, in
makeshift morgues, and left for collection on interstate highways. Blanchard
transforms the melody of “St. James Infirmary” in a cue entitled “Leeves,” which
functions as a recurring musical motive in the film.

Musical Example 16. Levees Theme in When The Levees Broke.

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Rather than copy the melody exactly, he uses the first phrase of the tune as a
basis for variation. Blanchard’s melody retains the same contour as the opening phrase
of “St. James Infirmary,” but at the end of the first phrase, the melody ascends a
perfect fourth instead of a major second. Blanchard repeats the phrase a second time
with a slightly different ending. The motivic similarity establishes a direct connection
with the source material, inviting the listener to draw connections with the lyrics of the
tune and the context in which it was heard earlier in the film. Through the
transformation of a standard tune recorded often by Louis Armstrong, Blanchard
creates a unifying musical motive for the film and adds his own Signifyin(g) trope to
the New Orleans jazz tradition.
139

We first hear the Levees theme in Act 1, Chapter 6, during which it
accompanies footage of a BBC film crew investigating a flooded house. They find the
dead body of a mother of five children stretched out on her bed. This disturbing image
recalls the first verse of “St. James Infirmary” as heard earlier in the first act, when it
accompanied images of the devastation caused by floodwaters:
Well I went down to St. James Infirmary, and saw my baby there. She was
stretched out on a long white table, so cold, so sweet, so fair.

Yet instead of the sterility of a hospital morgue, the viewer is confronted with footage
of a black corpse bloating in the sweltering heat as her children wait to be rescued.
Blanchard Signifies on the original tune in order to dispel any romanticized or
nostalgic sentiment associated with it.

139
Armstrong recorded “St. James Infirmary” at least six times between 1928 and 1959 according to
Michael Minn and Scott Johnson, “The Louis Armstrong Discography.”
http://michaelminn.net/armstrong/ (Accessed June 23, 2010)
93
Next, the viewer is confronted with footage of poor and mostly black New
Orleans residents wading through floodwaters and waiting for evacuation amidst
complete squalor, while resident Gina Montana complains that the people of her city
were treated like animals. As the music ends, the film cuts to an interview with
President George W. Bush who concludes, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the
breach of the levees.” This is followed immediately by the frustrated and impassioned
pleas of a young African American boy for help. Throughout the film, Lee and Pollard
use cuts like this to emphasize class differences. By juxtaposing men in suits speaking
in sound studios with black residents in tattered clothes knee deep in floodwaters, Lee
visually reinforces the disparity between policy makers and those directly affected by
the storm.
140
The use of Blanchard’s transformation of “St. James Infirmary” in this
context serves to highlight that the suffering of the black poor in New Orleans is an
ongoing problem with deep historical roots.
In addition to disparity in class, Lee’s representation of the jazz canon seeks to
highlight racial inequalities. In Act 2, Chapter 1, the Levees theme is preceded by an
interview with a white resident of the Lower Ninth Ward describing various
armaments used to protect his property from looters. Lee frames his subject in front of
a well manicured home in a polo shirt and sunglasses with birds chirping in the
background to bring into stark relief the disparity between affluent whites and poor
blacks.
141
After the cue ends, we see an interview with an African American man

140
What questions could Lee be raising about Marsalis, who is also shown in a suit and in a sound
studio? Is Marsalis’s empathy sincere, or is it merely feigned for dramatic effect, in the manner of a
politician?

141
Lee uses a similar technique when interviewing Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana Mitch Landrieu in
Act 3 (34:25-34:45). In this scene, Landrieu appears distracted by the chirping bird in front of his house
while trying to express his empathy for displaced residents.
94
named Donald Harrington, who was wounded by a shotgun wielded by a white
resident. This scene supports Lee’s view that much of the violence in the wake of the
hurricane was racially motivated.
In Act 2, Chapter 4, the Levees theme is performed by a solo piano as New
Orleans mayor Ray Nagin describes his efforts to evacuate the city. Photographs with
Ken Burns-style slow pans are interspersed with footage of frustrated residents waiting
for relief. In this scene, the Levees cue provides melodramatic accompaniment to
Nagin’s speech as if to suggest that he understood the history of African American
struggle in New Orleans more than any other official.
Although Mayor Ray Nagin is framed sympathetically in contrast to President
George W. Bush and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, Lee claims in Act
2, Chapter 4 of the director’s commentary that Nagin was hand picked by wealthy
families descended from plantation owners and was “in cahoots” with the Bush
administration.
142
Lee’s description of Nagin seems at odds with Blanchard’s musical
characterization in this cue. Perhaps this is an example of a subtle difference in
interpretation between director and composer. Spike Lee may also have changed his
opinion about Nagin after the film was completed. In any case, Lee’s antagonistic view
of Nagin is less apparent in the film than in the director’s commentary.
The military hero in Lee’s film is the African American General Russell
Honoré, who oversaw the relief and evacuation of the Superdome and is referred to by
Mayor Nagin as “the black John Wayne.” In Act 2, Chapter 5, martial drum rolls
accompany the footage of the general barking orders to white policemen and soldiers

142
In Act 2, Chapter 6, Chertoff is filmed from behind while walking through Louis Armstrong
International Airport and talking over his shoulder. In effect, he is framed to resemble a hobbling ogre.

95
to lower their weapons.
143
In the director’s commentary, Spike Lee praises Blanchard’s
use of drums in the cue, which celebrates the African American heritage of the general
as well as his military prowess. For Lee, General Honoré’s bravado and willingness to
confront racial injustice exemplifies the ideal qualities of a black leader. As a military
relief convoy arrives, we hear the Levees theme played by a saxophone. Just as the
Levees theme was used in conjunction with Nagin’s interview, the use of the theme in
this scene connects the acknowledgment of black suffering with the positive action of
black leaders. In each of these scenes, images and music are used to suggest that Mayor
Nagin and General Honoré are concerned with rectifying the historical oppression of
disenfranchised African Americans.
The Levees theme appears a fifth time in Act 2, Chapter 6, as survivors tell
their accounts of the evacuation. In this chapter, New Orleans residents from diverse
ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds express frustration that they were sent
randomly across the United States without regard for where their family and friends
might be able to shelter them. Blanchard’s Levees theme serves to remind the viewer
that this is not an isolated event but part of the ongoing struggles of poor black
residents of New Orleans. As the subjects repeatedly voice their frustration, the Levees
theme is presented in descending modulation in order to emphasize the grim prospects
for change. Michael Eric Dyson and Gina Montana compare the situation of evacuees
to the separation of families during slavery as the harmony modulates downward from
G minor to F minor and finally to E minor.
Blanchard’s Singifyin(g) in When the Levees Broke situates the jazz canon in
relation to cultural and historical, as well as musical contexts. By using “St. James

143
Act 2, Chapter 5 (40:05 - 43:33)
96
Infirmary” to derive his Levees cue, Blanchard is Signifyin(g) of the meaning and the
context of the lyrics as well as the melody. His music reinforces Lee’s emphasis on
social and cultural inequalities, and the long-standing tribulations of the black
proletariat.

Inside Man Themes in When the Levees Broke
Blanchard’s score for When the Levees Broke uses intertextual references to
highlight undercurrents of racial and social divisiveness. Of particular interest is
Blanchard’s reuse of cues from his score for Inside Man (2006) on which he was
working with Spike Lee when the director proposed the Hurricane Katrina project.
Inside Man is a variation on the conventional bank heist film, where the suspected thief
Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) is later revealed to be repatriating diamonds stolen from
Jews by bank owner Arthur Case during the Second World War. Detective Keith
Frazier (Denzel Washington) is a hardworking black cop who, with the help of his
partner Bill Mitchell, tries to negotiate a successful resolution to the hostage situation.
Meanwhile, Case attempts to prevent the police from investigating the source of the
diamonds by enlisting the help of an unscrupulous negotiator named Madeleine White
(Jodie Foster).
Blanchard uses common thematic elements in Inside Man and When The Levees
Broke to highlight and supplement Spike Lee’s focus on racial solidarity and class
struggle. Upon closer examination of the context in which these musical cues are used
in both films, it becomes clear that the main theme in Blanchard’s score is associated
with a strong black protagonist struggling against a corrupt and insensitive white-
dominated institution.
97
In his score to Inside Man, Blanchard uses variations on a single leitmotif
associated with the protagonist, Detective Frazier. The theme is heard in Chapter 3 as
a countermelody played by trumpets when Detective Frazier first arrives on the scene
of the bank robbery. The melody is supported by a funky bass line and high hat that
recalls the soundtracks to blaxploitation films such as Shaft (1971), scored by Isaac
Hayes.

Musical Example 17. Frazier Theme - Countermelody in Inside Man.

In an earlier scene, Madeline White attempts to convince Frazier to stop
investigating the robbery by threatening him with trumped-up charges of corruption.
In Chapter 17, Frazier refuses to back down and goes to City Hall to confront Ms.
White with recorded evidence of her blackmail attempt. In this scene, Blanchard uses
an piano arrangement of the Frazier theme as shown the following transcription.

98
Musical Example 18. Frazier Theme - Piano Version in Inside Man.

At the beginning of Chapter 18 entitled “Follow the Ring,” Blanchard uses a
cue written for strings in a classical style as Ms. White confers with her employer
Arthur Case.

Musical Example 19. “Follow the Ring” Cue in Inside Man.

In this context, Blanchard’s classical arrangement signifies a white dominated
establishment that appears proper on the surface but is, in fact, riddled with
corruption. Ms. White is well dressed, well educated, and well spoken, yet she is still
willing to be the advocate of a Nazi collaborator and to keep Detective Frazier from
pursuing the investigation. Her indifference to the moral implications of her
99
employer’s past crimes is emphasized in her parting words. After presenting Mr. Case
with evidence of his misdoings, Ms. White remarks, “Well I’d love to tell you how
awful you are, but I have to help Bin Laden’s nephew buy a co-op on Park Avenue.”
During her meeting with Mr. Case, Ms. White concludes that Detective Frazier has
been brought “under control” in exchange for arranging a promotion. Spike Lee uses
the character of Madeline White as an allegorical representation of white bourgeois
society, which despite ample resources and education, remains indifferent to the plight
of the black proletariat and is willing to act unethically for the right price.
In Chapter 19, we hear the Frazier theme one last time played by a saxophone
over a funky bass line after detective Frazier victoriously emerges from confronting
Arthur Case about his collaboration with the Nazis during WWII. A return to the
funky original version at the end of the film symbolizes Frazier’s victory over the
corrupt establishment.
Blanchard uses a variation of the Frazier theme from Inside Man in When the
Levees Broke as survivors recount their experiences along with video clips of the
flooding. The piano arrangement of the Frazier theme is reused at the beginning of the
second act of Levees and recurs in variation throughout the rest of the act.
Blanchard reuses the “Follow the Ring” cue from Inside Man in a montage
sequence that concludes the second act of When the Levees Broke. In Inside Man, the
“Follow the Ring” cue was played as Ms. White went to speak with Mr. Case and
functions as signifier of corruption lying beneath the refined surface of white
bourgeois society. In When the Levees Broke, it is used to show the consequences of
institutional neglect. Blanchard renames the cue “Funeral Dirge” and uses it to
100
accompany footage of people in the squalor of relief facilities.
144
The theme is played
first by a solo piano. Minutes later, a classical string quartet arrangement of the
“Funeral Dirge” theme is used to accompany footage of floating bodies.
145
Here, Lee
invokes parallels to tales of biblical calamity as flood victims are shown wading
through the water. The title of Blanchard’s sound track “A Tale of God’s Will” also
invokes connections with an African American gospel tradition in which faith sustains
communities through times of hardship and God shares in the suffering of his people.
In his soundtrack to When the Levees Broke, Terence Blanchard uses musical
devices to highlight Spike Lee’s focus on racial and economic inequalities
foregrounded by Hurricane Katrina. In the context of both films, Blanchard’s cue is
used to reinforce the need for African American solidarity to confront injustice. This
injustice was represented in Inside Man by Arthur Case’s profiteering from Holocaust
victims and the attempt by Mr. Case and Ms. White to keep an honest, hardworking
black cop in his place. In When the Levees Broke, injustice is represented by the low
priority given to reinforcing infrastructure and ensuring speedy relief in the poorest
areas of New Orleans. Blanchard shapes a dynamic canon by reusing themes
associated with black protagonists struggling against institutional injustice.

144
Act 2, Chapter 6 (55:50-57:00)

145
Act 2, Chapter 6 (58:30-1:02:10)
101
Official vs. Living Music
A recurring theme in Lee’s film is the confrontation between an official canon
and a living musical tradition. Although Levees contains many references to the past,
emphasis is placed on contemporary musical culture in New Orleans featuring many
live performances as diegetic music. One of the most effective uses of diegetic music
in When the Levees Broke is heard in Act 2, Chapter 6 when a live performance by
spoken word poet Shelton “Shakespear” Alexander is superimposed over Blanchard’s
score.
146
At this point the mode shifts from poetic to performative as the New Orleans
poet delivers his own response to the disaster. The text of Alexander’s performance is
transcribed below.

Figure 3. Shelton Alexander “Blessed are the Ones”
Blessed are the ones who sacrificed their lives to save us
Who truly are dedicated,
And blessed are the ones who cried,
Your tears would not be wasted,
And blessed are the ones who were lost and displaced,
And whose houses were knocked of foundations by winds and tidal waves,
Cemeteries turned into mazes,
Caskets coming out of their graves like they was in Texas
And they was sittin’ sideways days and days from sin.
Skeletal remains remain scattered and unclaimed that’s a shame.
Bush said he accepted the blame, so tell me,
Why they playing games with the money tryin’ to give us the change?
Our neighborhoods are being reconfigured to be rearranged,
Everything is strange, I know you can because’.....
“I know I been changed, the angels in heaven done...”
That in signin’ my name, I’m proclaimin’,
Jesus done led me through the fire, the storm, the hurricane, and the rain,
Broke off the chains loosened up they hands and kicked in the frame,
You don’t even have to remember my name.
I told you I’d be here with some partners that I came.
I’m leavin’, but I’ll be back again. Will you be here?

146
Mr. Alexander’s name is spelled as it appears in Lee’s film. Act 2, Chapter 6 (59:55-1:01:05)
102
Alexander’s performance in When the Levees Broke is an outstanding example of
a soundscape that draws attention to the plight of disenfranchised African
Americans.
147
In the middle of his performance, Alexander sings a phrase of the gospel
standard “Lord, I know I’ve been changed, the angels in heaven done sign my name,”
(Alexander’s quotation is indicated in italics in the transcription above) breaking off the
melody in the middle of a phrase, leaving out the words “sign my name.” Alexander
provides his own Signifyin(g) trope in the next line of his poem. In signing his name
and professing his faith he is also agreeing to bear witness to the injustices that
followed the hurricane. Alexander’s socially conscious rhymes hearken back to the
poetry of Amiri Baraka and the Last Poets and to the poetry of Gill Scott-Heron. His
prose expresses frustration with inadequate relief funds and conveys deep concern that
profiteering developers will usurp poor neighborhoods that were destroyed in the
flood.
148

Alexander’s final questions could be addressed to those lost and displaced by
the storm. Will they ever be able to return to their city? He also confronts viewers with
a collective challenge. Will we be there to support the reconstruction of New Orleans
and to address the underlying inequalities that made the disaster worse than it should
have been?

147
Ethnomusicologist Matt Sakakeeny has described how marginalized African Americans create
soundscapes to challenge imbalanced power structures. See Matt Sakakeeny, “‘Under the Bridge’: An
Orientation to Soundscapes in New Orleans.” Ethnomusicology 54:1 (January 1, 2010) p.1.
http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed June 15, 2010)

148
Alexander’s rap reflects broader concerns about the issue of displacement. Journalist Tram Nguyen
warned that opportunistic developers could easily take advantage of the more than 4,000 displaced
families from New Orleans unless drastic reforms were enacted. See Tram Nguyen. “A Game of
Monopoly.” Current no.495 (September 1, 2007) p.26. http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed June 15,
2010)
103
In the director’s commentary, Lee explains that they recorded the performance
once in the studio but went back to New Orleans to film the scene in the cemetery.
Lee’s decision emphasizes the performative mode of documentary filmmaking, which
foregrounds the subjectivity of the filmmaker.
Lee’s choice of a spoken word poet is particularly significant because it
demonstrates that New Orleans musical culture is not limited to jazz. The performance
highlights the common roots of black music including jazz, gospel, spoken-word, and
hip hop. In this film, these are not divergent and mutually exclusives styles but
different strands of the hybrid cultural fabric of New Orleans.
At the beginning of Act 3, members of the Hot 8 Brass Band perform “When
the Saints Go Marching In” for onlookers on a New York City street.
149
This
performance is far removed from a formal concert setting. Instead of a preservationist
ensemble performing works of repertoire for the educational benefit of ticket-holding
audience members, the Hot 8 Brass Band actively engages with their audience on the
street. The band members take it upon themselves to promote their music in New
York City, thus challenging the misperception of Katrina survivors as “refugees”
dependent on government aid for survival. The director emphasizes the empowerment
of his subjects rather than objectifying them as a throng of anonymous victims.
The participatory mode is further engaged in the film as composer and trumpet
player Terence Blanchard appears in interviews explaining his frustration with the slow
response to the disaster. In Act 3, Blanchard plays the gospel standard “Just a Closer
Walk With Thee” on his trumpet while strolling through the remnants of his

149
Act 3 (5:00-7:00)

104
childhood neighborhood.
150
One of the most powerful scenes in the film occurs
immediately following this performance, when Blanchard escorts his mother back to
her home in New Orleans, where she dissolves in tears as she views her devastated
home, ransacked by flood waters. Here, the anonymity of hurricane victims melts away
as the viewer is invited to empathize with the Blanchard family. In this and similar
scenes throughout the film, the traditional relationship between the director and
composer is altered as Blanchard is invited to step on screen to provide diegetic music
as well as commentary. No longer is the composer subjugated to the anonymity of the
credit sequence, an unseen contributor to the filmmaker’s narrative.
When the Levees Broke asks deeper questions about the underlying causes of the
breech of the levees. Lee does not directly support the urban legend voiced by some
residents that the levees were deliberately destroyed. Instead, he argues that lack of
concern for the black poor of New Orleans was responsible for the inadequate
maintenance of the levee system. In Act 2, Chapter 4 of the director’s commentary,
Lee bluntly states his opinion that the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina was
compounded by human neglect. Lee said:
This is not supposed to be happening. Not in this country. And for anybody
that thinks that race, coupled with class was not responsible for the slow
response of the federal government, you should give up crack.
151

Rather than petition the government, Spike Lee makes a direct appeal to the
viewer for change. The film also celebrates solidarity displayed by artists in the wake of
Katrina. Black artists are depicted helping themselves rather than seeking
governmental assistance, performing on the streets to appeal directly to citizens. Lee,

150
Act 3 (42:16 - 47:45)

151
When The Levee’s Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, DVD. Director’s commentary. (29:00-30:00)
105
Blanchard, Marsalis, and Alexander cooperate to raise awareness of the desperate
situation faced by New Orleans residents.
In this film, New Orleans is not presented as a representative icon of universal
American values but rather as a unique environment with qualities unique to African
American culture. When the Levees Broke locates the music of Louis Armstrong within
the context of New Orleans culture, a connection that is also reinforced visually with
shots of Louis Armstrong International Airport and Congo Square, now called Louis
Armstrong Park. Although the film confirms the widely accepted view that jazz began
in New Orleans, it does not accept a modernist view of jazz history as an evolutionary
progression of styles. Instead, it relies on intertextual references to establish a link
between Blanchard’s score and New Orleans jazz traditions. The result is a dynamic
canon that is part of a localized musical culture rooted in the hardships of African
Americans. The film confirms the central position of a black, masculine jazz tradition
within the musical culture of New Orleans. Yet for Lee and Blanchard, the canon is
not narrowly defined as “classic” jazz. By including a spoken word performance, Lee
emphasizes the common roots of jazz and hip hop in African American musical
traditions.
In his review of Mo’ Better Blues, Krin Gabbard writes that Lee views jazz as the
outdated predecessor of hip hop.
152
Perhaps Lee’s view of jazz has changed to include
an appreciation of New Orleans standards as one part of a living tradition that includes
other stylistic approaches. Blanchard also reuses themes associated with strong black
male protagonists to reinforce the underlying theme of African American racial

152
Krin Gabbard “Signifyin(g) the Phallus: Representations of the Jazz Trumpet,” in Jammin’ at the
Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema. Krin Gabbard ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)
p.122

106
solidarity in Spike Lee’s films. In the soundtrack for When the Levees Broke, Lee and
Blanchard construct a dynamic canon that emphasizes the place of jazz within a living
tradition in New Orleans rather than an official, repertoire-based canon.

The Jazz Canon According to Spike Lee and Ken Burns
A comparative analysis of the two films discussed in this chapter confirms that
the definition of jazz is contested, as suggested by Charles Hiroshi Garrett. Each
filmmaker frames the jazz canon in different ways for different purposes. One of the
implied outcomes of Burns’s film is the promotion of Wynton Marsalis as the central
figure in a jazz renaissance focused on the music of Armstrong and Ellington. In
contrast, Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke uses jazz to boost appreciation of black
culture in New Orleans, to encourage resistance to the institutional mistreatment of
African Americans, and to promote solidarity among the black proletariat.
Ken Burns’s Jazz focuses almost exclusively on high profile performers,
structuring a narrative around a few genius figures. In contrast, When the Levees Broke
constructs a narrative that acknowledges a broader spectrum of musical culture that
includes elite performers such as Marsalis and Blanchard, local professional musicians
such as the Hot 8 Brass band, and amateur and student performers. Spike Lee’s film
uses the music of Louis Armstrong as a point of departure for a living and vibrant
African American musical culture in New Orleans. In contrast, Ken Burns’s film
presents Armstrong as the central figure in a universal canon of black classical music
whose genius can be appreciated but never surpassed.
Although Lee’s musical canon breaks boundaries of style and class, his
commitment to diversity falls short in the categories of race and gender. Almost all of
107
the musicians featured are African American males. By ignoring the contribution of
musicians of other races and genders, Lee strengthens the conception of the jazz
canon as an exclusively black male domain. Lee’s case for African American
exceptionalism could be defended as a survival tactic employed by members of a
marginalized culture. When members of a minority culture present their art as superior,
it may be interpreted as a celebration of the unique qualities of that group and as an
attempt to raise consciousness and appreciation for that culture among the general
public. In contrast, when members of the majority culture present their art as superior,
it marginalizes groups outside the mainstream.
It is also significant that Burns’s canon focuses on non-threatening icons such
as Armstrong and Ellington, who can be portrayed as non-radical advocates of civil
rights while at the same time propagating minstrel show stereotypes. Armstrong’s
image as a gifted but simple entertainer, smiling and clowning for white audiences,
hearkens back to the Jim Crow archetype in minstrel shows while Ellington’s stage
persona resembles the urbanite dandy image of Zip Coon. Consciously, or
unconsciously, they may have adopted these affectations in order to be accepted by a
broader white audience. In contrast, Miles Davis and Charles Mingus present more
threatening images of black masculinity, angrily rejecting the pretense of the
“Tomming” entertainer.
Wynton Marsalis plays an important role in both films. In Ken Burns’s Jazz ,
Marsalis is presented as an eloquent historian and heir to Armstrong’s throne. Act 3 of
When the Levees Broke features Marsalis holding forth on the musical heritage of New
Orleans, a role he also plays in the Ken Burns film.
153
In this segment, Lee reinforces

153
Act 3 (34:25 - 42:18)
108
the point that the current, dynamic culture of the city is just as important as its history.
After explaining the importance of Congo Square to African American musical culture,
Marsalis is shown directing the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Here Lee uses images
and music to connect the music of Marsalis’s ensemble with the heritage of Congo
Square, identifying Marsalis as an agent of authentic New Orleans culture.
More attention is given to Terence Blanchard, who is more receptive to
popular music than Wynton Marsalis. Although Blanchard is also characterized as
being part of the jazz resurgence of the 1980s, it would be misguided to suggest that he
shares the same views of jazz aesthetics as Marsalis. Blanchard appears more willing to
accept the idea that the development of jazz styles is not static, and popular and non-
western idioms can be authentically assimilated by jazz musicians.
In his score to When the Levees Broke, Blanchard demonstrates a broad range of
stylistic influences ranging from European classical music to rhythm and blues. After
Marsalis explains the history of New Orleans in Act III, Blanchard employs diegetic
music from a live performance that includes heavy percussion, brass riffs, and a Mardi
Gras Indian chant performed by Donald Harrison to emphasize the African and
Native American elements of New Orleans musical culture. Blanchard’s use of funky
bass lines celebrates other black musical traditions in addition to jazz. In his album
Requiem for Katrina, which builds upon the music composed for When the Levees Broke,
we hear influences of East Indian and Middle Eastern classical music in addition to
popular music styles. For Blanchard, as for Coleman in Sound Grammar, these musical
traditions are not ranked according to an aesthetic hierarchy. Although Lee and
Blanchard reinforce a view of the jazz tradition as a black masculine creation, it does

109
not discount the validity of other definitions of jazz or the use of jazz in other cultural
contexts.
Spike Lee and Ken Burns represent different voices in the struggle to articulate
and shape the history of jazz. As well-recognized and commercially successful
directors, both Lee and Burns play an active part in perpetuating the discourse of truth
and power.
154
Yet there are significant differences that identify these directors as
competing voices in the ongoing debates about jazz. While Burns promotes jazz as a
historical American art worthy of preservation and study, Lee highlights how race and
class have influenced a living jazz tradition in New Orleans.

154
Michel Foucault argues that truth and power are synonymous and there is an ongoing battle to define
the criteria for truth. See Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977.
Edited by Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980) pp.132-133
110
Chapter 3: Jazz on Tour with the US Department of State

In recent decades, the State Department has renewed its interest in jazz
diplomacy, which had proven itself during the Cold War to be an effective symbol of
American cultural influence and as a weapon to combat communism. Federal support
of jazz diplomacy began in the late 1950s under President Eisenhower as a means of
using American music to combat the influence of Soviet culture abroad. In subsequent
decades, prominent jazz musicians, including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy
Gillespie, and Dave Brubeck, traveled abroad as jazz ambassadors for the US
Department of State, where they gave concerts and attended jam sessions with
musicians from host nations.
155
Since the end of the Cold War, the US Department of
State has partnered with institutions such as Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Thelonious
Monk Institute of Jazz to promote jazz as an American art form abroad. Supported by
federal tax dollars and grants, these institutions have contributed to the promotion of
an official canon of American music. This collaboration may represent an attempt to
define and promote a jazz canon as a core component of an American Kulturnation.
156

However, The jazz musicians that participate in these tours represent a more vibrant
view of the jazz canon than their institutional patrons.
The State Department’s use of jazz as a tool for cultural diplomacy has sparked
a debate about who controls the meaning of jazz. Penny Von Eschen argues that the

155
See Penny Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2004) p.258

156
Gienow-Hect explains that the canon of German music emerged in tandem with the solidification of
the German Empire in 1871, highlighting a link between imperialist ideology and canon promotion
based on the concept of a Kulturnation. See Jessica Gienow-Hect, Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in
Transatlantic Relations, 1850-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009) p.12
111
State Department promoted jazz as a distinctly American art form and sought to
downplay racial inequality in the United States by sending integrated jazz bands abroad
during the Cold War.
157
Despite attempts by the State Department to control the
message of the jazz ambassadors, Von Eschen argues that many of the artists on these
tours continued to represent jazz in their own way.
Government sponsorship of jazz diplomacy has been motivated in part by a
view of jazz as a representation of American democracy. The balance between
discipline and self-expression in jazz improvisation has been often been described as a
metaphor for democracy.
158
Improvisers must listen and respond to each other in
order to communicate well with the audience, just as multiple viewpoints contribute to
government by consensus. Von Eschen points to jazz artists’ focus on “individual
excellence” within “accountability to a collective.”
159
Stanley Crouch’s also believes
that jazz encourages community building along with respect for individuality.
160
During
the Cold War, Voice of America broadcaster Willis Conover successfully used jazz as a
symbol of democratic government by designing radio programs to appeal to residents
of the Soviet Union and other areas where individual liberties were curtailed.
161

157
Penny Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2004) p.618

158
Stanley Crouch, Considering Genius. (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2006) p.176 and Wynton
Marsalis and Geoffrey C. Ward. Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (New York:
Random House, 2008)

159
A similar description has also been offered by Wynton Marsalis. Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the
World, p.259

160
Stanley Crouch, “Blues to Be Constitutional,” reprinted in Considering Genius (New York: Basic Civitas
Books, 2006) pp.166-179

161
Willis Conover (1920-1996) was a broadcaster who produced jazz programs for Voice of America
since 1955. See Von Eschen, pp.13-17

112
American cultural diplomacy programs during the Cold War also included
support for avant-garde music. For example, Amy Beal describes how the United
States government supported experimental music in West Germany as part of a
cultural re-education program after WWII.
162
Beal argues that West Germans viewed
John Cage and other experimental composers as icons of freedom and individuality.
However, Jazz diplomacy in the post cold war era has generally abandoned the
avant-garde as a symbol of freedom in lieu of a more conservative canon. The State
Department’s jazz recent jazz diplomcay programs generally favor traditional jazz
styles. As part of a new cultural diplomacy program, the State Department promotes
specific genres namely, blues, swing, and bebop as symbols of American democracy.
Recent cooperation between the State Department and JALC in particular suggests
that these institutions have a common interest in the promotion of jazz as an
American classical music. Some artists, however, resist the State Department’s attempt
to define the meaning of their music, referring to it as “New Orleans music,” or
“African American classical music” rather than jazz.
163

This chapter surveys selected tours sponsored by the US State Department,
focusing on how official views of canon compare to the views of artists who
participated in the tours. My methodology includes interviews with JALC
administrators, phone and email interviews with musicians who participated in the
tours, and materials posted on the band members websites and tour blogs. While
musicians and administrators generally agreed on the concept of jazz as an American

162
Amy C. Beal. New Music, New Allies: American Experimental Music in West Germany From the
Zero Hour to Reunification (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006) pp.250-253

163
Lola Vollen and Chris Ying eds. Voices From The Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina
and its Aftermath (San Francisco: McSweeney’s Books, 2006) pp.195, 222
113
art form, they often disagreed about the relationship of jazz to popular and world
music traditions. The Thelonious Monk institute is generally more comfortable with
the relationship between of jazz and popular music, emphasizing common roots in
African American traditions.
Rather than presenting a single coherent narrative of jazz history, each
musician represents a different conception of tradition, reflecting the contested nature
of jazz as a style and genre. Despite attempts by the State Department to promote jazz
as a distinctly American music, many of the touring musicians gave testimony to the
effect that improvisation allowed them to celebrate and negotiate national and cultural
differences rather than conform to a homogenous sound.

The Rhythm Road Tours (2006-2010)
The Rhythm Road is a jazz diplomacy program created by the US Department
of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in collaboration with Jazz at
Lincoln Center since 2005. The Rhythm Road was inspired by the Jazz Ambassadors
program, which began in 1955 under the auspices of congressman Adam Clayton
Powell Jr. Dizzy Gillespie led the inaugural tour of the Jazz Ambassadors in 1956,
traveling with his band to southern Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Louis
Armstrong began touring as a Jazz Ambassador in 1956, returning for additional tours
in 1960 and 1961. Dave Brubeck was also a veteran Jazz Ambassador, embarking on
his first tour in 1958. Duke Ellington toured for the State Department in 1963, 1970,
and 1972. In the post-Cold War era, the Jazz Ambassador Program was administered
by the Kennedy Center between 1998 and 2005. Near the 50th anniversary of the Jazz
Ambassador program, the State Department partnered with JALC under the rubric of
114
The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad. Between 2005 and 2010, 118 musicians
from 31 ensembles have toured with the program, visiting 97 countries on five
continents.
164

JALC used competitive auditions to select the bands for the 2010 Rhythm
Road Tour. The first round in the selection process included a nationwide call for the
submission of demo recordings that were judged by a panel of musicians. Out of the
132 bands that applied for the 2010 Rhythm Road season, 30 groups were selected for
a live audition. Among these, 10 combos were chosen to complete four to five week
tours between March and December. In 2010, 23% of the groups that applied were
invited for a live audition and 8% were selected to participate in the tours. Each tour
included public concerts, master classes, lecture-recitals, workshops, jam sessions, and
interviews with local media.
The State Department’s public diplomacy programs are funded by federal tax
dollars and their partner institutions receive the support of federally funded grants. For
example, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rhythm Road program is financed by a $1,000,000
grant subject to renewal every three years. According to Shana Bromberg at JALC,
each musician receives a $200 honorarium per tour day, lodging, and a per diem to
cover meals and incidentals.
165
While this rate of pay would not attract celebrity
performers, the Rhythm Road tours would appeal to professional jazz musicians who
do not ordinarily have the means to tour internationally. The expenses of the tours
were covered by the annual budget for the Rhythm Road program. Few of the
musicians I interviewed mentioned financial reasons or prestige as motivating factors,

164
“Fact Sheet.” Jazz at Lincoln Center - The Rhythm Road (accessed December 6, 2010)
http://www.jalc.org/theroad/presskit_10.asp

165
Email correspondence January 31, 2011.
115
although most bands spoke proudly of their affiliation with the State Department and
used the tours as an opportunity to promote their own bands on their websites.
Among the musicians I spoke with, the primary motivations for applying for the tours
included: the opportunity to travel abroad, to bond as a group for a extended period of
time, and to represent their country in the tradition of the Jazz Ambassadors.
In order to examine the administrative perspective of the Rhythm Road tours,
I spoke with two administrators from Jazz at the Lincoln Center: Susan John, director
of touring, and Jasna Radonjic, manager of touring. First, Ms. John explained the
administrative structure of JALC, which consists of twelve independent entities, each
with their own fundraising mechanism and board of directors. Ms. John reiterated that
the mission of JALC is to promote, preserve, and educate the public about jazz. There
are two main focal points for JALC’s touring programs: the three annual tours of
Wynton Marsalis’s JALC Orchestra and the Rhythm Road.
State Department officials select the target countries for the Rhythm Road
tours, with a higher priority given to regions with less exposure to American culture.
Each selected ensemble was invited to rank their choice of regions, although the final
choice was left to JALC and the bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) at the
State Department. Ms. John notes that the relationship with the State Department has
remained strong during the Bush and Obama presidencies with negligible shifts in
support between administrations. She said:
We’ve seen all of our partners maintain the same dedication and devotion to
the program. We have yet to see any extreme change in direction.

The conclusion of our interview focused directly on the issue of canon. We
agreed that all styles of music have canons, especially in the age of recordings, although
116
we differed about the relationship between jazz and popular music. During our
interview, Ms. John remarked:
I feel like jazz musicians have been referring back to a canon for decades rather
than reinterpreting the pop standards of the day.

According to Ms. John, the choice of styles is a product of dialogue between
the State Department and JALC, and the grant that funds the Rhythm Road stipulated
that the bands should be “as representative as possible” of American music. She
pointed out the initial grant was limited to jazz and “urban” ensembles but was
expanded in 2008 to include American “roots music,” which includes blues, bluegrass,
cajun, country, zydeco, and gospel styles. She claimed that styles such as pop and rock
are excluded because they are already well represented abroad.
This definition of American music assumes a marked difference between
popular and “roots” styles, equating the former with commercialism and the latter with
authenticity. This statement also implies that the adoption of European modernist
views of autonomous art has accompanied the canonization of jazz. Unlike European
modernist music, JALC’s perception of stylistic progress appears to be suspended in
the 1960s. Like the modernist canon, JALC’s canon is largely focused on the music of
one particular cultural group. While the modernist canon is focused primarily on the
music of the European male composers, JALC’s canon is focused on African
American jazz artists.
The graphs on the following page present an analysis of styles represented on
the Rhythm Road tours between 2006 and 2010.
166
The data shows a gradual increase

166
Data was collected from JALC’s Rhythm Road website. Hip Hop and Urban categories have been
combined. “The Rhythm Road - Tour Schedule,” Jazz at Lincoln Center, accessed December 1, 2010.
http://www.jazzatlincolncenter.org/TheRoad/tour_schedule_10.asp
117
in the number of combos participating in the tours as well as an increase in the number
of styles represented over time.

Figure 4. Styles Represented in the Rhythm Road Tours (2006-2010)

118

A cumulative analysis of styles represented on the Rhythm Road tours
demonstrates that jazz is still the most important style of American music for JALC.
Including the 2006 tour, which focused on latin jazz, 59% percent of the Rhythm Road
ensembles between 2006 and 2010 were jazz combos. Since 2009, hip hop is gaining
recognition as a style worthy representation on the Rhythm Road tours. The data also
demonstrates a recent diversification of styles including gospel, blues, and bluegrass,
although these remain peripheral to the focus on jazz. JALC has often been described
as a curator of jazz history. Now it appears that the institution may be expanding its
curatorial influence to a broader stylistic range of American music. Growing
institutional support for the concept of a conservative afro-centric jazz canon may be
the result of decades of successful lobbying by Stanley Crouch, Albert Murray, Wynton
Marsalis, and other like-minded critics.
Ms. John’s standard response to questions relating to equal representation of
style, gender, and race was to defer to the choices of the judging panel. She insisted
that the panel made decisions based on musical quality alone. When asked about
whether avant-garde and fusion styles were represented on the tours during our
interview, she said:
It’s at their [the judging panel’s] discretion to pick which groups represent
musical quality, we haven’t had any fusion groups audition for us.

In addition to style, gender is another important consideration in the analysis
of JALC’s view of a jazz canon. The following chart indicates the gender of performers
who participated in the Rhythm Road tours between 2006 and 2010.
119
Figure 5. Gender of Rhythm Road Musicians (2006-2010)

Although the data shows an overall increase in the number of female
performers who participated in the Rhythm Road tours, especially since 2008, there
appears to be little change in the conception of jazz as predominately male art form.
Although I was not able to access official records about the race of performers,
I observed from examining band photos that most of the performers are African
American and Caucasian. This seems to acknowledge the trend that although the jazz
canon is focused on mostly black male artists, a growing number of practitioners are
white. The racial diversity of the Rhythm Road musicians validates the contributions of
white performers as interpreters, if not originators of jazz styles, upholding the view of
jazz as a predominantly African American male art form.

120
The following maps and chart show the origins and destinations of each
combo from the 2010 Rhythm Road. The Middle East was a clear priority for the 2010
tours, with visits to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Syria, Jordan, and two visits
to Lebanon.
167

Figure 6. Origins and Destinations of the 2010 Rhythm Road Tours

167
The following maps and table are compiled from the complete tour schedule posted at the following
link. Jazz At Lincoln Center - The Rhythm Road (accessed December 6, 2010)
http://www.jazzatlincolncenter.org/TheRoad/tour_schedule_10.asp
121
Figure 6. Continued
Ensemble

Genre Hometown Countries Visited
Chen Lo and the Liberation Family

Hip Hop Brooklyn, NY Morocco (3/18-23)
Tunisia (3/24-29)
Algeria (3/30-Apr 4)
Jordan (4/5-11)
Lebanon (4/12-16)
Syria (4/17-21)
Little Joe Mcleran Quartet

Blues

Tulsa, OK Bahrain (3/27-4/2)
Saudi Arabia (4/3-11)
Kuwait (4/12-15)
Oman (4/16-21)
The Student Loan

Bluegrass Portland, OR Argentina (3/30-4/4)
Paraguay (4/5-8)
Bolivia (4/9-14)
Dominican Republic (4/15-20)
Columbia (4/21-26)
Eli Yamin Blues Band

Blues New York, NY Brazil (5/2-15)
Chile (5/16-6/2)
Charlie Porter Quartet

Jazz

New York, NY India (5/18-28)
Sri Lanka (5/29-6/3)
Bangladesh (6/4-7)
Turkey (6/8-15)
Mark Sherman-Tim Horner
Quartet

Jazz New York, NY Vladivostok, Russia (5/26-30)
South Korea (5/31-6/5)
China (6/5-15)
Philippines (6/16-22)
Oscar Williams Jr. and Perfected
Praise

Gospel Saint Louis, MO Cyprus (6/17-21)
Lebanon (6/22-28)
Poland (6/29-7/5)
Romania (7/6-11)
Nasar Abadey and Supernova

Jazz

Washington DC Rwanda (9/2-6)
Uganda (9/7-11)
Ethiopia (9/12-17)
Zambia (9/18-23)
Mozambique (9/24-30)
Paul Beaudry & Pathways

Jazz New York, NY Trinidad and Tobago (9/29-
10/3)
Suriname (10/4-7)
Nicaragua (10/9-15)
Honduras (10/16-23)
Turning Pointe

Gospel Atlanta, GA Ghana (9/29-10/4)
Liberia (10/4-8)
Guinea (10/10-14)
Congo Brazza (10/16-20)
Johnny Rodgers Band

Americana/
Pop
New York, NY Fiji (11/2-5)
Papua New Guinea (11/6-10)
Singapore (11/11-15)
Cambodia (11/16-20)
Philippines (11/21-25)
Malaysia (11/26-29)

122

Although Ms. John insists that the Rhythm Road tours are not intended as a
tool for promoting the interests of musicians from a particular region, the map shows
that most of the bands are from the Northeastern United States. Six of the ten bands
that participated on the 2010 Rhythm Road Tour are based in New York City. The
high percentage of musicians from this region may reflect the fact that New York City
remains one of the tops destinations for aspiring jazz performers. On the other hand,
it would not be surprising that an audition panel selected by JALC might demonstrate
an unconscious preference for musicians from New York and the surrounding areas.
Ms. John emphasized that there were no barriers to entry and that the auditions were
marketed across the nation. Although Chicago, New Orleans, and Los Angeles are
traditionally acknowledged as important centers of jazz, groups from these areas are
conspicuously missing. The preference for musicians from New York in the 2010
Rhythm Road tours could be described as form of regional cultural diplomacy, where
an institutional partner such as JALC promotes groups within a reasonable proximity
to their headquarters.
I do not intend this analysis as a criticism of JALC’s selection process. Instead,
I believe that this data demonstrates the need for regional institutions to promote local
bands abroad. Now that the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz has moved from Los
Angeles to New Orleans under Terence Blanchard’s leadership, it is imperative that
other California-based jazz advocacy groups step up to represent jazz musicians from
California, perhaps by focusing on regional partnerships with Asia and South America.
Compared to the Cold War Jazz Ambassadors, the general concept of the
Rhythm Road tours seems to take inspiration from NASA’s motto in the 1990s
123
“smaller, faster, cheaper.” In our interview, Ms. John acknowledged that a change in
strategy has taken place since the Cold War jazz tours. Rather than send a few celebrity
groups, the current State Department jazz tours send ten jazz combos. Admittedly, the
bands sent on these tours are not as well known as the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Band
or the Duke Ellington Orchestra, but the smaller size of the tours allows more
performers to visit more countries.
Many of the musicians who participated in the Rhythm Road tours
documented their travels on their own blogs and websites. In order to gain further
insight on the musicians’s perspective, I conducted several interviews via phone and
email. The following section attempts to integrate and synthesize common elements of
their experience.

The Mark Sherman - Tim Horner Quartet
Mark Sherman is a vibraphonist and composer from New York City whose
quartet traveled to Asia during the 2010 Rhythm Road. Sherman describes his style as
“deeply rooted post-bop,” listing John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Phineas Newborn Jr.,
McCoy Tyner, Milt Jackson, Elvin Jones, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock as his
primary influences. With the exception of bebop pianist Phineas Newborn Jr., all of
these musicians are commonly recognized artists in the jazz canon. Sherman’s
preference for the blues, 32-bar song forms, and standards suggests that his stylistic
preferences match the JALC’s view of canonical jazz.
Sherman emphasized that the concerts and master classes during his tours were
well received and that their hosts treated his band graciously. According to Sherman,
most concerts were free and open to the public, with the exception of the master
124
classes and school concerts. He observed that most audiences were familiar with jazz
but many had been exposed to jazz through film scores or “commercial” artists such
as Kenny G. Here, Sherman is careful to differentiate between authentic American jazz
as art music and film scores and commercial jazz as popular music.
His quartet made the most of opportunities to interact with other musicians
while on tour. Although they listened to a performance of traditional Chinese music at
Shangyang conservatory, they did not have many opportunities to interact with
professional musicians versed in non-western traditions. Most of the musicians they
played with were students and amateurs. Sherman told me:
We had many students sit in to play with us, and some other open jam
sessions. In the Philippines they had some nice players, who seemed quite
seasoned.

There were fewer opportunities to jam with musicians in China, where the band spent
time critiquing student ensembles. Sherman recalled one exceptionally enthusiastic
student in China:
One alto sax player was good enough to sit in with us. He hung pretty good, he
didn’t want to stop soloing.

Sherman appears to share the State Department’s view of jazz as a prestige
gift.
168
In our interview, Sherman referred to jazz as “the great American art form,”
confirming that his audiences were “just glad to have us.” Based on Sherman’s
comments, it seems that this tour had less to do with musical exchange between
professionals than in showing off what Americans supposedly do best. This reinforces

168
Cull defines a prestige gift as a type of art associated with the high culture of the donor nation such
as Shakespeare’s plays for England, Mozart’s operas for Austria, or the music of Duke Ellington for the
United States. See Nicholas Cull, “The National Theater of Scotland’s Black Watch: Theater as Cultural
Diplomacy.” Los Angeles: USC Center on Public Diplomacy, December 2007.
125
the view of Rhythm Road tours as a vehicle for promoting jazz as an American art
form and highlighting the positive reception of American artists abroad.
Sherman found out when he was on tour in Asia that people knew him
because of a pop tune he had written in the 1980s. When Sherman’s quartet visited the
Philippines, he found out that “Changes in My Life,” a song he recorded for Columbia
records in 1986, had become a pop single, selling 50,000 copies in the Philippines.
Sherman noted that the top hit for a YouTube search of his name is a Filipino
language tribute of the song. Although flattered, Sherman noted that he was not
credited as the songwriter, and had not received any licensing fees for record sales,
which he estimated to be at least $5,000. When this came to his attention during the
tour, he quickly organized a meeting with State Department officials to rectify the
situation. This incident highlights the difficulty of enforcing US copyright laws abroad
and demonstrates how recorded music defies efforts to control its dissemination. The
experience also affirms the global influence of American popular music in addition to
classical jazz.
In our interview, Sherman described making jazz arrangements of local tunes,
although he complained that limited internet access in China hindered his ability to
make on-the-spot arrangements. Sherman explained that for each region they visited,
one member of the quartet made an arrangement of a folk melody from that region.
169

While on tour in China, Mark agreed to do an arrangement of the Chinese folk song
“Jasmine,” yet when he attempted to go online to find a recording on YouTube or
iTunes, he found that access to these sites was prohibited. (If it had not been, he might

169
This was a common technique for the Cold War Jazz Ambassadors as well. For example, on his State
Department tour of the Middle East in 1958, Dave Brubeck featured tunes with polymetric rhythm
commonly found in Arabic classical music.
126
have found an arrangement by his artistic nemesis Kenny G!) In frustration, Sherman
turned to his State Department hosts at the American embassy, who were issued daily
internet passes to circumvent restrictions imposed by the Chinese government to limit
the dissemination of political propaganda.
According to Sherman, the folk arrangements of his quartet were extremely
well received. The technique of arranging folk songs was common among nationalist
composers in classical music. Now that jazz is accepted as a classical genre in its own
right, art composers in the jazz tradition may choose to arrange folk songs in order to
impart a sense of nationalist identity, or to show how high art may be derived from
simple folk material. This gesture also demonstrates that the touring artists are
interested in the musical culture of the host nation, creating the conditions for
reciprocity that are essential in productive dialogue.
Although Sherman had not previously worked with the State Department or
the Lincoln Center, he respects the attempt to present jazz as a high art form. Sherman
said:
I view my role as a very important one. Representing the US, bringing a high
level of music, and spreading the art form to places where it would not
otherwise go.

Sherman’s tour confirms his view of jazz as an American art form that
complements the pervasive representation of American popular culture. These tours
demonstrate that the State Department is showing increased interest in presenting jazz
as a high art in contrast to commercial pop music. In line with Nick Cull’s framework,
this tour uses jazz as a prestige gift and as cultural information.
170
Cull defines a

170
Cultural information is a form of diplomacy that is designed to counter negative opinions about a
nation. See Nicholas Cull, “The National Theater of Scotland’s Black Watch: Theater as Cultural
Diplomacy.” (Los Angeles: USC Center on Public Diplomacy, December 2007) p.13
127
prestige gift as a type of art associated with the high culture of the sponsoring nation
such as Shakespeare’s plays for England, Mozart’s operas for Austria, or the music of
Duke Ellington for the United States. Cultural information is a form of diplomacy that
is designed to counter negative opinions about a nation such as the use of jazz
diplomacy during the Cold War to counter perceptions of American racism.

Nasar Abadey and Supernova
Percussionist Nasar Abadey’s band Supernova traveled to East Africa as the
final tour of the 2010 Rhythm Road. A pre-tour interview with Abadey highlighted his
conception of jazz as high art music capable of elevating the human spirit. He
describes his music as inspired by the “spiritual intention” and “high energy” of jazz of
the 1960s and 70s. Abadey views jazz as a form of African American classical music.
He also welcomes government sponsorship as an important recognition of jazz as a
serious art form. Abadey confided:
This is one of the most important things to ever happen in my life. When the
government supports this music, it affirms that it is worthy enough to
represent the American people and the American way of life.

Abadey’s personal definition of jazz leaves room for the alternative views of
jazz as African American classical music and as a hybrid art form that accepts fusion of
many styles. Like Ellington and Gillespie, he believes that the association of jazz with
nightclubs, drug abuse, and debauchery diminished the public acceptance of jazz as
serious music. He also appears to share Marsalis’s view that jazz should elevate the
audience in the manner of European art music and supports the idea of jazz in the
concert hall. During our interview, Abadey observed:

128
European Classical music is performed in a concert hall and the audience
shows respect for the music in such a way that it is looked upon as a high level
of art.

Like Marsalis, he urges discipline and restraint over complete freedom in jazz
improvisation. Abadey declared:
It’s good to know restrictions because when you find yourself in a position of
freedom, it helps you to remain disciplined.

This view may be motivated by his practical concerns as a teacher rather than by any
desire to define the limits of the jazz canon. Marsalis and Abadey are both teachers
who recognize the importance of fundamental skills. As Abadey quipped, “you have to
learn to spell and speak in sentences before you can write a paragraph.”
However, Abadey does not agree with Marsalis’s view of fusion as a corrupting
influence on jazz. Abadey said, “I don’t see any conflict between fusion and other
styles.” He describes his own style as “post-bop” listing Elvin Jones, Tony Williams,
and Max Roach as his primary influences.
During our interview, Abadey described jazz as an African American classical
music. Although canonization is often criticized as an apparatus to impose the values
of a hegemonic culture, Abadey’s testimony reinforces the view that the canonization
of jazz may also represent an effort by black artists and critics to claim constructive
ownership of the jazz tradition. In this way, Abadey supports the Afro-nationalist view
of jazz promoted by Fred Ho and Wynton Marsalis. Despite significant differences in
stylistic preference, each of these artists shares the view of jazz as a fundamentally
black art form.
129
Abadey also embraces the opportunity to carry on the tradition of the Cold
War Jazz Ambassadors. He declared:
I look at this as the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Louis Armstrong
and Dizzy Gillespie, who took this music to other parts of the world and
proved that music is a universal language and a force that can change lives.

Another important part of Abadey’s musical inspiration is his what he calls the
“spiritual intention” of jazz of the 1960s, referring to the spiritually influenced work of
John Coltrane and the politically and socially conscious recordings of Max Roach.
Abadey confided:
It’s an honor for me to follow in their footsteps, and to represent my
homeland, where this music started....This is God’s music... this is my
ministry...

Pointing out that most of his band is from the Washington D.C. area, Abadey
highlighted his role as an ambassador for his local community as well as his country. “I
will be representing my region as well as my nation,” he concluded.

The Charlie Porter Quartet

Among the combos to travel with the 2010 Rhythm Road, the Charlie Porter
Quartet kept the most comprehensive record of their tour of India, Bangladesh, and
Sri Lanka via the band’s travel blog.
171
The members of the quartet mentioned frequent
opportunities to jam and interact with local bands, emphasizing the parts of the tour
that promoted dialogue.

171
“The Charlie Porter Quartet Blog,” last modified July 7, 2010,
http://charlieporterquartet.wordpress.com/
130
Percussionist Jon Wikan described how the band used music to circumvent
bureaucratic obstacles at the airport. On his blog entry from May 21, Jon posted:
The guards at customs gave us a bit of a hassle but Charlie and I broke out
some gear and played the Indian national anthem. Nice applause and away we
went no more questions asked!

This story may remind the reader of Benny Goodman’s anecdote about playing “pop
goes the weasel” as Soviet guards walked by in Moscow’s Red Square.
172
In both cases,
traveling musicians used the tools of their trade to disarm formal opposition.
Several interactions with local musicians challenged the concept of an official
jazz canon. The first concert of the Charlie Porter Quartet’s tour took place at the Taj
Krishna hotel in Hyderabad, India on May 22. The set featured an arrangement of an
Australian Aboriginal melody, demonstrating that their musical canon was not limited
to jazz standards.
173
In a video posted on May 27, the band is shown giving an
interview for an Indian radio station. In a nod to his Lincoln Center patron, Porter
explains that hearing Wynton Marsalis in concert inspired him to become a trumpet
player. At the end of the interview, the band breaks into the New Orleans jazz
standard “Basin Street Blues.” In public venues and on the airwaves, the band is clear
to praise JALC’s standards-based view of jazz; while on stage, however, they present a
more individualized and nuanced version of the jazz canon, highlighting the contested
nature of American musical identity described by Garrett.
174
In one context the band

172
See Von Eschen, “Ch 4: Getting the Soviets to Swing” in Satchmo Blows up the World.

173
A video posted on the band’s tour blow on May 28 includes footage of this performance. “The
Charlie Porter Quartet Blog,” las modified July 7, 2010, http://charlieporterquartet.wordpress.com/

174
Charles Hiroshi Garrett, Struggling To Define A Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008) pp.215-216

131
emphasizes the American roots of jazz, while in another they present jazz as a world
music.
In Colombia, Sri Lanka, the band performed at the five-star Cinnamon Grand
hotel. On the band’s travel blog post from May 29, Porter mentioned that the show
featured an arrangement of a popular local tune:
The gig was in the hotel and outdoors in a beautiful setting under just a roof.
The crowd included locals, hotel guests, embassy workers, military, animal
trainers, local musicians, kids, and even a bunch of crows in the trees behind
the cabana; they were very excited when we did a popular Sri Lankan song
about peace that was made famous by the Gypsies, a local band.

By arranging a song by a local band, the Charlie Porter Quartet made an important
gesture that the tour was more than a prestige gift of “authentic” jazz from the United
States.
On May 30, the quartet hosted a music workshop for local musicians, which
led into a jam session with the Gypsies. Jam sessions such as these promote dialogue
and build capacity according to Cull’s framework for culture diplomacy.
175

The band’s video of their tour in Bangladesh posted on July 7 documents a
startling confrontation with Third World poverty. On a self-organized tour of a
Bangladeshi slum, the young men in the band videotaped themselves handing out fruit
to impoverished children. The children soon swarmed the rickshaw carrying the band
and the overwhelmed Westerners delegated the task of handing out fruit to their
Bangladeshi driver. The incident could be interpreted as a good-natured, albeit naive,
gesture of goodwill, or a flagrant display of American wealth. Their tour appeared to

175
Cultural diplomacy may strengthen the artistic institutions of the host country and build capacity by
providing mentorship and training to foreign artists. See Nicholas Cull, “The National Theater of
Scotland’s Black Watch: Theater as Cultural Diplomacy.” (Los Angeles: USC Center on Public
Diplomacy, December 2007)
132
be an important learning experience for the Charlie Porter Quartet, who returned to
the US with a new perspective on wealth and poverty.
Although the Charlie Porter Quartet’s travel blog offers a less polished account
than an official press release or State Department report, it provides a more personal
and intimate account of cultural diplomacy from the musicians’ perspective. The
band’s videos highlight their attempts to collaborate with local musicians and learn
about local life outside the five star hotels in which they played most of their concerts.
Unfortunately, not much is revealed about the audience for their concerts, although we
can assume that concerts in hotels would not be accessible to the average public. This
supports Gienow-Hect’s argument that unofficial acts of diplomacy are as effective as
government-sponsored concerts.
176

This tour highlights subtle differences between an institutional and musician’s
view of the jazz canon. Although Charlie Porter praised Marsalis and performed an old
jazz standard in his radio interview, he was not necessarily advocating a conservative
view of the jazz canon. The quartet’s willingness to interact with local musicians, adapt
local tunes, and experiment with fusion sounds suggests that the quartet’s view of jazz
may not be as exclusive or conservative as JALC.

Capacity Building with the Rhythm Road

Ms. John emphasized the importance of capacity building in the current
Rhythm Road tours. One-on-one education, personal interaction, and master classes
are key parts of the JALC program. On one level, the master class format functions as

176
Jessica Gienow-Hect suggests that the adoption of German musical aesthetics in the United States
was a result of exchanges between individuals rather than overt propaganda by the German State. Jessica
Gienow-Hect, Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations, 1850-1920 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2009) p.5
133
a prestige gift, by emphasizing what is supposedly best about the United States. Master
classes offer American ensembles the opportunity to impart wisdom to foreign
musicians. In this situation, the power relationship privileges American musicians as
purveyors of the most authentic form of the art, who are sent to teach others about
“real” jazz. In an ideal capacity building relationship, professional musicians from both
nations learn from one another and interact as equals, not simply as teacher and
student. While the Charlie Porter Quartet was sent to share American jazz, the
musicians were inspired by their collaboration with local musicians and startled by their
confrontation with Third World poverty.
Most of the musicians I interviewed were optimistic about opportunities for
future collaboration through capacity building. As Mark Sherman noted, jazz education
in China is currently a minor part of the regular conservatory training. There is great
potential to develop institutional jazz education programs outside the US and it might
be in JALC’s interest to develop relationships with such schools.
In order to maximize the pubic relations benefits from their investment, the
State Department is eager to sponsor art that embodies American values. It is likely
that the canon promoting efforts of authors and filmmakers such as Crouch and Burns
played a role in convincing policymakers to renew their investment in jazz diplomacy
in the post Cold-War era. In turn, the State Department appears to have adopted
Burns’s view of a jazz canon that is rooted in African American tradition but is also
open to interpretation by musicians of many races. The State Department seems to
embrace the paradox of jazz as distinctly American in origin but universal in appeal,
just as proponents of the German Kulturnation viewed the canon of German orchestral
music in the nineteenth century.
134
On one hand, the view of jazz as a uniquely African American art and the
establishment of a jazz canon empowers members of a historically under-represented
group in America. However, as we begin to view jazz within the context of global
traditions of improvised music rather than as an exclusively American art, we may find
that foreign audiences are more receptive to jazz and hip hop. As an improvised music
with global influences and practitioners, jazz may continue to serve as an effective tool
for encouraging dialogue between individuals as well as nations.
What can be concluded about the jazz canon as represented in the 2010
Rhythm Road Tour? While it is not possible to assemble a completely comprehensive
sample of all the musical subcultures that fall under the umbrella of American music,
the bands selected for this tour demonstrate that JALC is expanding its definition of
what constitutes American music. However, the focus remains on jazz and the
predominately African American idioms of gospel and hip hop. There is certainly
room for improvement regarding the inclusion of underrepresented groups. Latin jazz
bands were featured in the 2006 Rhythm Road tour, but have not been included since
then. Future tours might include more female performers and bands that interpret
Latin and Asian American styles.
I believe that it is a mistake to view JALC as a monolithic entity that uniformly
enforces a single view of a jazz canon. Each of the performers who participate in these
tours brings their own perceptions with them and represents the canon in different
ways. In essence, they represent their own jazz canons. Although Wynton Marsalis’s
infamous debate with Herbie Hancock on the relationship of jazz to popular music
helped solidify Marsalis’s reputation as a staunch opponent of fusion, I do not believe
that musicians associated with JALC are as opposed to the idea of fusion as many
135
would believe.
177
Many of the musicians on the Rhythm Road tours share a view of
jazz as a classical art music. However, they present nuanced views toward fusion and
the avant-garde. I was surprised to find more representation of post 1960s jazz styles
than I expected. Nasar Abadey’s style seemed rooted in the funk fusion sounds of
Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan. Charlie Porter’s group also willingly embraced the
concept of fusion, performing arrangements that highlighted melodies and timbres
from various styles of world music. In the first decade of the 21st century, evidence
suggests that JALC’s view of the jazz canon may be changing with the times.

177
Rafi Zabor and Vic Garbarini, “Wynton Marsalis Vs. Herbie: The Purist and the Crossbreeder Duke
it Out,” Musician 77 (March 1985), pp.52-64, reprinted in Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History, ed. by
Robert Walser (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) pp.339-351
136
The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Tours (1995-2010)

The State Department’s Partnership with the Thelonious Monk Institute of
Jazz is another important chapter in the history of contemporary jazz diplomacy. The
Monk Institute offers a professional mentorship program for young jazz musicians
that stands apart from most conservatory jazz education programs. Under the
leadership of Terrance Blanchard, the Monk Institute was located at the University of
Southern California from 1995 to 2007, until the headquarters was moved to
Blanchard’s hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. The decision to relocate was
motivated in part by Blanchard’s desire to assist in the reconstruction of New Orleans
following Hurricane Katrina in 2006. In collaboration with the US Department of
State, the Monk Institute has organized several international diplomacy tours since
1995. Although the Monk Institute has participated in many international programs,
their website emphasizes that:
The most successful and far reaching international programs have been the
many Institute tours sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
178

One of the differences between the Rhythm Road and the Monk Institute Tours
concerns the size of the tours and the regions visited. The Rhythm Road sends smaller
groups of local professional musicians to more locations, whereas the Monk Institutes
send internationally renowned performers along with Monk Institute fellows to
locations in East Africa and Southeast Asia.

178
“Educational Programs - International Programs,” Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, accessed Dec.
1, 2010, http://www.monkinstitute.org/education.php?Page=EDU-IP
137
The following map and table show the countries visited and the lead musicians
involved in each tour.

Figure 7. Thelonious Monk Institute International Tours
with the US Department of State (1995-2010)

Year Featured Musicians

Nations Visited

1995 Lisa Henry
T.S. Monk
Harold Summey
Ted Rosenthal
Patrick Zimmerli

Eritrea
Ethiopia
Madagascar
Mauritius
Mozambique
South Africa
Swaziland

1996 Herbie Hancock
T.S. Monk
Wayne Shorter

India
Thailand

2005 Nnenna Freelon
Herbie Hancock
Wayne Shorter

Vietnam
2009 Patti Austin
Bob James
Earl Klugh
Bobby Watson

India
2010 Dee Dee Bridgewater
Herbie Hancock

China
138

Famous jazz musicians such as Herbie Hancock accompany student
performers on most of the Monk Institute tours. The participation of Thelonious
Monk’s son T.S. Monk also lends an aura of authenticity to the program through a
connection with the renowned pianist’s legacy. This approach combines the prestige
effect of celebrity diplomacy with the capacity building effect of mentoring student
performers.
The tours since 1995 have focused mostly on East Africa and Southeast Asia.
Repeated visits to the same regions are essential to building lasting relationships
through cultural diplomacy. Like the Rhythm Road tours, the Monk Institute tours
emphasize jazz as a prestige gift, with secondary emphasis on capacity building through
workshops and master classes with local musicians.
During the first State Department tour with the Monk Institute in 1995, several
competition winners presented concerts and workshops for audiences in several
African nations under the leadership of T.S. Monk. The second State Department
collaboration with the Monk Institute was a tour to India and Thailand in 1996, where
T.S. Monk, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter led Monk fellows in performances
celebrating the 50th anniversary of the coronation of the king of Thailand.
179
Although
it is often overlooked in standard jazz history narratives, Bhumibol Adulyadej, king of
Thailand since 1946, has been an enthusiastic patron of jazz, who, as an alto
saxophonist, often hosted and jammed with American jazz musicians. The king hosted
a famous jam session with Benny Goodman on his State Department jazz tour in

179
“Educational Programs - International Programs,” Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, accessed Dec.
1, 2010, http://www.monkinstitute.org/education.php?Page=EDU-IP

139
1956. This example underscores the multicultural and transnational aspects of jazz and
challenges the view of an exclusively African American jazz canon.
In 2005, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Nnenna Freelon traveled to
Vietnam with the students of the Monk Institute in order to commemorate the 10th
anniversary of normalization of U.S./Vietnamese diplomatic relations, which took
place on July 11, 1995. In this case, musical performances were used to bridge a
sensitive cultural gap clouded by decades of war. As in the case of the New York
Philharmonic’s trip to North Korea in 2008, musical tours are used to relax political
tensions between nations and to facilitate cultural détente. The musicians’ role in these
tours was not to enforce a specific canon but to encourage dialogue. This tour reminds
policy makers that it is still advantageous to keep the lines of cultural exchange open
even when it is difficult to maintain amicable political dialogue between nations.
In May 2009, Patti Austin, Bob James, Earl Klugh, and Bobby Watson traveled
to India along with several graduates of the Monk Institute's jazz education programs.
They gave a concert sponsored by VH1 Jazz Masters for 1,000 people in Mumbai and
held master classes at the Ravi Shankar Institute of Music and Performing Arts in New
Delhi.
180
A State Department press release emphasized how the tours built upon
previous diplomatic visits by Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter in 1996 and 2005.
The press release also highlighted the importance of outreach:
The artists will interact with close to 200 shelter residents, as well as faculty and
students from the Don Bosco Upper Secondary School to explain and share
the energy and sounds of American Jazz. They will also have students
participate in rhythm or vocal accompaniment, and discuss jazz as a means of
expressing both togetherness and individuality.

180
ibid.
140
This statement suggests that the State Department supports the description of jazz as a
metaphor for democracy. As a fellow democratic nation, India is also an appropriate
choice for reinforcing the political message of the State Department’s jazz canon.
The most recent tour occurred in May 2010, when pianist Herbie Hancock and
vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater accompanied six Monk Fellows on a tour of China.
They performed at the Forbidden City Concert Hall on May 11 and Entertainment
Hall of the Shanghai 2010 Expo on May 13 and 14. The press releases from the Monk
Institute during this tour emphasized the role of jazz as a prestige gift, referring to jazz
and blues as “America’s greatest musical contributions to the world.”
181
The same
press release explained in even more explicit language:
These concerts were a gift from the United States to the people of China and
citizens from around the world that attended the Expo.

The tour also included a master class for aspiring young musicians at Beijing’s National
Center for the Performing Arts on May 10. This seems indicative of a general trend in
jazz diplomacy, in which a featured band offers several concerts to show off the skills
of American musicians followed by workshops where the same experts impart wisdom
to foreign music students. This method reinforces the view of jazz as a prestige gift
rather than as a means of encouraging dialogue, because it emphasizes the one-sided
transmission of skills by authentic American practitioners to aspiring foreign imitators.
Although both JALC and the Thelonious Monk Institute have collaborated
with the State Department, there are some important philosophical differences
between the organizations. Unlike JALC, the Monk Institute openly embraces the
connection between jazz and popular music. Some of the leaders of the Monk

181
“In Celebration of Jazz Appreciation Month, Thousands of Mississippi Students Participate in
Institute Blues & Jazz Program,” April 15, 2010, http://www.monkinstitute.org/news.php
141
Institute, including Herbie Hancock and T.S. Monk, promote fusion and the idea of
jazz as an improvisatory music rooted in African American traditions. They don’t view
jazz as distinctly separate from other forms of black music. They see is as an
outgrowth of African American musical traditions and an improvisatory trope on
popular music. A good example of this philosophy can be seen in a BET documentary
posted on the Monk Institute website entitled From Bebop to Hip Hop.
182
In an interview
from this film, T.S. Monk talked about the need for mature jazz musicians to embrace
contemporary popular music. He said, “we’ve been a little unfair to our children and
the music they’ve created.” Herbie Hancock, who recorded the hip hop classic
“Rockit,” drew attention to similarities between jazz and hip hop, including roots in
African American culture, improvisation, and rhythmic complexity.
Both artists emphasized an alternative approach to musical education. Rather
than cultivating respect for tradition based on mastery of standard repertoire, students
should be encouraged to experiment and invent new styles of music. In their view,
students should create new music rather than just learn to play repertoire and audition
for jobs. The video concluded with a live performance by students from Washington
Prep High School that combined dance, turn-table artists, rappers, and jazz
improvisation. Like JALC, the program emphasizes the importance of musical
outreach as a productive extracurricular activity for at-risk urban youth.
The Monk Institute outreach program featured in From Bebop to Hip Hop
embraces the idea of corporate sponsorship as an alternative to government funding.
Since the TV show and outreach program was sponsored by Pepsi Cola, the leadership

182
“Video Gallery - From Bebop to Hip Hop” Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, accessed Dec. 1,
2010, http://www.monkinstitute.org/education.php?Page=EDU-IP

142
of the Monk Institute may have emphasized contemporary styles over tradition in
order to support the message of Pepsi’s brand as “the choice of a new generation.” As
funding for music programs in public schools is threatened by ballooning deficits, arts
programs will be forced to rely upon such alternative funding sources. The ability of
Monk and Hancock to craft their message in order to achieve educational and publicity
goals while meeting the needs of a corporate sponsor demonstrates considerable media
savvy.
The Monk Institute’s pragmatic view of musical style presents a significantly
different view of a jazz canon than JALC. Although the Monk Institute seems less
likely to draw a sharp line between jazz and popular music than JALC, individual artists
from both tours embrace the concept of musical fusion. Both programs emphasize the
authenticity of American jazz artists over foreign practitioners. This points to a
definition of jazz that accepts improvisation, advanced musicianship, and African
American culture as the central elements of jazz.
The partnership between the Monk Institute and the State Department points
to a confluence of opinion about the ability of jazz to represent American culture
abroad in an official capacity. These tours demonstrate successful government
cooperation with non-profit musical institutions to serve the mutually beneficial goals
of promoting American musicians and music abroad. The longer this partnership lasts,
the more likely the “official” view of jazz will resemble the views of institutions such as
the Thelonious Monk Institute and JALC.

143
Jazz Diplomacy in the New Millennium
Although it seemed that support for musical diplomacy was waning in the late
1990s, the first decade of the twenty-first century has shown a resurgence of jazz
diplomacy programs. The United States Department of State continues to play an
important role in facilitating official jazz tours through collaboration with privately
owned non-profit institutions such as Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Thelonious Monk
Institute. These collaborations build upon the strengths of each type of organization.
Private institutions such as JALC may be better equipped to handle the artistic
elements of the tours while the State Department can draw upon time tested local
contacts and the expertise of local foreign service officers to arrange and facilitate
opportunities for cultural exchange. In addition to making an important statement to
foreign governments that the American government is committed to long term
support of the arts, the State Department can now respond to domestic critics who
fear that government support of jazz diplomacy disappeared after the Cold War.
183

JALC and the Monk Institute benefit from the prestige of government sponsorship
and association with the legacy of the Jazz Ambassadors, which lends an aura of
authenticity.
In a time when government support of the arts in the United States is
threatened by federal and state budget deficits, programs such as the Rhythm Road
remain a practical and economical means of continuing limited sponsorship of
professional musicians and facilitating cultural exchange at an official level. The tours
also highlight the importance of private/public sector partnerships, a tradition that

183
Von Eschen warns that relying on the market alone to represent US culture will fail to reach
audiences who hold negative views of American corporate brands and pop stars. See Von Eschen, p.258
144
began during the Cold War with the collaborations between the State Department and
George Wein’s Festival Productions.
Although the State Department, JALC, and the Monk Institute are
collaborating on the promotion of an American jazz canon, each institution has its
own slightly divergent view of the canon. While the programming featured in the tours
surveyed in this chapter tends to favor straight-ahead jazz styles, the touring musicians
present their own variations on the jazz canon, demonstrating that the canon is
dynamic and multivalent rather than fixed and monolithic.
184
Interviews with the
musicians highlight subtle variations that confirm the contested nature of American
musical identity described by Garrett. Although recent jazz diplomacy tours have
highlighted the value of jazz as an American prestige gift, future musical diplomacy
programs could build on the accomplishments of these tours by focusing on using
improvisation as a means for promoting dialogue and building capacity.
The primary difference between JALC and the Monk Institutes confirms the
relationship between jazz and popular music. JALC supports the classical aspects of
jazz performance, while the Monk Institute celebrates the connection with
contemporary popular music. Can jazz be classical as well as progressive? Which path
offers the most promise? The debate between populist eclecticism and anti-populist
modernism has engaged composers of classical concert music at the end of the
twentieth century as well. Musicians will continue to pursue both paths with varying
degrees of success, and it is likely that neither view will supplant the other. There will
continue to be a receptive audience for canonical jazz as well as progressive jazz,

184
As noted by von Eschen, the Cold War Jazz Ambassadors often disagreed with aspects of US foreign
policy, and did not represent the views of State Department in a uniform manner. See Penny Von
Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2004) p.255
145
although this music may be created for musical subcultures instead of a single mass
culture.
This study has shown that the definition of jazz remains contested. The
Rhythm Road tours featured many examples of arranging local tunes for jazz
ensembles, a practice that hearkens back to the cold war era tours. Techniques such as
these promote the idea that jazz may also be viewed as a method of interpreting other
music rather than a body or canon of repertoire or artists. According to this view, jazz
is a technique for improvising on familiar material whether it is a popular tune, folk
melody, or classical standard. These examples point to the idea that jazz is not
exclusively American but an improvisatory world music.
Although the Lincoln Center and the State Department have collaborated in trying to
shape an official jazz canon, on tour, these canons turn out to be more individual and
varied. Interviews with the performers highlight the conflict between an institutional
and a living canon. They confirm that the canon remains a contested site and the
performance of jazz music is a living and dynamic tradition.
146
Conclusion
This study has led me to several observations about the nature of canon and its
relationship to jazz. First, canons are primarily cultural constructions. Objective
standards of quality are only one of many factors that influence the formation of
canons. Canons may be used to promote the interests of a region, nation, or cultural
group. In popular music, canons are closely related to the assertion of generational
identity. Each subsequent generation canonizes the popular music of its youth. Young
people eager to assert an identity independent from their parents seek out music that
sets them apart from the previous generation. Parents are often offended that the
younger generation in turn does not appreciate music that was important to them. This
in part explains continued resistance to changing stylistic trends.
In the struggle to define the jazz canon, notions of authenticity are often
invoked to promote one group of artists and exclude others. Authenticity is often
invoked in terms of race, where African American artists are portrayed as authentic
practitioners and musicians of other races are viewed, at best, as talented imitators.
Notions of authenticity may also be used as a marketing tool to make one group of
musicians stand out above the competition. It is understandable that musicians need to
promote their own interests and often seek to distinguish themselves among many
talented performers. In this way music is similar to cuisine, in which the owners of
various restaurants will claim that their food is the most authentic, when in fact all
establishments alter their recipes to cater to the taste of their clientele.
In debates about authenticity, there is a great effort to distinguish originators
from imitators. Canonization seeks to attribute broad trends to the work of a few
geniuses. This is an understandable process when we acknowledge the mythological
147
desire for humans to know our creator and to define ourselves through our ancestors.
We are naturally drawn to stories about characters that fit into mythological archetypes
and this is what canons provide. Ultimately, we are all imitators and creators. We can
never achieve complete originality as noted in the words of Ecclesiastes 1:9.
That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun.

In the absence of complete originality we may only hope to achieve creative variations
on familiar material. The more we listen, the more we uncover paths of influence and
interconnection. The point of such analysis is not to attribute the origin to a single
mortal genius but to recognize the process of creative troping that occurs in musical
performance.
The previous chapters have highlighted the use of Signifyin(g) reference as the
primary means of musical troping. Although Gates’s theory was designed to describe
African American literature and has most often been applied to the music of African
American artists, I am convinced that Signifyin(g) reference is not limited to African
African authors and musicians, or to jazz music. The technique falls within the larger
umbrella of intertextual reference, which is significant in music across genres.

Contested Identity
Charles Hiroshi Garrett’s concept of music as a site of contested identity has
been a recurring theme in this dissertation. As jazz musicians continue to represent
American culture abroad, the jazz ambassadors of the 21st century raise new questions
about the definition of jazz. Will listeners accept jazz as a transnational and
148
multicultural phenomenon or will they believe that it should be associated with the
identity of a single racial and national group?
There appear to be at least two dominant views of jazz. One presents jazz as
multi-racial and multinational and another defines jazz as the music of African
Americans. The latter view may be understood as an attempt to wrest the control of
the dominant discourse on jazz from traditional academics. Fred Ho associates
canonization with an attempt by the dominant (ie. “white”) culture to control the
discourse of oppressed minorities.
185
Yet, Ho’s discourse may also be read as an
attempt to shape a canon that privileges blackness and leftist politics as the most
authentic purveyors of jazz. However, the jazz tradition also includes the music of
white musicians (“Take Five”), as well as music that was intended for entertainment
(“Sing, Sing, Sing”). Such polemics become unproductive when they attribute
authenticity with racial identity alone. As writers on both sides of the spectrum struggle
to define a jazz canon in their own terms, there is a risk of associating jazz with the
hegemonic practices of classical music scholarship of the past, which often argued for
the superiority of German music because it was supposedly masculine and intellectual.
Perhaps a solution lies in acknowledging the importance of African American
culture without discrediting the contributions of other cultural groups (including
European, Asian, and South American) cultures. I do not believe that jazz scholars
who acknowledge the contributions of white artists (Glenn Miller, Dave Brubeck,
Chick Corea etc.) are racist, nor could their attempts to portray non-black musicians as
important contributors to the jazz tradition be described as “white supremist” as

185
Fred Wei-han Ho, “What Makes ‘jazz’ the Revolutionary Music of the 20th Century,
and will it Be Revolutionary for the 21st Century?” African American Review 29:2 (1995) p.283-290

149
suggested by Fred Ho. I believe that scholars often write about the artists that appeal
to them personally and it should not be surprising when writers choose to focus on
musicians close to their own cultural heritage. Perhaps we have moved beyond the
dialectic of black and white in jazz scholarship and should acknowledge the
multicultural roots and influences of jazz.
Despite attempts to promote jazz as a distinctly American art form, jazz is now
a world music. Just like Venezuela’s El Sistema orchestras have demonstrated that
classical music does not belong to Europe and North America, accomplished jazz
performers throughout the world have demonstrated that jazz no longer belongs
exclusively to Americans.
186
Despite a note of condescension expressed by some
American musicians on the Rhythm Road tours in Asia, jazz musicians in the
Philippines and China should be considered authentic practitioners of the art form as
much as Americans.
I suggest that Marsalis’s neoclassicism should be considered within the context
of historicist Afro-nationalism. Nelson George connects the acknowledgement of
black cultural history in the music of Michael Jackson and Prince and in the films of
Spike Lee with a broader movement toward African American economic self-
determination in the arts that began in the 1980s. George uses the term “retronuevo”
to describe this trend, which he describes as “an embrace of the past to create
passionate, fresh expressions and institutions.”
187
In a similar way, Marsalis’s
invocation of the musical past may be aimed at encouraging broad acceptance of a

186
El Sistema is a Venezuelan music education and youth orchestra program founded by José Abreu in
1975.

187
Nelson George, The Death of Rhythm and Blues (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988) reprinted in David
Brackett ed. The Pop Rock, and Soul Reader. (New York, Oxford University Press, 2009) pp.423-426

150
canon of one branch of African American musical culture. Both Marsalis and Coleman
embrace aspects of the “retroneuvo” aesthetic in their own improvisation and
composition. Marsalis has defined a narrower stylistic palette than Ornette Coleman,
yet both artists celebrate African American music with references to blues and gospel
traditions.

Wynton Marsalis’s Swing Symphony in Concert
Marsalis’s success with Blood on the Fields paved the way for new commissions
for two subsequent large-scale works: All Rise (2001), commissioned by the New York
Philharmonic and Swing Symphony (2009), co-commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic
and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Marsalis remains one of the few jazz composers to
receive commissions from such well-respected classical institutions.
188
Despite
continuing controversy surrounding his music and aesthetics, Marsalis appears to be
increasingly welcomed into the official canon. Richard Ginell complained that Swing
Symphony was more of a suite than a symphony, comparing the work to Ellington’s
Black Brown and Beige.
189
Both Ellington and Marsalis have been criticized for the lack of
advanced formal devices in their extended concert works, although both composers
use recurring thematic ideas to create continuity between movements. For example,
Ellington’s “Come Sunday” was introduced in Black Brown and Beige and was reused in
several of his Sacred Concerts. Marsalis also uses a recurring pentatonic motive in Blood

188
The Los Angles Philharmonic also commisioned a new work from jazz pianist Billy Childs in 2004.

189
Richard S. Ginell. “Music Review: Wynton Marsalis with Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Los
Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall.” Los Angeles Times (February 13, 2011)
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/02/music-review-wynton-marsalis-swing-
symphony-with-leonard-slatkin-jazz-at-lincoln-center-orchestra-a.html (accessed February 25, 2011)

151
on the Fields. The unifying motive in his Swing Symphony is a heavily accented hemiola
rhythm that is featured primarily in the first and last movements.
While it is useful to analyze recordings and scores of Marsalis’s music, his
conception of the jazz canon is also well represented in live performance. Marsalis’s
Swing Symphony was premiered by the JALC orchestra and the Berlin Phil conducted by
Simon Rattle on June 10, 2010. A second performance on June 13 featured dancers
from schools in Berlin.
190
The West Coast premiere of Swing Symphony took place on
February 12, 2011 in Walt Disney Concert Hall. I attended the second Los Angeles
performance on February 13 and compared it with a streaming video recording of the
Berlin premiere posted on the Berlin Phil’s Digital Concert Hall.
A pre-concert discussion between Marsalis and Rattle, moderated by Catherine
Milliken, illuminated many of the aesthetic issues raised by the work. At the beginning,
Marsalis stated his anti-modernist view of music history claiming that, “every style is
present and modern.” This comment brings attention to the conflict between the
aesthetic perspectives of modernism and post-modernism which remain a focal point
in the current debate about canons. Pierre Boulez once said in reference to Igor
Stravinsky’s neo-classicism:
…after an adventure that had taken him - like Schoenberg - such a long way,
there came this regression, this fear of the unknown and the desire to organize
the world in a reassuring way. The same thing happened with painters
too….These composers and painters, usually wrongly, wanted to become part
of history before history itself had made them part of its own process…
191

Boulez’s comment lays bare a fundamental disagreement about what causes an artists’
work to be canonized. According to Boulez’s modernist perspective, progress and

190
Both concerts can be viewed online at the Berlin Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall.
www.digitalconcerthall.com

191
Pierre Boulez. Conversations with Célestine Deliège (London: Eulenburg Books, 1976) p.107
152
innovation make an artist worthy of historical status. A postmodern artist may draw on
any material, historical or contemporary, original or borrowed to construct their work.
This process is not necessarily regressive, but may be viewed as an attempt to raise
questions about the past.
Using a sports analogy, Marsalis compared the art of improvisation to playing
football well within the context of the game’s rules. As in his previously published
discourse, Marsalis emphasized the Lockian concept of freedom with discipline.
Marsalis appears to share John Locke’s view of positive freedom as expressed in The
Second Treatise of Government (1690) that suggests that rules are a means to freedom.
192
In
this way, Marsalis combines a view of musical aesthetics with a philosophical view
central to democratic government. This makes his musical aesthetics even more
appropriate for cooperation with the US Department of State.
In the pre-concert discussion, he and Rattle remarked on the international
heritage of each of their orchestras as Marsalis claimed that jazz, like European
classical music, had become an international music reflective of a universal human
heritage. Marsalis’s rhetoric presents jazz as a transcendent, international, and
historically conscious music rooted in the culture of African Americans. While the
European classical tradition is generally focused on the preservation and interpretation
of specific works, Marsalis’s jazz canon is built on the transformation and
reinterpretation of the styles of classical jazz artists such as Duke Ellington and
Coleman Hawkins. The effect is to reconfigure familiar sounds rather than to create
new timbres. In this way, Marsalis may be considered a post-modern composer,

192
Locke writes, “though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license,” John Locke, Thomas
Peardon ed. “Chapter II: Of the State of Nature” p.4-11, in The Second Treatise of Government (Upper
Saddle River: Simon & Schuster, 1952) p.5
153
concerned with an informed presentation of the past. By framing the jazz canon in this
way, Marsalis is encouraging the appreciation of African Americans artists that are not
threatening to conservative classical audiences.
Like Blood on the Fields, Swing Symphony presents another rendition of Marsalis’s
conception of jazz history. In the concert program, Marsalis described the work as “a
symphonic meditation on the evolution of swing.” Swing Symphony is essentially a
survey of jazz styles from ragtime to bebop and each movement contains at least one
reference to Marsalis’s view of the jazz canon.
The work is similar in concept to Ellington’s jazz suites but different in
execution. Marsalis and Ellington both juxtapose the growls of work songs, call and
response worship, blues, slow melodic ballads, and hard driving swing. Listening to
Swing Symphony, one can detect a funky and exotic rhythmic element competing with
the now elevated style of big band swing. If parts of the work sound raucous and
noisy, it might have something to do with Marsalis’s desire to evoke the “raw” sounds
of ceremonial music making in African American traditions such as the Ring Shout, a
tradition also celebrated in the growls and wails of Ellington’s big band music.
Marsalis’s use of Signifyin(g) in this work falls into three general categories:
quotations that celebrate an African American jazz canon, references that affirm
common rhythmic elements in swing and Western concert music, and invocations of
Afro-diapsoric roots music. In general, I heard fewer disparaging references to other
styles in this performance. Signifyin(g) was used mainly as a technique of affirmation
rather than exclusion or criticism.
In the first movement, I heard a Signifyin(g) transformation of “Life is a
Cabaret,” another Broadway tune recorded often by Armstrong between 1965 and
154
1970. In the second movement, Marsalis paraphrases the rhythm of James P.
Johnson’s “Charleston” and an alto saxophone soloist mimicked the sound and style
of Charlie Parker. In the third movement, Marsalis invokes the style of Coleman
Hawkins by using the chord changes to “Body and Soul,” a standard recorded often by
Hawkins. The fourth movement is a testament to bebop, with some Mambo rhythms
included as a tribute to Dizzy Gillespie’s “Manteca.” These Signifyin(g) references are
intended as tributes to interpreters of these songs rather than their composers, except
in the case of “Charleston” and “Manteca,” which were popularized by African
American composer-performers.
Marsalis’s comments in the pre-concert talk were supported by subtle
affirmations of the links between jazz and classical musical during the performance of
Swing Symphony. The second movement featured a series of syncopated unison rhythms,
which both orchestras executed flawlessly. Of course this type of “swing” is familiar to
classical musicians through Stravinsky’s works. A highlight of the third movement was
an extended solo for six classical percussionists that received exceptionally warm
applause from the Berlin audience. Marsalis followed this section with a brass riff
played with wah-wah mutes, as if to say “I told you so!” to those who doubted that a
classical orchestra could swing. In the fifth movement, Marsalis weaves a dense
contrapuntal texture that features a brief fugato for orchestra in the style of Third
Stream Jazz followed by a brief dissonant passage for strings and woodwinds that
appeared to pay homage to Arnold Schoenberg’s early atonal style. I was surprised to
hear these references considering Marsalis’s negative portrayal of the classical avant-
garde in Blood on the Fields. Perhaps Marsalis has made amends with Schoenberg and
Schuller once he received a commission from the Berlin Philharmonic.
155
Swing Symphony also includes several positive references to the pan-African
roots of jazz and to the music of Duke Ellington in particular. In the pre-concert
discussion, Marsalis referred to the use of “sanctified rhythm,” which is essentially a
type of hemiola. The first and last movements celebrated African polyrhythm with
earthy clapping and stomping. The “sanctified rhythm” Marsalis described in the pre-
concert talk was most obvious in the final movement, which Marsalis said was written
in the style of his band. Aside from this possible reference to pan-African rhythmic
roots, the work points back stylistically toward Duke Ellington. The wobbling
homophonic part writing for saxes and muted trumpets comes straight from
Ellington’s playbook.
In the program note for the LA Phil performance, Dave Kopplin hyped up the
final moments of the piece, which concluded with “a collective sigh by the orchestra.”
I was expecting to hear an orgasmic climax complete with trombone glissando in the
manner of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1932). After all, Shostakovich’s Jazz
Suite had opened the Los Angeles premiere of Swing Symphony. Alas, Wynton gave the
last word with an anti-climactic cadenza over a suspended chord. At the performance
of February 13, the collective sigh of the orchestra was covered by premature applause.
The unexpected feeling that creates excitement in improvised performance
came through most in the encore of Sunday afternoon’s performance. While everyone
expected Marsalis to play something featuring himself, he tactfully deferred to a guest
artist, seventy-four-year-old trumpet player Marcus Belgrave, who played a few
choruses of blues before Marsalis called for a closing riff from the band. Belgrave
concluded his final chorus by quoting the melody of Duke Ellington’s standard “I Let
a Song Go Out of My Heart.” In this case Belgrave, a former member of the Jazz at
156
Lincoln Center Orchestra, finished his solo with a brief toast to Ellington, reinforcing
his place in the jazz canon. Another outstanding interaction between the orchestra and
the jazz band happened during the encore of the Berlin premiere in which Berlin Phil
violist Martin Stegner played a skillfully angular chorus of the blues. Marsalis can be
heard on video voicing his pleasantly surprised response to the solo. Why shouldn’t a
German violist be able to play the blues?

157
Dynamic Canons
Throughout Swing Symphony, Marsalis reinforces his view of the jazz canon by
alternating between African polyrhythms, swing, and blues. What may seem at times to
be a mishmash of styles is essentially a statement that all these styles belong in the jazz
canon. In this context, Marsalis’s intent is not necessarily to claim that jazz has gone
astray in recent decades, but to classify, codify, and evangelize a particular view of jazz
history up until the 1960s. I suspect that Marsalis shares the view expressed by several
of the Rhythm Road musicians, that “jazz” is a synonym for African American classical
music.
When I heard the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra perform without the LA
Phil at Disney Hall on Tuesday, February 15, 2011, my conception of Marsalis’s jazz
canon was significantly broadened. The repertoire was equally balanced between
original charts composed by the band members and standard arrangements. In my
opinion, the most successful original was “Big Twelve,” which Marsalis composed to
combine elements of Spanish flamenco music and blues. Marsalis’s solo on “Big
Twelve” invoked the timbre and modal scalar runs of Miles Davis heard on Sketches of
Spain. I was also pleasantly surprised to detect a nod to Clifford Brown in Marsalis’s
rendition of “Cherokee,” which closed the first set. Although he receives less attention
in most standard narratives, Clifford Brown’s concise lyrical style is just as influential as
Miles Davis’s understated approach among contemporary jazz trumpet players.
Hearing Signifyin(g) references to Brown and Davis provides further evidence that
Marsalis’s canon is broader than many claim.
In spite of his critics, Marsalis is one of only a handful of living jazz performers
that could give a sellout performance at Disney Hall. His music can be interpreted as
158
another example of crossover; jazz that appeals to classical music enthusiasts (ie. fans
of Gershwin and Shostakovich etc.), record collectors, and apparently Laurence
Fishburne, whom I spotted in the lobby of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, ordering a
drink in lieu of attending the first half of the program.
The music of Wynton Marsalis demonstrates a preference for post-modern
synthesis and reinterpretation rather than a modernist vision of progress. It is
essentially jazz for students of jazz. His music reflects the view that experiments of the
avant-garde provided new timbres and choices for composers and performers, but
were ultimately ineffective at communicating with most listeners.
Representations of canon sound different than they look on paper.
Discrepancies between what a performer says and what they play underscores the
danger of relying on an artist’s verbal and written testimony to evaluate their definition
of canon. A better way to evaluate how jazz musicians indicate canon is to listen for
Signifyin(g) references in live performances and recordings. The dynamic nature of the
canon in performance is demonstrated well in the case of Wynton Marsalis. Although
he focuses on Armstrong and Ellington, his Signifyin(g) references also affirm the
influence of artists on the periphery of Burns’s jazz canon. Rather than relying of lists
of composers and works, we should use our ears to hear how musicians invoke and
shape dynamic canons.
159
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract Many factors, including government sponsorship, institutional patronage, and influential documentary films have contributed to the creation of an official jazz canon. However, jazz performers create living, dynamic canons using techniques of intertextual reference. This dissertation presents several case studies on the representation of a jazz canon by individual artists, documentary filmmakers, and cultural institutions. Chapter one discusses how jazz canons are invoked and criticized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning works of Wynton Marsalis and Ornette Coleman. Chapter two presents contrasting views of the relationship between tradition and living culture as portrayed in two influential documentary films: Ken Burns’s Jazz and Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke. Chapter three examines American jazz diplomacy in the post-Cold War era focusing on the United States State Department’s partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. In conclusion, I contend that jazz performers create dynamic canons that supplement, and sometimes subvert official canons.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Asset Metadata

Creator Thomas, Matthew Alan (author)

Core Title Dynamic canons: how the Pulitzer prize, documentary film, and the US Department of State are changing the way we think about jazz

School Thornton School of Music

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Music (Historical Musicology)

Publication Date 06/01/2011

Defense Date 04/15/2011

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag canon,Jazz,jazz at lincoln center,Ken Burns,OAI-PMH Harvest,ornette coleman,pulitzer,rhythm road,spike lee,State Department,terence blanchard,thelonious monk institute,wynton marsalis

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Yang, Mina (committee chair), Cull, Nicholas (committee member), Simms, Bryan (committee member)

Creator Email mathomas@usc.edu,musicologymatt@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c127-613799

Unique identifier UC1348039

Identifier usctheses-c127-613799 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ThomasMatt-12-0.pdf

Dmrecord 613799

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Thomas, Matthew Alan

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu