Jazz scholars and ethnomusicologists in the areas of Cuban music and Latin American music scholarship have long researched the historical roots of jazz in terms of creole culture but the influence of the orquesta típica and the Cuban charanga orquesta (or charanga francesa) has often been underplayed in jazz and popular music scholarship. This article uses music analysis of two contemporaneous early twentieth-century recordings of danzón and ragtime respectively to question the mainstream narratives of the ‘Latin’ in jazz to reveal a more complex and deep-rooted interplay of the contradanza-danzón performance traditions with those of the early ragtime orchestras of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Both idioms have their roots in military and municipal wind bands and dance ‘society’ orchestras, and a closer analysis of early twentieth-century recordings of Cuban danzón and ragtime are analysed here to reveal their many similarities. Ragtime and danzón performance share improvisational approaches, two-bar organizational timelines, structural forms, and specific performance aesthetics—all features uncovered through analysis and used here to advocate for a reconsideration of ragtime/early jazz and Afro-Caribbean music history.
This article examines barriers to participation in improvisational music for musicians from diverse backgrounds, focusing on issues of gender, race, and accessibility. While improvisation is often framed as a democratic and liberatory practice, historical and structural inequalities continue to limit access for women and non-binary musicians. Using qualitative and arts-based participatory research, this study engaged five women and non-binary musicians in a commissioning process to explore artistic and logistical strategies for fostering inclusivity in improvisation. Findings reveal that the musicians navigated discriminatory attitudes and exclusionary spaces through creative resistance, mentorship, and community-driven initiatives. Barriers were categorized into attitudinal (sexism, racism, and internalized self-doubt) and spatial (inaccessibility of venues, lack of safety, and exclusionary curatorial practices). The musicians used improvisation
Whatever the country, jazz worlds are 'masculine', numerically, socially, and symbolically. The French jazz world is no exception. However, in an attempt to create equality between men and women, in the last few years, French public institutions have started to implement a strategy of 'positive discrimination' (or 'affirmative action'), although this has not been systematic. The objective of such a policy is to compel musicians, programmers, producers, and school administrators to recruit, finance, programme and/ or train a minimal percentage of women jazz musicians. The article attempts to assess whether this new policy makes a difference when it comes to feminizing the French jazz world and to transforming its gender regime into a more egalitarian and less discriminatory one. It also tries to investigate why, when people working in jazz seem so eager to promote values of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination, it remains so difficult to evolve towards a mixed and equal jazz world.
As part of my recent PhD, I produced a documentary film on the life and music of my father, the jazz musician, Roger Frampton (1948-2000). While a primary motivation for its making was to explore his contribution to Australian music and to the musical lives of his collaborators and students, I was also driven to understand the grief I had long held over his premature death. The film and the process of its making functioned as both a biographical work of Australian jazz history and a project of family history. The film memorialised Roger Frampton and his musical legacy at the same time as recontextualising our relationship as daughter-father to that of biographer-subject. The tensions that derived from this recontextualisation sometimes proved challenging, but ultimately the project delivered a closeness to him, and insights into my own background, that continue to resonate.
Over the past decade, in the wake of the #MeToo movement's spillover into higher education and the music industry, Norwegian jazz education has begun to work more actively to address gender-based inequalities. While changes to admission criteria and processes have led to greater gender balance, they have often had the unintended consequence of making women students visible as token bodies whose sense of belonging is undermined by continued gender-based discrimination. While recognizing the importance of these more equitable recruitment strategies, how can we reduce the burden placed on women and gender minorities within jazz higher education programmes? In particular, are there ways of enacting diversity work which can serve to enhance their sense of belonging against a backdrop of continued micro-level discrimination that simply evolves and takes on new forms? This article examines some of the successful 1. Liv Quist Christensen is a PhD Candidate at The Center for Gender Research (SKF), Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU, where she conducts a feminist participatory action research project about diversity and inclusion in higher jazz music education in Norway. She holds a MA in Equality and Diversity and works in the intersection between queer studies and feminist critical theory. 2. Jennifer Branlat is associate professor in gender studies at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. Her research interests include feminist pedagogy, transformative learning, and the micro-dynamics of inclusion. Jennifer is currently involved in two international projects funded by the Norwegian Research Council that examine gender equality and diversity in Norway and Japan through education, research and industry collaboration.practices of a student-led working group for inclusion and diversity at a prominent Norwegian university, which has had a consistent focus on addressing vulnerability in a wider sense (that eases the pressure on marginalized bodies), cultivating a sense of belonging by opening up spaces of solidarity, and providing opportunities for experience sharing and consciousness raising at the same time as working dynamically in collaboration with the administration.
