Publication Title

Jazz and American Culture

Document Type

Book Chapter

Department or Program

Music

Publication Date

11-9-2023

Keywords

jazz, institutions, political economy, gender, race, Institute of Jazz Studies, SF Jazz Center, Institute for Jazz and Gender Justice

Abstract

To speak of institutions is usually to invoke an idea of brick-and-mortar establishments, and the organizations that inhabit and sustain them. However, an institution is as much an idea as it is a thing: the institutionalization of a musical genre is, above all else, the formalization of a narrative about the genre, and of the value system that the narrative embodies. The present chapter touches upon three instances of the institutionalization of jazz in the United States since the Second World War, including the Institute of Jazz Studies, housed at Rutgers University in New Jersey; the SF Jazz Center in San Francisco; and the Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice at the Berklee College of Music. I seek here to discern what their supporting narratives can tell us about shifting conceptions of jazz institutionalism, and its reflection of broader ideas about the music’s role in American and global musical culture.

Comments

Original version is available from the publisher at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009420167.015

Copyright Note

© Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2024

Required Publisher's Statement

This material has been published in Jazz and American Culture Edited by Michael Borshuk https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009420167.015 This is the publisher's version of the work. This chapter appears in Bates College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.

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