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French Music and Jazz in Conversation
From Debussy to Brubeck
- Author: Mawer, Deborah
French Music and Jazz in Conversation
From Debussy to Brubeck
- Author: Mawer, Deborah
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About
French concert music and jazz often enjoyed a special creative exchange across the period 1900–65. French modernist composers were particularly receptive to early African-American jazz during the interwar years, and American jazz musicians, especially those concerned with modal jazz in the 1950s and early 1960s, exhibited a distinct affinity with French musical impressionism. However, despite a general, if contested, interest in the cultural interplay of classical music and jazz, few writers have probed the specific French music-jazz relationship in depth. In this book, Deborah Mawer sets such musical interplay within its historical-cultural and critical-analytical contexts, offering a detailed yet accessible account of both French and American perspectives. Blending intertextuality with more precise borrowing techniques, Mawer presents case studies on the musical interactions of a wide range of composers and performers, including Debussy, Satie, Milhaud, Ravel, Jack Hylton, George Russell, Bill Evans and Dave Brubeck.
Contents
- Introduction. French music and jazz: cultural exchange;
- Part I . Locations and Relations:
- 1. A historical-cultural overview;
- 2. Critical-analytical perspectives: intertextuality and borrowing;
- Part II . The Impact of Early Jazz upon French Music (1900-35):
- 3. Debussy and Satie: early French explorations of cakewalk and ragtime;
- 4. Milhaud's understanding of jazz and blues: La Creation du monde;
- 5. Crossing borders: Ravel's theory and practice of jazz;
- Part III . The Impact of French Music upon Jazz (1925-65):
- 6. Hylton's interwar 'jazzed' arrangements of French classics;
- 7. (Re)moving boundaries? Russell's Lydian jazz theory and its rethinking of Debussy and Ravel;
- 8. Bill Evans's modal jazz and French music reconfigured;
- 9. Milhaud and Brubeck: French classical teacher and American jazz student.
