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Introduction: the Collective Problem in Jazz

This is the introduction to a special double journal issue on jazz collectives, an output from the three-year HERA-funded research project: “Rhythm Changes: Jazz Cultures and European Identities.” The aim of this issue is to explore the various ways in which music collectives across several different countries since the Second World War opened up new possibilities for making music and redefining the relationship between artists and their audiences. There is little current research into the politics of music/sound collectives on a transnational scale, so this issue has the potential to reorient debates in jazz and music history, which have mostly dealt with individual musicians or have been limited to national developments. Moreover, the introductory essay frames the central problem of jazz collectives in terms of the development of new sonic practices and cultural spaces, highlighting their significance to theories of mediation and audience reception more generally. This places the politics of music/sound collectives at the very centre of the problem of modernity/modernism, and not on its margins, as is usually the case. Research for this article and the larger double issue of the journal took place over two years and was developed at seminars, symposia, conferences and working groups in Amsterdam (2011), Lancaster (2010), Leeds (2011), London (2011), Manchester (2010, 2011), Stavanger (2011) and Vienna (2010). The collectives project aims to redefine the subject of jazz and popular music history, and to become a primary and essential point of reference for jazz and popular music scholars. Its impact has resulted in invitations to present aspects of this research in Denmark, France and Canada, and most of the research (including this introductory essay) will form the basis of a volume of essays that has been accepted for publication by Routledge USA as part of their new transnational studies in jazz series.