Music
Jazz in Post-World War II Los Angeles: Transforming Communities and Collaborative Spaces
Katharine Campbell Strauss ('11); Mentor: Joti Rockwell, Frances Pohl
Abstract: Jazz historians typify music after World
War II as having emerged from the bebop idiom
into two subgenres - hard bop and cool jazz. This
project sought to investigate the relationships
between jazz subgenres as well as the connection
between artists and their historical context.
Secondary sources provided musical and historical
overviews, primary sources, such as
autobiographies and newspapers, offered
perspectives from participants, and recordings
added a limited though useful sonic context.
Attention to autobiography emphasizes the role of
dynamic space and movement in jazz, and
musicians' perspectives reveal the shortcomings of
using recordings as self-supporting evidence. My
study found that standard jazz histories depicting
the birth of styles according to commercial
recordings are essentially misguided. This
research calls into question the metaphor of
stylistic "birth" in jazz historiography, and it
argues for further work examining the musical and
social interactions among performers in post-
WWII Los Angeles.
Funding Provided by: The Fletcher Jones Foundation
Monome HOWTO: A Jaunt In The Forest of Sonic Possibilities
Ryan Wieghard ('14); Mentor: Thomas Flaherty
Abstract: Recently there has been an advent of
music technology that allows for controlling of
parameters of sound in non-traditional ways. The
Monome is one of these devices that can be
tailored to the disparate needs and visions of an
individual artist. The Monome consists of a matrix
of buttons the function of which is unassigned.
The artist/programmer then designs a program on
the computer that assigns specific functions to
specific buttons with some particular sonic result.
My research consisted of looking at a sample of
extant programs available on the Internet and then
used the information I learned to design novel
ones.I documented my explorations as a HOWTO
manual for future electronic music students.
Funding Provided by: The Faucett Family Foundation