Rhythm Changes: Jazz Utopia Conference Supper

We are pleased to announce that the Jazz Utopia conference supper will be hosted by Bar Utopia (where else?) on Church Street, Birmingham city centre on Saturday the 16th of April. Buses will take delegates from outside BCU’s city centre campus to the restaurant at 17.15. At 19.15 we will head across to the nearby Birmingham Conservatoire for Mike Fletcher’s Jazz Orchestra performance (tickets included in conference delegate pack). Dietary requirements have already been considered, with vegan, vegetarian and gluten free options and all dishes clearly labelled for allergies. Drinks can be bought at the bar and are not included in the Eventbrite price.

 

Please register your interest by emailing jazzutopia@bcu.ac.uk

Payments (for food only) should be made before the event, via the Eventbrite link here.

Keynote Speakers

Rhythm Changes, Jazz Utopia is pleased to announce our Keynote Speakers, to be hosted at Birmingham City University for the fourth Rhythm Changes conference:

Ingrid Monson – Jazz Utopias Then and Now

Friday 15th April

 

Ingrid Monson is Quincy Jones Professor of African American music at Harvard University. She is the author of Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa (Oxford University Press, 2007), winner of the Woody Guthrie Award of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music; Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) winner of the Irving Lowens Book Award of the Society for American Music; and an edited a volume entitled the African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective (Garland/Routledge 2000). She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, served as chair of the Department of Music, and Interim Dean of the Arts and Humanities at Harvard. She served as an expert witness for the Marvin Gaye family in the Blurred Lines copyright infringement case in 2015. She is completing a new book called Kenedougou Visions, about Malian balafonist Neba Solo and is planning another book on copyright and African American music.

 

Raymond MacDonald – Utopia, Nirvana or Valhalla: Improvisation and all that jazz

Saturday 16th April

 

 

 

Raymond MacDonald is Professor of Music Psychology and Improvisation and Head of The Reid school of Music at Edinburgh University. After completing his PhD in Psychology at the University of Glasgow, investigating therapeutic applications of music, he worked as Artistic Director for a music company, Sounds of Progress, specializing in working with people who have special needs. He has published over 70 papers, was editor of the Journal Psychology of Music between 2006-2012 and has coedited five texts: Musical Identities (2002), Musical Communication (2005), Music Health and Wellbeing (2012), Musical Imaginations (2012) and the Handbook of Music Identities (in press). As a saxophonist and composer his work is informed by a view of improvisation as a social, collaborative and uniquely creative process that provides opportunities to develop new ways of working musically. Collaborating with musicians such as Evan Parker, David Byrne, Jim O’Rourke and Marilyn Crispell, he has released over 50 CDs and toured and broadcast worldwide. He has produced music for film, television, theatre and art installations and is a founder member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra. He has a particular interest in cross-disciplinary collaboration and has extensive experience of working with artists and filmmakers.

The One LP Project: Rhythm Changes Jazz Utopia Conference 2016

The One LP Project: Rhythm Changes Jazz Utopia Conference 2016

Parkside Building, Birmingham City University

14th-17th April 2016

 

Outline

One LP is a unique and critically acclaimed portraiture photography project that explores the inspirational qualities of jazz recordings and the impact that they have on people’s lives. Each artist portrait features the subject holding a recording that is of fundamental importance to them. The photograph is accompanied by a short interview that explores the meaning and significance of the selected album.

 

Concept and development

One LP is a project that commenced in 2010 as a response to conversations with musicians about their relationship with the music of other artists heard via recordings – and in particular the albums that had profoundly moved them. As a conversation is of course transient – committed only to memory – I sought a format to document my interactions with artists. The One LP series is the result – something that reveals the matrix of jazz. Perhaps more mellifluously, a journey into another’s soul: the album that each person selects is a part of them: their past, present and future.

William Ellis – February 2016

 

“British photographer William Ellis is perhaps best known for his impeccable photos of jazz musicians. Truly cool interactive exhibits like this that combine multiple art forms don’t come around often.” Time Out New York

The premiere One LP exhibition was held in New York at the ARChive of Contemporary Music in 2014 and subsequently shown in Los Angeles during the Britweek arts program. The project – conceived in the jazz world has been extended and now includes around 200 people in manifold occupations in the creative milieu – artists, academics, musicians, broadcasters, writers and photographers.

The exhibition at Birmingham City University is the most comprehensive to date and reflects the position of jazz as the most diverse of musical genres. The artists featured in the exhibition range from innovators whose provenance reaches back to the genre’s birth through to leading and emergent contemporary artists. This pantheon includes figures such as Al Jarreau, Annie Ross, Sheila Jordan, Jon Hendricks, Gregory Porter, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Joe Lovano, Kenny Burrell, Mike Stern, Ron Carter, Marcus Miller, Lonnie Liston Smith, Robert Glasper, Michael League, Soweto Kinch, Tomasz Stanko and Christian Scott. Whilst One LP is a mature and rapidly-growing project, William is constantly seeking opportunities for collaboration to further develop the series, and welcomes proposals and dialogue re: subjects and directions.

 

About

William Ellis was born in Liverpool in 1957, developing his distinctive style encompassing portrait, performance and still life images of musical instrument via study and appreciation of the work of a wide range of artists and fellow photographers. His breakthrough into jazz came with the opportunity to photograph Miles Davis in 1989. William has since worked with many of the world’s leading musicians. William’s work is exhibited extensively at international level: it is held in private collections worldwide and those of major institutions including the National Portrait Gallery London, the ARChive of Contemporary Music in New York and the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City MO.

William’s photographs have been used in the JAM (Jazz Appreciation Month) Outreach program in the United States initiated by the Smithsonian Institution. They also appear regularly in print/online publications, and are used by record companies in artist promotion. William has a regular column on One LP in Allaboutjazz.com

“Beautiful images.” – Herman Leonard

 

Contact/portfolio

w@william-ellis.com

www.onelp.org

william-ellis.com

This photo is Copyright William Ellis. All rights reserved.
This photo is Copyright William Ellis. All rights reserved.

…and now for our Rhythm Changes bags!

Of course, delegates come to our conferences for the intellectual exchange with other researchers. Since Rhythm Changes hosts the largest jazz conferences in the academic field, there is a lot of inspiring banter. But the second best reason to be part of these events are the totally cool collectible retro bags we hand out to the delegates. Keep an eye out for this year’s design, presented here soon!

Rhythm changes bags

Rhythm Changes Jazz Utopia conference: REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

Registration is now open for the fourth Rhythm Changes conference, Jazz Utopia, which will take place at Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom from 14 to 17 April 2016.

Proposal submission is now closed. Thank you to all whom submitted proposals! Registration is now open (please see Registration for further details).

The conference is hosted by the School of Media and the Faculty of Art, Design and Media, Birmingham City University, United Kingdom, and will be held at our City Centre campus.

Hotel and travel information:

The official conference hotel is Hotel LaTour. The conference rates are as follows:

1 person standard room: £100

2 person standard room: £110

To make a booking at these rates please email Clare Andrews (reservations@hotel-latour.co.uk) and quote Jazz Utopia and the conference ID: 898952.

For information about travel go to: Visit Birmingham

If you have further enquiries, please email the conference team on: jazzutopia@bcu.ac.uk

Jazz Utopia 2016 conference, organising committee meeting

The fourth Rhythm Changes conference, Jazz Utopia, will take place at Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom from 14 to 17 April 2016. We are delighted to have received well over 100 proposals from around 25 countries for papers, panels, and various creative events. Today we are meeting to evaluate abstracts. If you submitted one, you will hear from us very soon. And, thank you, by the way! Judging by the quality and range of abstracts, it”s going to be a great conference. Here is the organising committee at BCU today, led by Dr Nick Gebhardt (right).

Jazz Utopia 2016 conference, call for papers, deadline September 1 2015

The fourth Rhythm Changes conference, Jazz Utopia, will take place at Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom from 14 to 17 April 2016. The deadline for paper submissions is 1 September 2015; this is a reminder so you don’t miss the deadline!!

Keynote speakers
Prof Ingrid Monson (Harvard University)
Prof Raymond MacDonald (University of Edinburgh)

We invite paper submissions for Jazz Utopia, a four-day multi-disciplinary conference that brings together leading researchers across the arts and humanities. The event will feature academic papers, panels and poster sessions alongside an exciting programme of concerts delivered in partnership with the Birmingham Conservatoire and Jazzlines.

Jazz has long been a subject for utopian longing and hopes for a better future; it has also been the focus of deeply engrained cultural fears, visions of suffering and dystopian fantasies. In its urgency and presence jazz is now here. As improvisational and transitory, jazz is nowhere. Utopia is nowhere and now here. Jazz is utopia. Or: jazz is utopian desire. Jazz Utopia seeks to critically explore how the idea of utopia has shaped, and continues to shape, debates about jazz.

We welcome papers that address the conference theme from multiple perspectives, including cultural studies, musicology, cultural theory, music analysis, jazz history, media studies, and practice-based research. Within the general theme of Jazz Utopia, we have identified three sub-themes. Please clearly identify which theme you are speaking to in your proposal.

Jazz identities: Claims have always been made for jazz as a certain utopian practice, in which jazz has made possible a musical-social space where different, usually marginal, identities are expressed and confirmed. At the multiracial club, bandstand, or dance-floor race and ethnicity are acknowledged, difference is championed or erased. Musicians have used jazz to step out of their class. The dialogic qualities and queer sounds alike of jazz offer opportunity for the expression of gender and sexuality. New thinking around disability and music reads jazz as a crip-space. Equally, consider the way in which freedom in improvisation has been understood as a liberating utopian practice. Even in its diasporic invention jazz comes from a kind of no-place (ou-topia = no place). In utopia, jazz is the effort to sound another world into being, the only condition of which is that it must be better. Has jazz really been that good?

Inside / outside: jazz and its others What does jazz mean to its community of insiders and those that approach it from outside? For those who are deeply involved with jazz, whether musicians, critics, scholars, or fans, the genre often provides a utopian space for creative encounters. By definition, the articulation of this space through performance, writing, research and consumption also creates a community of outsiders who may seek ways to engage with the jazz community or observe it from afar. This strand invites papers that address the relationships between jazz and its “others”, defined in relation to music making, criticism, scholarship or reception, whether these interactions are antagonistic or collaborative in tone.

Heritage and archiving: This strand focuses on the different ways in which heritage practices and archival work contribute to the reconfiguration of jazz as a utopian space. Through its commitment to alternative ways of living and being, jazz offers imaginative variations on themes of history and preservation. It creates communities of collectors and music lovers, who refigure jazz as nostalgia and escape, as well as renewal and return. We welcome papers that explore all aspects of archiving practice and cultural heritage and the opportunities and tensions that present themselves for scholars, institutions and practitioners in these fields.


Proposals are invited for:

  • Individual papers(20 minutes) – up to 350 words.
  • Themed paper sessions of three individual (20 minute) papers – 350 words per paper plus 350 words outlining the rationale for the session.
  • Seventy-five minute sessions in innovative formats – up to 1000 words outlining the form and content of the sessions.

Please submit proposals (including a short biography and institutional affiliation) by email in a word document attachment to: jazzutopia@bcu.ac.uk

The deadline for proposals is 1st September 2015; outcomes will be communicated to authors by 1st October 2015. All paper submissions will be considered by the conference committee:

  • Dr Christa Bruckner-Haring (University of Music & Performing Arts, Graz),
  • Dr Nicholas Gebhardt (chair; BCU),
  • Prof George McKay (University of East Anglia),
  • Loes Rusch (University of Amsterdam/BCU),
  • Dr Catherine Tackley (Open University),
  • Prof Walter van de Leur (University of Amsterdam/Amsterdam Conservatory),
  • Prof Tony Whyton (BCU/Birmingham Conservatoire).

The conference builds on the legacy of the Rhythm Changes research project. Rhythm Changes: Jazz Cultures and European Identities was funded as part of the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) Joint Research Programme, which ran from 2010-2013. The project team continues to develop networking opportunities and champion collaborative research into transnational jazz studies.

Updates on the conference and information about travel and accommodation will be available on this site over the next few months.