The
Other Side of Nowhere. Jazz, Improvisation,
and Communities in Dialogue
by Daniel Fischlin
and Ajay Heble, Eds. ,with introduction
by Ingrid Monson
Wesleyan University Press, Middletown,
2004
462 pp., illus. 3 b/w. Trade, $70.00;
paper, $29.95
ISBN: 0-8195-6681-0; ISBN: 0-8195-6682-9.
Reviewed
by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium
stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be
It is a dangerous road to utopia, and
one ought to keep in mind that the quest
for a just and prosperous society in real
life as well as in fiction or philosophy
has lead to catastrophic failures. No
wonder serious politicians and bona fide
sociologists have all but given up on
theorizing about the means to reach paradise
on earth and leave it to dreamers and
possibly pop singers to speculate on how
to get there. So why does the publisher
of this otherwise very fine collection
of essays about jazz, improvisation and
its social importance ask if 'jazz improvisation
can create a form of utopia'? Maybe because
dreaming of utopia is the prerogative
of oppressed groups, wherever they are.
Maybe only the weary and the downtrodden
have a right to struggle for a utopian
future whereas the powerful and the rich
should be kept in place by law, compromise,
and public outrage. Anyway, one of the
possible roles jazz and its companion,
improvisation, can play in a community
is to create a temporary and very local
quasi-utopian haven for performers and
audiences. Improvisation at least gives
the impression that rules can be transgressedor
transcended?while still being
in sync with others, that harmony can
exist alongside disharmony and individuality
can be emphasized within collectivity
and vice versa.
Eighteen authors have contributed to this
book, and certainly not all of them agree
with these bloggish ideas that jazz and
improvisation is an escape route to utopia
orto put it more positivelya
source of strength to overcome hardship,
oppression and the loss of identity. Quite
on the contrary, the ideas exposed in
the essays range far and wide about the
role of jazz. In the first section, three
performers are thinking out loudly about
the importance of improvisation in their
practice and how it changed their attitude
towards a sometimes hostile environment.
No wonder two of them are women: grande
dame Pauline Oliveros and Dana Reason.
In the second section, four essays shed
some light on the historic communities
involved in the rise and development of
improvised jazz. In the third, 'Social
Practice and Identity' the question of
the relation between jazz and its carrier
communities is explored. Obviously, two
marginalized groups are to be on the foreground
in this discussion: Afro-Americans and
women. And they duly are, in remarkable
essays by Mark Anthony Neal and Sherrie
Tucker among others. "Improvisation and
Imitation: Marlon Brando as a Jazz Actor"
by Krin Gabbard stands out as a very imaginative
and interesting analysis of the influence
jazz plays in other arts, more precisely
in American cinema. It shows that jazz
certainly has helped building contemporary
mythologies and has contributed to our
material culture in more ways than just
musical.
The last and fourth section of the book
contains four essays round the theme of
collaboration and dissonance and actually
shows in which ways theory and research
of improvisation and jazz could be further
developed.
The editors are both professors at the
University of Guelph, and it is in the
shadow of the annual Guelph Jazz Festival
that the essays and authors have been
brought together. Maybe only such a combination
of scholarship and practice can effectively
lead to a substantial progress in our
understanding of the role and the societal
dynamics of jazz, but someone ought to
write a more accessible version of the
ideas in these essays to reach a wider
audience.