Academic literature on the topic 'Music in 1960s'

Thesis (D. Mus. Arts)--University of Washington, 2002.<br>Vita. Includes transcript of interview, vita and discography of Bill Smith (leaves 257-286). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-256).

This thesis focuses on the musical contribution of David Munrow and his Early Music Consort of London (EMC) to the so-called early music revival of the 1960s and 1970s. By exploring the notion of shared cultural space in performances of medieval music by leading ensembles of the time, this thesis seeks to isolate aspects of performance practice unique to the EMC. An assessment of literary sources documenting the early music revival reveals clear nodes of discussion around Munrow’s methods of presenting early music in concert performance which are frequently classified as ‘showmanship’ with a focus on more scholarly performance practice decisions only evident in the post-Munrow period. Close readings of these sources are undertaken which are, in turn, weighed against Munrow’s early biography to map out the web of influences contributing to his musical life. Having established David Munrow’s intentions in performance, this thesis uses techniques of performance analysis to question whether he and the EMC achieved such stated aims in performance, and identifies how different approaches are made manifest in recordings by other ensembles. The findings, which seek to marry sonic analysis with reception history, are interpreted in the light of the New Cultural History of Music and reposition David Munrow, often seen as a showman who evangelized early music, as a musician who profoundly influenced the modern aesthetics and surface details of performance for subsequent generations of early musicians.

<p> Collaborative practices of music making abound in jazz improvisation. Nearly every jazz performance involves the coordination of numerous individuals in a dynamic group environment. Many music-theoretical approaches to jazz improvisation have emphasized the individual contributions of the improvising soloist; this emphasis tends to reinforce the widespread view of jazz as a soloist's art. To shift attention to collective dimensions of jazz improvisation, I propose an approach to group improvisation that takes interaction and exchange as crucial components of music making. </p><p> In the first chapter of part I, I examine previous analytical approaches in both the &ldquo;psychological&rdquo; (individual-centered) and &ldquo;sociological&rdquo; (group-centered) traditions, then develop a new theory of musical interaction in jazz improvisation in chapter 2. I construe interaction as the process by which one player intervenes in the unfolding performance of another. Their processes of &ldquo;intervention&rdquo; produce projections of musical continuations in the subsequent musical content or character of the other performers. An analyst may interpret the utterances of individual musicians as converging (projecting similar continuations) or diverging (projecting dissimilar continuations). Throughout the dissertation, I offer and analyze transcriptions of music taken from the decade of the 1960s, a decade in which interaction came even more to the fore due to the eclectic and vibrant combination of styles in jazz performance. </p><p> In part II of the dissertation, I extend the conception of interaction from the moment-based and player-to-player influenced level discussed in chapter 2 to three expanded &ldquo;domains&rdquo; of interactional activity: musical referents, roles, and styles of jazz practice. Chapter 3 introduces these domains and the Miles Davis quintet's influential recording <i>Live at the Plugged Nickel,</i> from which I draw the majority of musical examples in part II. Chapter 4 examines the influence pre-improvisational referents, such as tunes, arrangements, and prior performances, have on the performative actions of musicians. Musical roles (horns, bassist, drummer, and pianist) and functions (soloing, comping, and keeping time) and their impacts on musicians' utterances are the focus of chapter 5. To conclude part II, chapter 6 explores the real-time demands of jazz style, particularly its fundamental uncertainty about the music's future state and the ways in which style can motivate interactional dimensions of improvisation. </p><p> Part III of the dissertation introduces a method for analyzing entire performances using this theory of musical interaction. Chapter 7 focuses on an intriguing piano-trio recording <i>Money Jungle</i> by Duke Ellington, an infamous album for the at-times-prickly relationships it exhibits between Ellington and his bandmates Charles Mingus and Max Roach. I analyze transcriptions of two complete performances on the record, &ldquo;Fleurette Africaine&rdquo; for its predominantly convergent impulses, and &ldquo;Money Jungle&rdquo; for its divergent trajectories. In both analyses, I &ldquo;improvisationally&rdquo; shift between different musical aspects and interactional domains in order to fashion an analytical narrative of their interactional projections and resultant outcomes.</p>

This thesis provides an in-depth study of the ‘Golden Age of Malay Film’ (1950s to 1960s) by analysing the musical practices and discourses of commercially-produced vernacular Malay films. In exploring the potency of such films and music, it uncovers the relevance of screened music in articulating the complexities and paradoxes of a cosmopolitan Malay identity within the context of mid twentieth-century capitalism, late British colonialism and Malaysian and Singaporean independence. Essentially, I argue that the film music produced during this period articulates a cosmopolitan aesthetic of postcolonial nation-making based on a conception of Malay ethnonationalism that was initially fluid, but eventually became homogenised as national culture. Drawing theoretically on how cosmopolitan practices are constituted within discursive and structural contexts, this thesis analyses how Malay film music covertly expressed radical ideas despite being produced within a commercial film industry. While non-Malay collaborators owned and produced such films that were subject to British censorship, Malay composers such as P. Ramlee and Zubir Said helmed the musical authorship of such films; thereby, enabling an expressive space for their Malaynationalist aspirations. Methodologically, the study unravels the complexities and paradoxes of emergent nation-making through an intertextual analysis of Malay film music; drawing on film narratives, musical and historiographical analysis, literature surveys, and ethnographic fieldwork. I argue that Malay film music from the independence-era could not be confined by rigid ethno-national boundaries when its very aesthetic foundations were pluralistic and contemporaneous with the history of constant change, exchange, interactivity and diversity in the Malay world. This thesis reveals that despite the forced homogeneity of Malay nationalism, Malay film music from the independence-era challenged a limited conception of ethno-national identity. The aspiring and inspiring cosmopolitan ‘frameworks’ of P. Ramlee’s and Zubir Said’s music reverberates in new interpretations of identity, independence, and musical expression in the Malay world.

In South Louisiana in the late 1950s, Ville Platte native Floyd Soileau joined a network of independent recording companies across the United States that provided an opportunity for local entrepreneurs and artists to profit from the global music industry. This paper analyzes the album covers of Floyd Soileau’s Cajun recording label, Swallow Records, during the 1960s-1970s. This period overlaps with a movement to subvert a negative regional identity among Louisiana Cajuns that is often referred to as the Cajun revival. Through a consideration of album covers as objects of business strategy and creative expression, as well as oral histories with individuals who worked with Swallow Records, this paper argues that Floyd Soileau shaped the perception of Cajun music and people through the channels of the global music industry. On the album covers of Swallow Records, Floyd Soileau marketed a Cajun identity that was rural, white, masculine, and French-speaking, and became an accidental facilitator of the social and political goals of leaders in the Cajun revival.