Jazz Cultures: Disruption in Jazz Publishing

Over the past 20 years, jazz publishing has grown exponentially to the point where the field now boasts a number of internationally peer-reviewed journals (Jazz Perspectives, Jazz Research Journal, Jazz and Culture, Epistrophy, Jazz-hitz, etc.) book series (Routledge’s ‘Transnational Studies in Jazz, OUP’s ‘Studies in Recorded Jazz’, Michigan’s ‘Jazz Perspectives’ etc.), and edited collections devoted to expanding the scope of New Jazz Studies research. This session draws on perspectives from current editors who will discuss ways in which their publications attempt to disrupt existing approaches to jazz studies research.

The session will include short presentations from Ádám Havas (co-editor for the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Diasporic Jazz Studies), Judit Csobod (reviews editor for Jazz Research Journal), Roger Fagge (co-editor of the forthcoming Rethinking Miles Davis anthology with OUP) and Tony Whyton (co-editor of the ‘Transnational Studies in Jazz’ series with Routledge).

About the speakers:

Judit Csobod is an enthusiast of music cultures, a supporter of socially and politically involved arts, and a veteran fan of free improvised music and punk. Over the years she has been involved with various independent organizations across Europe, among them the Mediawave Foundation in Hungary, Amsterdam’s Doek collective, and Barefoot Records in Copenhagen. She is now working on her PhD dissertation; a research project investigating the changing political horizons in European improvised music scenes.

Roger Fagge is an Associate Professor in the department of History, University of Warwick. He teaches and researches on social and cultural history. Recent works included a study of Eric Hobsbawm as a jazz critic, and co-editing with Nicolas Pillai, New Jazz Conceptions: History, Theory, Practice. He co-organised with Nicholas Gebhardt the AHRC ‘Jazz and Everyday Aesthetics’ network which included a special double issue of Jazz Research Journal. He is currently working on an edited collection with Nicolas Pillai and Tim Wall, on Rethinking Miles Davis, and a longer study of the jazz aesthetic in mid C20 Britain.

Ádám Havas is a sociologist, jazz researcher and recipient of the Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship to be based at the University of Barcelona (CECUPS) from 2022 fall. He was the chair of IASPM Hungary (2018–2020) and is currently a member of the editorial board at Jazz Research Journal. Together with Bruce Johnson and David Horn, he is co-editing the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Diasporic Jazz Studies and a special issue on the Global Jazz Diaspora at Popular Music & Society, and the author of his monograph, The Genesis of the Hungarian Jazz Diaspora (Routledge, May 2022).

Tony Whyton is Professor of Jazz Studies at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University. As an editor, Whyton has developed several international publications, including Jazz Research Journal (2004-2019), the Jazz volume of the Ashgate Library of Essays on Popular Music (2011),the Routledge Companion to Jazz Studies (2018) and a special issue of The International Journal of Heritage Studies (2020) focused on European jazz festivals. In 2014, he founded the Routledge series Transnational Studies in Jazz alongside BCU colleague Dr Nicholas Gebhardt; the series now boasts over 20 contracted titles.