Finalist for the 2019 Jazz Journalists Association Book of the Year About Jazz, Jazz Awards for Journalism "Is there jazz in China?" This is the question that sent author Eugene Marlow on his quest to uncover the history of jazz in China. Marlow traces China's introduction to jazz in the early 1920s, its interruption by Chinese leadership under Mao in 1949, and its rejuvenation in the early 1980s with the start of China's opening to the world under Premier Deng Xiaoping. Covering a span of almost one hundred years, Marlow focuses on a variety of subjects--the musicians who initiated jazz performances in China, the means by which jazz was incorporated into Chinese culture, and the musicians and venues that now present jazz performances. Featuring unique, face-to-face interviews with leading indigenous jazz musicians in Beijing and Shanghai, plus interviews with club owners, promoters, expatriates, and even diplomats, Marlow marks the evolution of jazz in China as it parallels China's social, economic, and political evolution through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Also featured is an interview with one of the extant members of the Jimmy King Big Band of the 1940s, one of the first major all-Chinese jazz big bands in Shanghai. Ultimately, Jazz in China: From Dance Hall Music to Individual Freedom of Expression is a cultural history that reveals the inexorable evolution of a democratic form of music in a Communist state.

Based on interviews, conversations, and observations drawn from extensive field research, Jazz in Contemporary China: Shifting Sounds, Rising Scenes explores the current developments and conditions of Chinese jazz. Negotiating socio-political, cultural, and spatial phenomena, the author provides unique insights for understanding China’s modern history through its happenings in jazz, unveiling an insider’s look at the musicians and individuals who populate and propel these scenes. This first-hand perspective illuminates how jazz generates and disseminates practices of creativity and individuality in twenty-first-century China.

Shortlisted for the EuroSEAS Humanities Book Prize 2022 Quyền Văn Minh (b. 1954) is not only a jazz saxophonist and lecturer at the prestigious Vietnam National Academy of Music, but he is also one of the most preeminent jazz musicians in Vietnam. Considered a pioneer in the country, Minh is often publicly recognized as the “godfather of Vietnamese jazz.” Playing Jazz in Socialist Vietnam tells the story of the music as it intertwined with Minh’s own narrative. Stan BH Tan-Tangbau details Minh’s life story, telling how Minh pioneered jazz as an original genre even while navigating the trials and tribulations of a fervent socialist revolution, of the ideological battle that was the Cold War, of Vietnam’s war against the United States, and of the political changes during the Đổi Mới period between the mid-1980s and the 1990s. Minh worked tirelessly and delivered two breakthrough solo recitals in 1988 and 1989, marking the first time jazz was performed in the public sphere in the socialist state. To gain jazz acceptance as a mainstream musical art form, Minh founded Minh Jazz Club. With the release of his debut album of original compositions in 2000, Minh shaped the nascent genre of Vietnamese jazz. Minh’s endeavors kickstarted the momentum, from his performing jazz in public, teaching jazz both formally and informally, and contributing to the shaping of an original Vietnamese voice to stand out among the many styles in the jazz world. Most importantly, Minh generated a public space for musicians to play and for the Vietnamese to listen. His work eventually helped to gain jazz the credibility necessary at the national conservatoire to offer instruction in a professional music education program.

Global Jazz: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography that explores the global impact of jazz, detailing the evolution of the African American musical tradition as it has been absorbed, transformed, and expanded across the world’s historical, political, and social landscapes. With more than 1,300 annotated entries, this vast compilation covers a broad range of subjects, people, and geographic regions as they relate to interdisciplinary research in jazz studies. The result is a vivid demonstration of how cultures from every corner of the globe have situated jazz—often regarded as America’s classical music—within and beyond their own musical traditions, creating new artistic forms in the process. Global Jazz: A Research and Information Guide presents jazz as a common musical language in a global landscape of diverse artistic expression.

Jazz and Totalitarianism examines jazz in a range of regimes that in significant ways may be described as totalitarian, historically covering the period from the Franco regime in Spain beginning in the 1930s to present day Iran and China. The book presents an overview of the two central terms and their development since their contemporaneous appearance in cultural and historiographical discourses in the early twentieth century, comprising fifteen essays written by specialists on particular regimes situated in a wide variety of time periods and places. Interdisciplinary in nature, this compelling work will appeal to students from Music and Jazz Studies to Political Science, Sociology, and Cultural Theory.

The Routledge Companion to Diasporic Jazz Studies recognizes the proliferation of jazz as global music in the 21st century. It illustrates the multi-vocality of contemporary jazz studies, combining local narratives, global histories, and cultural criticism. It rests on the argument that diasporic jazz is not a passive, second-hand reflection of music originating in the US, but possesses its own integrity, vitality, and distinctive range of identities. This companion reveals the contradictions of cultural globalization from which diasporic jazz cultures emerge, through 45 chapters within seven thematic parts: • What is Diasporic Jazz? • Histories and Counter-Narratives • Making, Disseminating, and Consuming Diasporic Jazz • Culture, Politics, and Ideology • Communities and Distinctions • Presenting and Representing Diasporic Jazz • Challenges and New Directions The Routledge Companion to Diasporic Jazz Studies traces how cultural dynamics related to "race", coloniality, gender, and politics traverse and shape jazz. Employing a cross section of approaches to the study of diasporic jazz as eloquently showcased by the entries, this book seeks to challenge the dominant jazz narratives through championing a more all-encompassing, multi-paradigmatic alternative. Bringing together contributions from authors all over the world, this volume is a vital resource for scholars of jazz, as well as professionals in the music industries and those interested in learning about the cultural and historical origins of jazz.

First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Jazz in Socialist Hà Nội: Improvisations between Worlds examines the germination and growth of jazz under communist rule—perceived as the "music of the enemy" and "ideologically decadent"—in the Vietnamese capital of Hà Nội. After disappearing from the scene in 1954 following the end of the First Indochina War, jazz reemerged in the public sphere decades later at the end of the Cold War. Since then, Hà Nội has established itself as a vital and vibrant jazz center, complete with a full jazz program in the national conservatoire. Featuring interviews with principal players involved in cultivating the scene from past to present, this book presents the sociocultural encounters between musicians and the larger powers enmeshed in the broader political economy, detailing jazz’s journey to garner respect comparable to classical music as an art form possessing high artistic value. Ethnographical sketches explore how Vietnamese musicians learn and play jazz while sustaining and nurturing the scene, providing insight as to how jazz managed to grow in such an environment. Jazz in Socialist Hà Nội sheds light on those underlying caveats that allow Vietnamese jazz musicians to navigate the middle grounds between "worlds"—between music and politics—not as an act of resistance, but as realisation of artistic expression.

A BOOK BY GREG HENRY WATERS THE DEATH OF A MUSICIAN “A Composer of Art Music and the Dark Age of Music” by Greg Henry Waters Mark Twain, said, "to do something that no one else did is the real joy of life." This is what I am trying to do. We have to create a real culture not let the McDonald culture take over. I like gentleness in music. We need gentleness in the world not force. God is gentle. If music be the voice of God it should be gentle. This book is dedicated to al the people whom have participated in my life! Special Thanks to Steve Devitt and Kirsten Borg for thinking the book is important! Also to my two most important teachers, Bianca Rogge and Alfred Schmielewski! (Yogi Narayana)