Event overview
Launching Dr Tom Perchard's latest book: 'After Django: Making Jazz in Postwar France'
How did French musicians and critics interpret jazz—that quintessentially American music—in the mid-twentieth century? How far did players reshape what they learned from records and visitors into more local jazz forms, and how did the music figure in those angry debates that so often suffused French cultural and political life? 'After Django' begins with the famous interwar triumphs of Josephine Baker and Django Reinhardt, but, for the first time, the focus here falls on the French jazz practices of the postwar era. The work of important but neglected French musicians such as André Hodeir and Barney Wilen is examined in depth, as are native responses to Americans such as Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. The book provides an original intertwining of musical and historical narrative, supported by extensive archival work; in clear and compelling prose, Perchard describes the problematic efforts towards aesthetic assimilation and transformation made by those concerned with jazz in fact and in idea, listening to the music as it sounded in discourses around local identity, art, 1968 radicalism, social democracy, and post colonial politics.
Tom Perchard developed a strong interest in music just in time for hip-hop's so-called ‘golden age’, following which he began exploring the African American music tradition in retrograde, becoming fascinated at first by soul and then by jazz. His interests have subsequently expanded to include various European art musics. Tom took his BMus, MMus and PhD degrees at Goldsmiths, his thesis being a critical and biographical study of the jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan. After completion of his PhD he taught and was programme director at the University of Westminster, before returning to Goldsmiths in 2008, where he is now Senior Lecturer in Music. With Professor Keith Negus, Tom is co-director of Goldsmiths’ Popular Music Research Unit.
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The Music Research Series is designed to help postgraduate students advance their research and careers. The events stimulate exchange, hones skills, facilitates the creation of professional networks and helps to consolidate the department’s postgraduate community. Attendance is strongly recommended for all postgraduate students (MA, MMus and PGR) in Music but of course undergraduates, music researchers, and visitors from across the college and the community are also most welcome to these public lectures.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 10 Mar 2015 | 5:00pm - 6:30pm |
Accessibility
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