“Locating Jazz in Musika, an Indonesian Cosmopolitan Lifestyle Magazine” by Otto Stuparitz by (Vol. 7, Iss. 2)

This article analyzes the Indonesian popular music magazine Musika, published from 1958–1959, through an examination of the long-term embeddedness of jazz in Indonesia’s popular culture. Stuparitz draws upon theories of the public sphere from jazz studies and Southeast Asian studies to unpack the ways in which jazz was mediatized by members of Indonesia’s 1950s cultural industries. He argues that jazz was and remains a meaningful locus for public debate regarding musical and nonmusical concerns, such as aesthetics and social class, in postcolonial Indonesia.

Playing the Changes: Jazz at an African University and on the Road

By Darius Brubeck and Catherine Brubeck

Frank and richly detailed, Playing the Changes provides insiders’ accounts of how jazz intertwined with struggle and both expressed and resisted the bitter unfairness of apartheid-era South Africa.

“!We Are Not Jazz¡ Liminal Jazz in the Music of La Distritofónica, Bogotá, Colombia” by Diego Alberto Gómez Nieto (Vol. 7, Iss. 1)

The present article examines the problem that arises in the relationship between jazz, experimental music, and sense of place. Considering the music of La Distritofónica, a musical collective from Bogotá, Colombia, the author discusses hegemonic definitions of jazz that conceive the problem of music ontology from an aural perspective. He argues that it is in the intersubjective communicative condition of free improvisation that an ontology can be located that explains the music of La Distritofónica in relation to Bogotá, allowing him to decenter the notions of a “work of art” or “standard” as the dominant conceptualization of jazz music.

Beyond the Bandstand: Paul Whiteman in American Musical Culture

Edited by W. Anthony Sheppard

Multifaceted and cutting-edge, Beyond the Bandstand explores the racial politics and artistic questions surrounding a controversial figure in popular music.

*OPEN ACCESS*  “JazzTok: Creativity, Community, and Improvisation on TikTok” by D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye (Vol. 6, Iss. 2)

Digital platforms provide many avenues for musicians to organize, share information, and collaborate on projects remotely, though some crucial aspects, like jazz improvisation, are harder to substitute online. Amid various other methods to facilitate digital performances, some musicians are experimenting with improvisation on short video platforms, such as TikTok. This article presents a case study of JazzTok, a digital collective of musicians who create and share jazz arrangements, recorded and edited by members of the community remotely on TikTok.

Jazz Radio America

By Aaron J. Johnson

An interwoven story of a music and a medium, Jazz Radio America answers perennial questions about why certain kinds of jazz get played and why even that music is played in so few places.

“‘We Had Our Own Jazz Bands’: A Five-Bar Intro to Jazz in Lagos, 1950–1990^” by Oladele Ayorinde (Vol. 6, Iss. 1)

In this article, Ayorinde provides an introduction to jazz and its culture in Nigeria, with a focus on the development of jazz between 1950 and 1990 in Lagos, drawing on archives, oral histories, and more. In so doing, he asks: what might knowledge of the development of jazz in Lagos mean for, or contribute to, the understanding of jazz in Nigeria? By considering jazz as a socially defined “thing” (in the sense proposed by Arjun Appadurai), this article focuses on the social life of jazz.