Description
Book SynopsisMaking Jazz in Contemporary Japan: A Passionate Search for Self-Expression explores the ways in which Japanese jazz musicians express themselves through their artnot to japanize jazz, but to assert one's creativity, passion, and capacity for self-expressionestablishing it as an art form with its own sense of musicality and cultural, social, and economic concerns. This ethnographic survey contextualizes a shift in the Japanese jazz world over the last 30 years: What once was a culture dependent on the American influence is now a thriving local scene creating a wide variety of original, transnational compositions. Based on digital and physical observations and extensive interviews with nearly three dozen Japanese professional jazz musicians while featuring portraits of well-known artists, this empirical investigation into how, where, and why jazz is performed, opens doors to touch on culturally sensitive and taboo topics such as gender, sexuality, and indigenization. Suited for
