scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Journal ArticleDOI

Just a closer walk with thee: New Orleans-style jazz and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1950s Britain

01 Oct 2003-Popular Music (Cambridge University Press)-Vol. 22, Iss: 3, pp 261-281
TL;DR: In this article, a particular moment in the relation between popular music and social protest, focusing on the traditional (trad) jazz scene of the 1950s in Britain, is discussed.
Abstract: This article looks at a particular moment in the relation between popular music and social protest, focusing on the traditional (trad) jazz scene of the 1950s in Britain. The research has a number of aims. One is to reconsider a cultural form dismissed, even despised by critics. Another is to contribute to the political project of cultural studies, via the uncomplicated strategy of focusing on music that accompanies political activism. Here the article employs material from a number of personal interviews with activists, musicians, fans from the time, focusing on the political development of the New Orleans-style parade band in Britain, which is presented as a leftist marching music of the streets. The article also seeks to shift the balance slightly in the study of a social movement organisation (the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, CND), from considering it in terms of its ‘official’ history towards its cultural contribution, even innovation. Finally, the article looks at neglected questions around Americanisation and jazz music, with particular reference to power and the past.

Content maybe subject to copyright    Report

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explored the intellectual biography and diverse artistic, literary and cultural production of Jeff Nuttall, a significant, if underacknowledged, figure on the British underground scene in the Sixties, arguing that Nuttall played an important international role as a catalyst and co-ordinator of countercultural events and activities through his involvement with small press publications, as an early instigator of 'happenings' and 'performance art' in the UK, and as a correspondent, networker and commentator.
Abstract: This essay explores the intellectual biography and diverse artistic, literary and cultural production of Jeff Nuttall – a significant, if underacknowledged, figure on the British ‘underground’ scene in the Sixties. It argues that Nuttall played an important international role as a catalyst and co-ordinator of ‘countercultural’ events and activities through his involvement with small press publications, as an early instigator of ‘happenings’ and ‘performance art’ in the UK, and as a correspondent, networker and commentator. In particular, it addresses Nuttall’s understanding that ‘imagination’ and ‘affect’ could be allied with collective possibilities for emancipatory social change, as well as liberatory personal development. Finally, it briefly considers the currency of these ideas within the context of a new articulation of how a ‘politics of possibility’ may be informed by notions of embodied and transmitted affectivity.

23 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper explored the connection between politics and music and proposed a framework to make sense of, and give due weight to, the place of music as organised sound in political thought and action.
Abstract: This article explores the connection between politics and music; in particular it asks how music might be incorporated into accounts of political thought and action. Despite the fact that political science has tended to neglect the place of music in politics, there are a number of writers, such as Jean‐Jacques Rousseau, who have taken a different course. For them, music is intimately linked, via its aesthetics, to ethical judgements and to social order. The article develops these latter claims and connects them to work of a similar kind in music studies to propose a framework which helps to make sense of, and give due weight to, the place of music – as organised sound – in political thought and action. Music, it is argued, should not be viewed just as a footnote to, or appendage of, political thought and action, but rather as an integral feature of them.

17 citations


Cites background from "Just a closer walk with thee: New O..."

  • ...(McKay 2003: 267) What this account hints at – and what McKay develops at length – is the idea that music can form a ‘bridge’ with political ideas, investing those ideas with emotional significance, rather as Bennett imagines....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
23 Feb 2007-parallax
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors look at the marching bands of different socio-political and cultural contexts, primarily British, and explore questions of the construction or repositioning of urban space via music'how the sound of music can alter spaces'; participation, pleasure and the political body; subculture and identity.
Abstract: What happens in social movements when people actually move, how does the mobile moment of activism contribute to mobilisation? Are they marching or dancing? How is the space of action, the street itself, altered, re-sounded? The employment of street music in the very specific context of political protest remains a curiously under-researched aspect of cultural politics in social movements.... By looking at the marching bands of different socio- political and cultural contexts, primarily British, I aim to further current understanding of the idea and history of street music itself, as well as explore questions of the construction or repositioning of urban space via music'how the sound of music can alter spaces'; participation, pleasure and the political body; subculture and identity.

11 citations

Book Chapter
08 Jun 2000
TL;DR: The British Brass Band: Bands as mentioned in this paper is the most comprehensive and detailed study of the British brass band and its relationship with broader spheres of social and cultural history, including the bands of the Salvation Army.
Abstract: Description of The British Brass Band: The British Brass Band is based on an earlier volume, Bands, published by Open University Press (1991) as part of its Popular Music in Britain Series. It was hailed as the most detailed and scholarly treatment of its subject. For the present volume, the original chapters have been heavily revised and an additional three chapters added, together with new and extensive appendices, numerous illustrations, a bibliography, and a new introduction. The new material includes studies on brass band repertoire, performance practices, and the bands of the Salvation Army. The contributors are the pre-eminent authorities on the subject. The work as a whole can be taken as a study of both a unique (and often misunderstood) aspect of British music, and its interaction with broader spheres of social and cultural history. It is the most detailed and definitive study of the subject.

5 citations

References
More filters
BookDOI
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: The Politics of Performance as mentioned in this paper addresses fundamental questions about the social and political purposes of performance through an investigation into post-war alternative and community theatre, and proposes a theory of performace as ideological transaction, cultural intervention and community action.
Abstract: The Politics of Performance^ addresses fundamental questions about the social and political purposes of performance through an investigation into post-war alternative and community theatre. It proposes a theory of performace as ideological transaction, cultural intervention and community action, which is used to illuminate the potential social and political effects of radical performance practice. It raises issues about the nature of alternative theatre as a movement and the aesthetics of its styles of production, especially in relation to progressive counter-cultural formations. It analyses in detail the work of key practitioners in socially engaged theatre during four decades, setting each in the context of social, political and cultural history and focusing particularly on how they used that context to enhance the potential efficacy of their productions. The book is thus a detailed analysis of oppositional theatre as radical cultural practice in its various efforts to subvert the status quo. Its purpose is to raise the profile of these approaches to performance by proposing, and demonstrating how they may have had a significant impact on social and political history.

424 citations

Book
01 Jan 1985

168 citations


"Just a closer walk with thee: New O..." refers background in this paper

  • ...For instance, Iain Chambers writes that – at the time of bebop and the beginnings of free jazz, after all – white trad could ‘conveniently overlook’ the ‘new, black militant musical consciousness’ of the times by ‘nostalgically evoking a mythical New Orleans of around 1900’ (Chambers 1985, p. 48)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The mainstream: CND in embryo - the National Council Against Nuclear Weapons Tests formation and advance - the early years of CND, 1958-1960 problems and decline - CND 1961-1965.
Abstract: Introduction. Part 1 The mainstream: CND in embryo - the National Council Against Nuclear Weapons Tests formation and advance - the early years of CND, 1958-1960 problems and decline - CND 1961-1965. Part 2 The radicals: the Direct Action Committee - Gandhian pacifism and the nuclear issue the Committee of 100 - mass civil disobedience, radical politics and the peace movement. Part 3 The Socialist dimension: the Labour movement and the peace issue, 1957-1964 Marxists and nuclear disarmament postscript - nuclear protest and radical change. Bibliography. Index.

52 citations

Book
21 Feb 1975

44 citations


"Just a closer walk with thee: New O..." refers background in this paper

  • ...(Boulton 1958, p. 137) We have seen that the reinvigorated ‘music of the people’ Boulton desires (presumably after Finkelstein 1948) was, in its original African-American form, precisely that....

    [...]