CfP:Jazz and Cultural Identity: In and Out of Europe, June 7th, Lancashire

Jazz and Cultural Identity: In and Out of Europe

A One-Day Conference with George McKay, Catherine Tackley and Alyn Shipton, June 7th 2019, University of Central Lancashire

This conference will bring together the latest research in jazz as it has been appropriated, assimilated and created/recreated in European culture. As the question of Europe is being put under pressure by Brexit and nationalist movements across the continent, this conference will seek to situate jazz as both a marginal and mainstream cultural practice which is inherently borderless and multivalent.

We invite papers which explore the intersections between jazz and European music, analyse key performers and genres which have emerged out of European jazz movements, contextualise the development of jazz in Europe in terms of cultural, political and historical forces, or offer new insights into the current state-of-play in contemporary European jazz. The conference committee will consider a broad range of jazz, from trad jazz to free jazz, from gypsy jazz to Nordic jazz, and will be particularly interested in the environments which jazz flourishes and how these have shaped the music’s reception and development in Europe, including festivals, jazz clubs, journals and conservatoires.

Keynote speakers include George McKay, Catherine Tackley and Alyn Shipton.

The conference is supported by the Arts Council and registration for the conference is free.

The conference is organised by Tom Sykes and Stuart Hampton-Reeves and forms part of the Preston Jazz and Improvisation Festival. Discounted tickets for the festival will be available to delegates, including a concert by Stochelo Rosenberg and Paulus Schafer, two of the leading exponents of gypsy jazz.

To submit a paper please email a 200 word abstract to shampton-reeves(at)uclan.ac.uk by 23rd April. We are also interested in proposals with a performance element.