Gordon Stretton, Black British Transoceanic Jazz Pioneer by Brocken Michael;Daniels Jeff; & Jeff Daniels

Author:Brocken, Michael;Daniels, Jeff; & Jeff Daniels
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781498574471
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2018-08-14T09:22:43+00:00

Celebration: The Latin American Adventure; Brazil and Argentina

181Chapter 8

Celebration! Gordon Stretton and Transoceanic Jazz

According to Jeff Daniels and Howard Rye, during the immediate post-WWI period in Paris, the hybrid jazz sounds of New York, rather than New Orleans, created an intersection between African American music as exotica and habitus. As one consequence, new forms of social and cultural identities emerged in the city around jazz. Black Liverpudlian Gordon Stretton transported these sounds across Europe and the Atlantic to further stimulate and hybridize transoceanic musical exchanges and cross-fertilizations. However, owing to earlier forms of imperial colonialism, many convoluted and unpredictable musical and social hybrids and pathways already existed across most Latin American states. Indeed many were represented by African authenticities in the first place, and these linked together for some with anti-American oppositions.

In fact, African-derived forms of music across Latin America contributed towards an immense and convoluted musical mosaic (or mestizo). In some Latin American countries, this was more prominent than in others and depended upon how much (or how little) European roots predominated. For example, in Argentina and Uruguay Hispanic culture was very strong, whereas in Brazil mestizo was far more common. This chapter will propose that Black Liverpudlian musician Gordon Stretton and his jazz band were probably the first Black jazz musicians to introduce variations of authentic African American-style jazz music to the country of Brazil in the early twentieth century. In doing so, it will also be suggested that Stretton constructed and then articulated a new genre world through complex interplays and mediations between his form of jazz and pre-existing ideologies. Rather than merely define his style of jazz through the ways he performed it, he negotiated meaning through the many ways jazz came to be interpreted and valued. Jazz was therefore far more than simply an imported style of music, 182but one which had to modify and mutate according to the ordering processes and rules that had been established across a wide variety of differing cultures within Brazil itself.

All mobile musicians eventually come to be faced with the reality of changing receptions and interpretations. A musician who creates pathways along which music is played and heard simply has to accept the fact that at some stage his or her musical kinetics will come up against frameworks that view cultural forms as part of an arsenal in a strategic battle over social power and control. Some societies are rich in cultural resources, while others are not, therefore all societies across the globe use music as a socio-cultural resource. Music has specific functions: traditions and authenticities play very important emotional and political parts when displaying vital aspects of culture which (for example) might be under threat. One might describe a great deal of musical traditions as retaining elements of the cosmological: messages about representation, social inequalities, race relations (or lack thereof), traditions, etc. Further, music and songs can also be organizational in that they bring people together in displays of solidarity and opposition, representing those who feel marginalized and kept in a state of ignorance by (say) a racially divided society.

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