Playing for Keeps: Improvisation in the Aftermath

by Daniel Fischlin (Editor), Eric Porter (Editor)

Overview

The contributors to Playing for Keeps examine the ways in which musical improvisation can serve as a method for negotiating violence, trauma, systemic inequality, and the aftermaths of war and colonialism. Outlining the relation of improvisatory practices to local and global power structures, they show how in sites as varied as South Africa, Canada, Egypt, the United States, and the Canary Islands, improvisation provides the means for its participants to address the past and imagine the future. In addition to essays, the volume features a poem by saxophonist Matana Roberts, an interview with pianist Vijay Iyer about his work with U.S. veterans of color, and drawings by artist Randy DuBurke that chart Nina Simone's politicization. Throughout, the contributors illustrate how improvisation functions as a model for political, cultural, and ethical dialogue and action that can foster the creation of alternate modes of being and knowing in the world.

Contributors. Randy DuBurke, Rana El Kadi, Kevin Fellezs, Daniel Fischlin, Kate Galloway, Reem Abdul Hadi, Vijay Iyer, Mark Lomanno, Moshe Morad, Eric Porter, Sara Ramshaw, Matana Roberts, Darci Sprengel, Paul Stapleton, Odeh Turjman, Stephanie Vos

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478009122
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	04/24/2020
Series:	Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Daniel Fischlin is University Research Chair and Professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph and coauthor of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Improvisation, Rights, and the Ethics of Co-creation, also published by Duke University Press.

Eric Porter is Professor of History and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and coauthor of New Orleans Suite: Music and Culture in Transition.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  ix
Playing for Keeps: An Introduction / Daniel Fischlin and Eric Porter  1
1. manifesto / Matana Roberts  25
2. The Exhibition of Vandalizim: Improvising Healing, Politics, and Film in South Africa / Stephanie Vos  29
3. The Rigors of Afro/Canarian Jazz: Sounding Peripheral Vision with Severed Tongues / Mark Lomanno  55
4. "Opening Up a Space That Maybe Wouldn't Exist Otherwise" / Holding It Down in the Aftermath / Vijay Iyer in conversation with Daniel Fischlin and Eric Porter  81
5. Experimental and Improvised Norths: The Sonic Geographies of Tanya Tagaq's Collaborations with Derek Charke and the Kronos Quartet / Kate Galloway  94
6. Nina Simone: CIVIL JAZZ! / Randy DuBurke  121
7. Free Improvised Music in Postwar Beirut: Differential Sounds, Intersectarian Collaborations, and Critical Collective Memory / Rana El Kadi  129
8. Street Concerts and Sexual Harassment in Post-Mubarak Egypt: Tarab as Affective Politics / Darci Sprengel  160
9. Improvisation, Grounded Humanity, and Witnessing in Palestine: An Interview with Al-Mada's Odeh Turjman and Reem Abdul Hadi / Daniel Fischlin  191
10. Silsulim (Improvised "Curls") in the Vocal Performance of Israeli Popular Music: Identity, Power, and Politics / Moshe Morad  250
11. Three Moments in Kī Hō'alu (Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar): Improvising as a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) Adaptive Strategy / Kevin Fellezs  275
12. From Prepeace to Postconflict: The Ethics of (Non) Listening and Cocreation in a Divided Society / Sara Ramshaw and Paul Stapleton  300
Contributors  325
Index  331

What People are Saying About This

Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium - John Corbett

“Casting an eye on the world of improvisation, Playing for Keeps is a major corrective to the latent ethnocentrism of improvisation studies and shifts the field's focus in a revolutionary way. The volume challenges readers to think more carefully and critically about the status of improvisation in various traditional cultural contexts and the intersection of those contexts found in contemporary society. A smart, decisive statement on globalism and improvisation.”

Editorial Reviews

"This is a rewarding project that is already extended by a special edition of the Journal Critical Studies In Improvisation and is to be further extended in a companion book now in progress."

The Wire - Phil England

"Playing for Keeps collects critical, thoughtfully selected on how musical improvisation can respond to and through trauma. . . . Case studies in this collection illustrate global improvisatory practices, framing them as solutions to encounters with difference that have failed in the past. These solutions seem especially timely for a world reckoning with dual crises: racism and disease. Each case study testifies to improvisation’s power to maintain and restore dignity through dialogic exchanges of creative response to horrific injustices, exchanges that facilitate co-creation of new community identities with an eye toward nurturing rather than perpetuating destruction. . . . Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals."

Choice - S. Schmalenberger

With beautifully written individual chapters on different musical events and communities, and each writer’s interpretation of improvisation in their research topic, [Playing for Keeps] is significant as a collection of essays, and builds upon the growing field of interdisciplinary critical research on improvisation.

Jazz Perspectives - Rebecca Zola

[Playing for a Keeps] is a beacon of hope in times of crisis and will continue to be a reference point as the aftermaths of current crises persist in the years to come. The authors all outline ways in which improvisatory musics—and, more fundamentally, improvisation itself—can help those who suffer through and navigate crises and, afterward, salve the psychological wounds of the survivors.

Current Musicology - Mike Ford

Casting an eye on the world of improvisation, Playing for Keeps is a major corrective to the latent ethnocentrism of improvisation studies and shifts the field's focus in a revolutionary way. The volume challenges readers to think more carefully and critically about the status of improvisation in various traditional cultural contexts and the intersection of those contexts found in contemporary society. A smart, decisive statement on globalism and improvisation.

Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium - John Corbett

"I was deeply touched by the description of your experience of our visit to Ramallah and the camps together. I would sincerely hope that your book will be read by more than the academics and intelligentsia, it’s very important."

John McLaughlin

"A major academic achievement, Playing for Keeps: Improvisation In The Aftermath is an enlightening examination of different manifestations of improvisation, their transforming possibilities, and of the ethics of listening."

All About Jazz - Ian Patterson