Jazz and Death

<p><em>Jazz and Death: Reception Rituals and Representations</em> critically examines the myriad and complex interactions between jazz and death from the New Orleans jazz funeral to jazz in heaven or hell final recordings jazz monuments and the music’s own presumed death. It looks at how fans critics journalists historians writers the media and musicians have narrated mythologized and relayed those stories. What causes the fascination of the jazz world with its deaths? What does it say about how our culture views jazz and its practitioners? Is jazz somehow a fatal culture?</p><p>The narratives surrounding jazz and death cast a light on how the music and its creators are perceived. Stories of jazz musicians typically bring up different tropes ranging from the tragic misunderstood genius to the notion that virtuosity somehow comes at a price. Many of these narratives tend to perpetuate the gendered and racialized stereotypes that have been part of jazz’s history. In the end the ideas that encompass jazz and death help audiences find meaning in a complex musical practice and come to grips with the passing of their revered musical heroes -- and possibly with their own mortality.</p>