Saturday, May 30, 2026

Global Jazz: A Research and Information Guide

 


Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco

 


Disco may be the most universally derided musical form to come about in the past forty years. Yet, like its pop cultural peers punk and hip hop, it was born of a period of profound social and economic upheaval. In Turn the Beat Around, critic and journalist Peter Shapiro traces the history of disco music and culture. From the outset, disco was essentially a shotgun marriage between a newly out and proud gay sexuality and the first generation of post-civil rights African Americans, all to the serenade of the recently developed synthesizer. Shapiro maps out these converging influences, as well as disco's cultural antecedents in Europe, looks at the history of DJing, explores the mainstream disco craze at it's apex, and details the long shadow cast by disco's performers and devotees on today's musical landscape.

One part cultural study, one part urban history, and one part glitter-pop confection,
Turn the Beat Around is the most comprehensive study of the Me Generation to date.

 

 Peter Shapiro (Author)

 

Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound

 


Pink Noises brings together twenty-four interviews with women in electronic music and sound cultures, including club and radio DJs, remixers, composers, improvisers, instrument builders, and installation and performance artists. The collection is an extension of Pinknoises.com, the critically-acclaimed website founded by musician and scholar Tara Rodgers in 2000 to promote women in electronic music and make information about music production more accessible to women and girls. That site featured interviews that Rodgers conducted with women artists, exploring their personal histories, their creative methods, and the roles of gender in their work. This book offers new and lengthier interviews, a critical introduction, and resources for further research and technological engagement.

Contemporary electronic music practices are illuminated through the stories of women artists of different generations and cultural backgrounds. They include the creators of ambient soundscapes, “performance novels,” sound sculptures, and custom software, as well as the developer of the Deep Listening philosophy and the founders of the Liquid Sound Lounge radio show and the monthly Basement Bhangra parties in New York. These and many other artists open up about topics such as their conflicted relationships to formal music training and mainstream media representations of women in electronic music. They discuss using sound to work creatively with structures of time and space, and voice and language; challenge distinctions of nature and culture; question norms of technological practice; and balance their needs for productive solitude with collaboration and community. Whether designing and building modular synthesizers with analog circuits or performing with a wearable apparatus that translates muscle movements into electronic sound, these artists expand notions of who and what counts in matters of invention, production, and noisemaking. Pink Noises is a powerful testimony to the presence and vitality of women in electronic music cultures, and to the relevance of sound to feminist concerns.

Interviewees: Maria Chavez, Beth Coleman (M. Singe), Antye Greie (AGF), Jeannie Hopper, Bevin Kelley (Blevin Blectum), Christina Kubisch, Le Tigre, Annea Lockwood, Giulia Loli (DJ Mutamassik), Rekha Malhotra (DJ Rekha), Riz Maslen (Neotropic), Kaffe Matthews, Susan Morabito, Ikue Mori, Pauline Oliveros, Pamela Z, Chantal Passamonte (Mira Calix), Maggi Payne, Eliane Radigue, Jessica Rylan, Carla Scaletti, Laetitia Sonami, Bev Stanton (Arthur Loves Plastic), Keiko Uenishi (o.blaat)

 

 Tara Rodgers (Author)

 

Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory

 


Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory is the first comprehensive study of the musical structure and social history of klezmer music, the music of the Jewish musicians' guild of Eastern Europe. Emerging in 16th century Prague, the klezmer became a central cultural feature of the largest transnational Jewish community of modern times - the Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe. Much of the musical and choreographic history of the Ashkenazim is embedded in the klezmer repertoire, which functioned as a kind of non-verbal communal memory. The complex of speech, dance, and musical gesture is deeply rooted in Jewish expressive culture, and reached its highest development in Eastern Europe. Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory reveals the artistic transformations of the liturgy of the Ashkenazic synagogue in klezmer wedding melodies, and presents the most extended study available in any language of the relationship of Jewish dance to the rich and varied klezmer music of Eastern Europe.

Author Walter Zev Feldman expertly examines the major written sources--principally in Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Romanian--from the 16th to the 20th centuries. He draws upon the foundational notated collections of the late Tsarist and early Soviet periods, as well as rare cantorial and klezmer manuscripts from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. He has conducted interviews with authoritative European-born klezmorim over a period of more than thirty years, in America, Europe, and Israel. Thus, his analysis reveals both the musical and cultural systems underlying the klezmer music of Eastern Europe.

 

Walter Zev Feldman (Author) 

 

Jacob Jolliff • Standards, Vol. 1

 


ABOUT
Jacob Jolliff was born into a musical family in Newberg, OR. His dad started him on the mandolin at age seven and required him to practice ten minutes a day. But after six months of practicing this minimal amount, something clicked, and almost overnight he started putting in several hours of intense practice daily. And this hasn't really changed in the last 20 years.

Throughout middle school and high school, Jacob picked in a bluegrass gospel band with his father. They played festivals and churches throughout the northwestern United States, and became a staple at the Sunday morning gospel shows. During this time he had the opportunity to meet and play with many of his heroes, including Ronnie McCoury, David Grisman, and Chris Thile. Though Jacob was mostly self-taught to this point, lessons with great players such as these kept him inspired and moving forward.

When he was 18, Jacob was awarded a full scholarship to The Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Massachusetts to start school in 2007, along with a lot of the other young musicians he had grown up with. There he studied under the late mandolin great John McGann, who was a huge influence. Under John's supervision, he spent many six-hour practice days working on a variety of styles from bluegrass to jazz to celtic music. In 2008, during his sophomore year of college, he joined the New England based roots music band, Joy Kills Sorrow. Over the next few years the group toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, playing hundreds of clubs, theaters, and festivals. Because of the group's rigorous schedule, it was a challenge for him to stay in school, but he still managed to graduate in 2011. Shortly after, in 2012, he won the National Mandolin Championship in Winfield, Kansas.

In 2014, after three records, hundreds of shows, and thousands of miles in a 15 passenger van, Joy Kills Sorrow went on an indefinite hiatus. Fortuitously, as this chapter of Jacob's musical journey ended, another important one began. Within a couple weeks of the band's last show, the young mandolinist got a call from the progressive bluegrass jam group, Yonder Mountain String Band. They had parted ways with their original mandolin player and were looking to try out someone new. Jacob went on his first tour with YMSB in June of that year. He immediately connected musically and personally with the band, and shortly after he became a full-time member. Jacob played with Yonder until the end of 2019, releasing three albums with the group.

Now in 2023, the mandolinist’s main focus is The Jacob Jolliff Band. This ensemble is a group of virtuosic pickers that play Jacob's original instrumentals, as well as showcase his singing. They tour nationally in the US and have also travelled to Scotland and Australia to perform. The group has released two albums, “Instrumentals Vol. 1” in 2018 and “The Jacob Jolliff Band” in 2022.

In 2022, Jacob was called on by world famous banjo player, Béla Fleck, to tour as part of My Bluegrass Heart. He performed around the country alongside Béla and some of the very best musicians in the genre: Bryan Sutton, Cody Kilby, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz, Michael Cleveland, Stuart Duncan and Billy Contreras.
https://www.jacobjolliff.com/about

 
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ACERCA de ...
Jacob Jolliff nació en una familia de músicos de Newberg, Oregón. Su padre le inició en la mandolina a los siete años y le obligaba a practicar diez minutos al día. Pero después de seis meses practicando esta cantidad mínima, algo encajó, y casi de la noche a la mañana empezó a dedicar varias horas de práctica intensa al día. Y esto no ha cambiado en los últimos 20 años.

Durante la secundaria y el bachillerato, Jacob tocó con su padre en una banda de bluegrass gospel. Tocaron en festivales e iglesias de todo el noroeste de Estados Unidos, y se convirtieron en un elemento básico en los espectáculos de gospel de los domingos por la mañana. Durante este tiempo tuvo la oportunidad de conocer y tocar con muchos de sus héroes, como Ronnie McCoury, David Grisman y Chris Thile. Aunque hasta entonces Jacob había sido un autodidacta, las lecciones con grandes músicos como éstos le mantuvieron inspirado y en movimiento.

A los 18 años, Jacob obtuvo una beca completa para el Berklee College of Music de Boston. En 2007 se trasladó a Massachusetts para comenzar sus estudios, junto con muchos otros jóvenes músicos con los que había crecido. Allí estudió con el difunto gran mandolinista John McGann, que fue una gran influencia. Bajo la supervisión de John, pasó muchos días de práctica de seis horas trabajando en una variedad de estilos, desde bluegrass hasta jazz y música celta. En 2008, durante su segundo año de universidad, se unió al grupo de música de raíces de Nueva Inglaterra Joy Kills Sorrow. En los años siguientes, el grupo realizó numerosas giras por Estados Unidos, Canadá y Europa, tocando en cientos de clubes, teatros y festivales. Debido a la rigurosa agenda del grupo, fue todo un reto para él seguir estudiando, pero aun así consiguió graduarse en 2011. Poco después, en 2012, ganó el Campeonato Nacional de Mandolina en Winfield, Kansas.

En 2014, después de tres discos, cientos de conciertos y miles de kilómetros en una furgoneta de 15 pasajeros, Joy Kills Sorrow hizo una pausa indefinida. Fortuitamente, al terminar este capítulo del viaje musical de Jacob, comenzó otro importante. Un par de semanas después del último concierto de la banda, el joven mandolinista recibió una llamada del grupo de improvisación de bluegrass progresivo Yonder Mountain String Band. Habían roto con su mandolinista original y querían probar a alguien nuevo. Jacob realizó su primera gira con YMSB en junio de ese año. Enseguida conectó musical y personalmente con la banda, y poco después se convirtió en miembro a tiempo completo. Jacob tocó con Yonder hasta finales de 2019, publicando tres álbumes con el grupo.

Ahora, en 2023, el principal foco de atención del mandolinista es The Jacob Jolliff Band. Este conjunto es un grupo de virtuosos de la púa que tocan instrumentales originales de Jacob, además de mostrar su canto. Realizan giras nacionales por Estados Unidos y también han viajado a Escocia y Australia para actuar. El grupo ha publicado dos álbumes, "Instrumentals Vol. 1" en 2018 y "The Jacob Jolliff Band" en 2022.

En 2022, Jacob fue llamado por el mundialmente famoso intérprete de banjo, Béla Fleck, para hacer una gira como parte de My Bluegrass Heart. Actuó por todo el país junto a Béla y algunos de los mejores músicos del género: Bryan Sutton, Cody Kilby, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz, Michael Cleveland, Stuart Duncan y Billy Contreras.
https://www.jacobjolliff.com/about


www.jacobjolliff.com ...