On April 10th, I presented a research paper entitled “Amplifying Jazz as Cultural Repatriation in Harlem: Jazzmobile and the Urban Soundscape” at the Locations and Dislocations: An Ecomusicological Conversation conference at the Westminster Choir College of Rider University.

The following is the abstract for the paper:

Amplifying Jazz as Cultural Repatriation in Harlem: Jazzmobile and the Urban Soundscape

Whitney Slaten, Columbia University

Harlem serves as a global headquarters for historical and current black cultural production. Along with literary, political, architectural, culinary, and religious cultural phenomena, scholars have situated jazz as central in the historical and current urban soundscape of this cultural mecca. While the black majority of Harlem disperses, and so-called gentrifying populations grow, Harlem remains a center for jazz production and expression in the global imagination. This paper addresses the significance of the sound engineering of expressive culture in Harlem’s changing milieu, namely the role of live, amplified, outdoor jazz performances. In response to the increasing inaccessibility of jazz performances in Harlem, Dr. Billy Taylor founded Jazzmobile in 1964, a not-for-profit arts organization that presents free, professional, live jazz concerts in order to bring jazz “back to Harlem.” Jazzmobile audience regulars include the faithful who have consistently attended the concerts for fifty years, and African American baby boomers who no longer live in Harlem, but attended Jazzmobile concerts as children and return to their home neighborhoods to hear concerts. Amidst the rampant relocation of the audience members and changes to Harlem’s outdoor civic spaces, I argue that current the Jazzmobile audience continues to listen for cultural repatriations of professional jazz performances at Grant’s Tomb, city parks, and block parties. This research intersects Steven Feld’s acoustemology, John Jackson’s work on racial sincerity and the politics of cultural repatriation by Aaron Fox. Drawing from sound studies and ethnographic fieldwork, this paper reconsiders Jazzmobile concerts as acts of repatriation though the social construction of an urban soundscape.

This paper addresses the significance of the sound engineering of expressive culture in Harlem’s changing milieu, namely the role of live, amplified, outdoor Jazzmobile performances.  Jazzmobile is a not-for-profit arts organization that presents free, professional, live jazz concerts in order to bring jazz “back to Harlem.” Amidst dynamic societal shifts in Harlem, the Jazzmobile audience continues to listen for cultural repatriations of jazz at Grant’s Tomb, city parks, and block parties.  Drawing from sound studies and ethnographic fieldwork, this paper reconsiders Jazzmobile concerts as acts of repatriation though the social construction of an urban soundscape.