I'm not quitting the Society for the same reason I'm not quitting society as a whole. This issue of systemic racism is reflected in both societies—it may seem more acute at the SMT level because of the tendency of academics to dress their entrenchments in polished prose and attractive/clever rhetoric, and it may sting more because many o…[Read more]

Around 700 people have signed this letter. In signing, they don't indicate whether they're members of SMT or not, but I recognize loads and loads of names as SMT members. Could you explain why concurring with the statement leads you to quit organization?

I for one am waiting to see what the SMT does next, especially at a time when…[Read more]

And sure, I'd love any V.J. Iyer transcriptions!

I've attached a couple of lines from my transcription of Hank Mobley's solo on "Tribute to Someone" (on Herbie's first solo record, My Point of View). The phrases appear back to back in his solo...both demonstrate potential to switch collections between melodic minor (over the ii chord) and the octatonic over the V chord. (Although the…[Read more]

If we do decide to invite BIPOC from outside our discipline…[Read more]

This makes sense to me. In fact, I was taught to think about the altered scale as half diminished and half whole tone (and thinking about it, Lydian-Dominant would switch the two so it is half whole tone and then half diminished). As for rep, I don't know how much collection switching you would find, but Kenton's "City of Glass," uses…[Read more]

I'll spin my wheels on some readings—perhaps some that aren't specifically within the realm of jazz theory.

To clarify, my original suggestion admittedly open-ended, and inviting more specific ideas) was really more about the African-American experience of players/composers, rather than from the perspective of jazz theory o…[Read more]

And to Keith's question about whether or not it…[Read more]

I'd like to suggest that we have a session on the critical race concept of "whiteness" and its historical/continuing role jazz studies and jazz theory.  I think it might be a good time to turn the mirror inwards into our sub-discipline.  I'm open to other ideas for our m…[Read more]

I have another suggestion, fwiw. It's not a very specific one, but more of a category within which we could hone something more specific: In the midst of current events and…[Read more]

I hope this message finds you well. I've been considering a number of different possibilities for our meeting at this year's SMT/AMS over the past few months. At this point, our leadership has not yet decided whether the conference will be held in person or virtually due to the COVID pandemic. I think there is little chance that…[Read more]

To respond to some more of your side discussion Keith—I've done this discussion with the associate director, the grad director, and the jazz studies director. My understanding is that we have standard r…[Read more]

You could...

• present a complete ensemble transcription of a representative performance from the 1940s/50s (from the back of Berliner's Thinking in Jazz, for example), and ask them to comment on solos, ensemble roles, and/or interaction.

• ask for an analysis of transcription of  impr…[Read more]

I also make the grad diagnostics for my school, and have a substantial
background in jazz theory. Am about to attend a webinar, so will be
unavailable for a couple hours, but I might be able to offer help. My first
question would be: what are you diagnosing? That is, what is it that you're
trying to determine from each student's…[Read more]

Thanks for responding to this! I'm working on hierarchy within cyclical chord progressions (I do think at least some aspects are hierarchical) but certainly don't want to be chasing windmills.

Ben

I've posted the CFP on SMT Announce a couple of times, but I wanted to give JIG folks specifically a reminder that the submission deadline for the Issues in Contemporary Jazz Conference is this Friday. I hope y'all submit any papers and/or scores you've been working on! Feel free to reach out with any questions.

Adam

Sorry for the extremely slow reply! I don't think that one can give a generic answer. The concept of a chord relating more to ones that come before or after seems to me to be wrapped up in so much additional context that making such a determination on the basis of chord changes alone doesn't make sense. Think of Gershwin's original: in this…[Read more]

I wonder if any of you would give me your opinion on a question that's been bugging me for ages. Let's say we agree that you can reduce rhythm changes to |I|V|I|V| in the first four measures. Do you hear those Vs as back-related? Front-related? Depends on comping vs. soloing? Depends on the line being played? Depends on something…[Read more]

We conducted our 25th annual meeting in Columbus. Twenty-seven individuals attended. After my opening welcome—in which I hoped to convey that our group is open to everyone interested in jazz theory and analysis at any career stage—Janna Saslaw announced the winner of the Steve Larson Award for Jazz Sch…[Read more]

This is a great idea, and I like the game plan. Thanks for organizing this!

Sincerely,

Ben Geyer

I'd like to officially announce the main topic of our meeting in Columbus this year and ask if you have any questions that we might consider as we plan. As I mentioned in an email to the old listserv earlier in the year, Dan Shanahan has graciously agreed to give us a workshop on corpus and computational methods of jazz…[Read more]

Does anyone have any details on the life and work of Milton Lee Stewart? His 1973 dissertation "Structural Development in the Jazz Improvisational Technique of Clifford Brown" from University of Michigan might be the first detailed application of Schenkerian analysis to jazz improvisation (besides Forte's 1958…[Read more]