Jazz As Visual Language: Film, Television and the Dissonant Image

Description

This book provides a timely analysis of the relationship between jazz and recording and broadcast technologies in the early twentieth century. Jazz histories have traditionally privileged qualities such as authenticity, naturalness and spontaneity, but to do so overlooks jazz#x0027;s status as a modernist, mechanised art form that evolved alongside the moving image and visual cultures. Jazz as Visual Language shows that the moving image is crucial to our understanding of what the materiality of jazz really is. Focusing on Len Lye#x0027;s direct animation, Gjon Mili's experimental footage of musicians performing and the BBC's Jazz 625 series, this book places emphasis on film and television that conveys the ‘sound of surprise’ through formal innovation, rather than narrative structure. Nicolas Pillai seeks to refine a critical vocabulary of jazz and visual culture whilst arguing that jazz was never just a new sound; it was also a new way of seeing the world. Cover Half-title Endorsement Title page Copyright information Table of contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Len Lye: The Sensual World Embracing the culture industry Mapping modern Britain The sensual world 2 Gjon Mili: The Material Ghost Jazz finds Mili Mapping the imagination Dances, glances and the extra-musical Editing jazz 3 Jazz 625: Inform–Educate–Entertain Before Jazz 625 Jazz on BBC2 Jazz as television Jazz 625: non-representational signs and visual dissonance After Jazz 625 Conclusion Dissonance and coherence Notes Introduction 1 Len Lye: The Sensual World 2 Gjon Mili: The Material Ghost 3 Jazz 625: Inform–Educate–Entertain Conclusion Bibliography Film and Television Programmes Cited Case studies Other film and television cited Index