Flash session: Jazz Hybridity in theory.

In the late 19th century, Sicilian folk music could be heard in the French Quarter of New Orleans, pouring out of the horns of brass bands and whispering from inside dinner clubs. 50 years later, that music returned in the form of American military bands, blended with West African, Irish, French, and American styles. The arrival of the military bands in Italy, as well as the popularization of radio (name a station) and disc listening, inspired Italian musicians to perform and record a new style that we know today as Italian jazz. 

This flash session paper seeks to determine which elements of style and form in early Italian jazz were taken from radio programs, collaborations with American military bands, and Sicilian brass band and folk music. Building on research by David Chapman and Marcello Piras, it analyzes recordings by Italian jazz artists from 1919 to 1945 in order to identify how folk music influences global jazz styles. 

Italian jazz from the 1910s to 1940s provides a unique lens through which to understand jazz's assimilation through global culture. Jazz suddenly boomed in Italy near the end of World War I, then was left to its own devices as isolationism in America and fascism in Italy choked out opportunities for continued collaboration. Analyses of music released by Italian artists including Gorni Kramer and Piero Piccioni and comparisons to the USAAS band recordings and globally distributed records during the early 20th century reveal a distinct ‘family tree' in the stylistic development of Italian jazz. This paper seeks to contribute to the growing discourse around jazz as it relates to global sociopolitics using an analytical approach.