Music 240 - Fire Music: Jazz and the Black Arts Movement

(Offered as MUSI 240 and BLST 242). This course examines the intersection of music and the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and 1970s.  Using Archie Shepp's groundbreaking 1965 album Fire Music as an anchor, we will learn about the emergence of the jazz avant-garde and how music inspired writers seeking new forms of artistic expression rooted in Black identity. This search for a “Black Aesthetic” prompted varied responses from musicians, many of whom challenged simple understandings of the relationship between race and artistic expression. The course begins with an overview of the jazz avant-garde, situating its key figures within the larger history of jazz, and with a study of how earlier Harlem Renaissance theorists viewed jazz and Black classical music, providing a broader frame for literary developments in the Black Arts Movement. The central part of the course will investigate how the interaction between jazz musicians and Black Arts Movement writers reveals varied strategies of racial representation through musical expression and how standard histories of jazz in the 1960s often fail to identify the larger cultural, political, and social formations that informed the rise of the jazz avant-garde. Collaborations between writers and musicians will be a central focus throughout the course.  Special attention will be given to the iconoclastic writings on music by Amiri Baraka, as well as to other Black Arts Movement writers, including Larry Neal, Sonia Sanchez, A. B. Spellman, Addison Gayle, Jr., Hoyt Fuller, Ishmael Reed, James Stewart, and others. Course materials will include readings, audio recordings, and video examples, and assignments will include two short essays and a self-designed research project. No previous musical experience required. Satisfies the Historical Studies requirement for the Music major.

Fall semester. Professor Robinson.

How to handle overenrollment: Preference given to Music and Black Studies majors and sophomores.

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, readings, listening assignments, and viewing assignments.