MUSC 229 - Journal #2

Identifying and analysing racialised conceptions of musical style requires an approach that is committed

to addressing the constructs of Blackness and whiteness, as well as race-based stereotypes. While Klotz

asserts that attempting to decouple jazz from Blackness fails to safeguard its African American lineage,

her article simultaneously explores the racial pigeonholing of Black musicians through narratives that

attempted to define all Black music as jazz. At the centre of Klotz’s discussion are the themes of swing

and colourblindness, both of which are intrinsically linked to the questions of authenticity and musical

ownership within jazz.

This journal explores how the colourblind approach to jazz, taken by, among others, Dave Brubeck, failed

to address the existing structural inequalities within the jazz community. I then explore how Brubeck’s

posture of colourblindness attempted to assert ownership over Black musical aesthetics, primarily in the

form of swing. I conclude by analysing how historical musical discourse reaffirmed structural inequalities

and subliminally reinforced narrow-minded conceptions of race-based musical stereotypes.

Dave Brubeck fostered a colourblind view of jazz that claimed to reflect the meeting of European and

African musical aesthetics, but “gloss[ed] over any power differentials present in the meeting.”1 While

Ingrid Monson suggests that “musical traits were shared across the color [sic] line”2, she states that

“‘color evasiveness’ was often used to silence African American perspectives on the meaning of the

music.”3 This was particularly evident through the portrayal of jazz by critics and white musicians as

“American” rather than Black or African American, a portrayal which whitewashed the contribution of

the black jazz community through “the link between ‘whiteness’ and ‘Americanness.”4 For this narrative

1
Klotz, pp. 64
2
Monson, Ingrid. “Modernism, Race, and Aesthetics” in Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa,
Oxford Academic, 2010. pp. 78
3
Ibid, 79
4
Stoever, Jennifer Lynn. The Sonic Colour Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening, New York University
Press, 2016. pp. 231
of “American Jazz” to be successfully employed by Brubeck to promote his authenticity and advocate for

his acceptance within the jazz community, Brubeck undermined the racist structural power imbalances

present, claiming “what does [race] have to do with the music we play?”5 By claiming that race did not

affect jazz, Brubeck undercut attempts to address structural inequities.

Brubeck’s posture of colourblindness had a multifaceted effect on racialised music aesthetics, such as

swing. While, emphasising swing as a Black musical aesthetic certainly “benefited white musicians who

were perceived to swing” simultaneously “denying Black musicians recognition of the skill it took to

swing”,6 Brubeck’s and other white musicians’ efforts to decouple Blackness with swing “threatened to

reframe swing in colorblind terms—a move some Black jazz musicians understood as an act of erasure.”7

The tension between these two discourses around swing indicates how imposing a binary of Black/white

upon jazz upheld racist structural inequities; each of these narratives benefitted white musicians, and

erased or confined Black musicians.

5
Freeman, Don. “Dave Brubeck Answers His Critics: A Lot of Them Are Being Unfair, Insists Jazz’Controversial
Pianist,” Down Beat, August 10, 1955, 7.
6
Klotz, 59.
7
Klotz, 59.