Jazz, Globalisation and Communities

Now a quasi-universal musical form, present in all five continents, jazz developed as a result of a complex process of cultural exchange, making it a true product of cultural globalisation. Moreover, this is a globalisation which spread not only from the West (the USA) towards the rest of the world, but also between the different countries that make up the rest of the world, and indeed from the rest of the world back towards Europe and the USA. In this sense, jazz today is quite clearly a musical genre practised on a range of different levels be they transnational, supranational, or even local. Jazz has generated new communities of amateur and professional musicians in the same country, the same city, and indeed sometimes the same area within a city. While taking shape around a strong local musical tradition, such communities have nevertheless managed to retain a transnational dimension, thanks first to the presence of foreign musicians, and second to the global nature of jazz itself.The aim of this book is to explore the local and global dimensions of these jazz communities from the of the musicians (bands and multicultural projects, setting up abroad...), the audiences (clubs, festivals...) and media (radios, magazines, record labels...), in order to understand how jazz, the quinte.