Dear all,
Just a friendly reminder for today’s joint EthNoise! + Sound and Society workshop, Thursday, May 11th from 5:00–6:30pm CT in Logan Room 801. It is an honor to be co-hosting Gabriel Solis (University of Washington) to discuss his work in progress. We will have refreshments and hope to see you there!
Dr. Gabriel Solis
Divisional Dean of the Arts
University of Washington
“Is Global Jazz History Global Music History? On Musical Blackness, Universalisms, and the Challenge of Undoing Things”
Today, May 11th | 5:00–6:30 pm CT
Logan Room 801
Respondent: Travis Jackson
Cosponsored by Sound and Society
Abstract: As the field of global music history grows, we are confronted with questions about its relationship to established subfields in music and sound studies: ethnomusicology, music history, jazz studies, popular music studies, music theory, and so forth. This talk works from case studies from my research into the circulation of Black music in Indigenous communities in the Southwestern Pacific throughout late modernity, to argue that Indigenous music making be understood as fully historical and the ubiquity of Black musical codes be understood as constitutive of modernity. Moreover, I argue against recent jazz scholarship that insists on Black erasure as the logical frame for a celebration of jazz’s global scope.
Biography: Gabriel Solis is an ethnomusicologist and music historian whose work focuses on music, memory, and racialization in the 20th and 21st centuries. He came to the University of Washington in 2022 from the University of Illinois, where he had been a professor of music for 20 years, with affiliate appointments in African American Studies, American Indian Studies, and Anthropology. In previous administrative appointments he has striven to develop research capacity in the arts with a focus on intersections between scholarship and practice, and with a core commitment to building more equitable and inclusive approaches to the arts in higher education. Solis’ research in jazz, popular music, and contemporary Indigenous music in Australia and Melanesia has been supported by fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and Mellon Foundation.