Improvised Music and Decolonisation

Introduction

In the course of the 20th century, musical improvisation became strongly associated with emancipatory politics, as expressive freedom in music symbolised forms of societal, cultural, and political freedom more generally. In the 1960s, European improvisers distinguished their 'free improvisation' from jazz and other improvisatory music by calling it 'non-idiomatic', i.e. not drawing on previously existing musical styles.

The Challenge of Utopian Understanding

Although the genre of free improvisation has formed a unique space of transnational and intercultural collaboration, such a utopian understanding risks an erasure of actual forms of inequality and exclusion. After all, to draw on one's own musical tradition inevitably means to play in a specific idiom.

Question of Inclusion

To what extent has this definition of freedom as non-idiomatic playing excluded the participation of musicians of colour?

Aim of the Proposal

The aim of this proposal is to understand the politics embedded in free improvisation in a European postcolonial context. We investigate the hypothesis that non-idiomatic music constructed a form of musical whiteness in the spheres of musical practice, discourse, and institutions.

Understanding Musical Idiom

We develop a novel understanding of musical idiom in terms of differentiation rather than convention, and we describe how questions of freedom and idiom were negotiated in musical practice.

Case Study

As a case study, we investigate the musical practice of improvising musicians from former Dutch colonies active in the Netherlands after World War II (ca. 1945-2000) and analyse how they negotiated their position between:

1. The idiom of jazz
2. A supposedly 'universal' non-idiomatic form of improvisation
3. Their own musical traditions

Methodology and Contribution

Through archival research, oral history, and the analysis of musical practices, IMPRODECO will make a fundamental contribution to:

• Jazz historiography
• Postcolonial perspectives on Dutch music history
• Musicological theories of improvisation
• Current debates about racial inequality in Dutch music and society