Nordic Confluences: Interpreting the Socio-Cultural Narratives of Nordic Confluent Jazz Music

Abstract

This thesis intends to identify and position two differing, yet interacting, narratives of socio-cultural meaning that surrounded certain formative and influential Nordic jazz music. In the latter part of the twentieth century, a small number of jazz musicians from Nordic countries gradually became well known throughout the world for playing in a highly individual manner. Their music was one of confluence, in which the established traditions of jazz music melded with a deep empathy for Western art music, and also folk music of both local and distant sources. The resultant melting pot of influences was an art that was at once extraordinarily globalised yet simultaneously retained a strong regional identity. ... The aim of this work is to establish the enduring relevance of this music in relation to the dual narratives of both a specific, localised Nordic identity, and also the greater diaspora of jazz music as it metamorphosed into a globalised improvisational language capable of assimilating and existing within a variety of music traditions, often simultaneously. This thesis will address the historic conditions surrounding the introduction of jazz music into the Nordic lands, the way in which these narratives of identity and change are expressed in the various subjects' art, and show points of intersection with relevant scholarship and theoretical frameworks. In conclusion it will be shown how the interaction of the two narratives, those of the regional and global sociology, have interacted to form an enduring aesthetic in the making of jazz music, which is rendered poignant and cultural significant both domestically in the Nordic countries and also within the aesthetic consciousness of jazz music as an art form.