the paving of streets, and the passage of laws regulating the use of them) and representations of geography (e.g., Greenwich Village as a jazz neighborhood, New York as “the city that never sleeps”) transform material space into something that transcends our most simplistic understandings of it. Spatiality is a direct result of these transformative processes, but it is neither static nor a one-time result of them: it “always remains open to further transformation…. It is never primordially given or permanently fixed” (122). The complex of factors that has allowed jazz to flourish in particular spaces at different times, therefore, argues for a history that takes account of the built environment and human uses and representations of it as more than silent partners to presumably more vocal historical processes. A jazz scene, provisionally understood as a spatial formation, is not something that was constructed in the 1920s, for example, and subsequently became a self-sustaining entity, the interrelationship of whose elements did not change.1
In a dramaturgical sense, we might conceive a scene in complementary ways that encompass both space and time. On one hand, the term references space: it denotes a backdrop, background, or context, something that provides a setting for action. In this sense, a scene constrains and conditions the kinds of interactions that can take place among those positioned or performing in it. It is thus more than an inert setting for musical activity: through both their actions in and representations of that space, musicians and other participants transform it into something usable (Cohen 1999, 247; see also Olson 1997, 275). On the other hand, a scene can signify time: a brief episode in the larger unfolding of a narrative, an identifiable, bounded temporal space that is not fully meaningful when removed from its narrative context. Either way, studying scenes allows a researcher to place various relations between groups and their negotiation of space and time at the center of inquiry and to move beyond the oppositions between musicians and various others. Moreover, the frequent use of the term scene by jazz musicians and critics gives it an emic valence and specificity missing from other formulations.2
Perhaps the first sustained meditation on musical scenes in popular music studies is an article published by Will Straw (1991). In it, he begins by denning musical communities as entities that are presumed to have stable populations and to be exploring one or more musical forms within a specific geographical heritage. Musical communities are most effective, he writes, when they link contemporary musical practices with a specific heritage that renders those practices meaningful. In contrast, a musical scene “is that cultural space in which a range of musical practices coexist, interacting with each other within a variety of processes of differentiation and according to widely varying trajectories of change and cross-fertilization” (373). For him, rather than working as an exploration of a particular style over time or in terms of a specific heritage, a musical scene operates on the principles of alliance building and musical boundary drawing through varied forms of communication. Participants in a musical scene are involved not only in the exploration of a style, but also in the active denning of that style’s parameters through relations with other musics, musicians, and audiences. As such, they both observe and modify conventions through their practical action.
As processes of internationalization and globalization have become more central in the recording industry, and as ownership of recording companies has become the province of a few large conglomerates (including Universal, Sony, and Time Warner), processes occurring on the national and international levels can and do have a significant impact on positionings and articulations within localized musical scenes (Erlmann 1993; Garofalo 1993; Guilbault 1993; Negus 1992, 1999; Román-Velázquez 1999). In describing the constant spatio-temporal circulation of recordings and live performances, however, Straw rules out the possibility of a particular local scene having a significant effect on the nature or composition of other local scenes: “The relationship of different local or regional scenes to each other is no longer one in which specific communities emerge to enact a forward movement to which others are drawn” (1991, 378). Instead, he says, musicians are easily able to circulate from one local scene to another without having to adapt themselves to local circumstances (374; see also Florida et al. 2010, 786).
Although Holly Kruse (1993) agrees with much of what Straw has written, she is highly critical of his last point. She argues that the emergence of highly influential local rock scenes originating in Champaign, Illinois; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Seattle, Washington, in the 1980s and ’90s undermines Straw’s conclusion. She is critical as well of two other studies that focus on local musical communities: Ruth Finnegan’s The Hidden Musicians (1989) and Sara Cohen’s Rock Culture in Liverpool (1991). She feels that both writers “overlook an important way in which musicians and others involved in local scenes understand their own involvement: as something that differentiates them from individuals and groups in other communities” (Kruse 1993, 38). She admits, despite her critique of localized inquiry, that “local musical scenes are the sites at which we may first want to look … in order to understand the relationship between situated musical practices and the construction of identity” (39), especially since, as Straw suggests, many musicians do not always find it possible to circulate easily from one scene to another (40). The common thread in the work of Straw and Kruse, nonetheless, is the advantage that the study of musical scenes has over that of musical communities. Rather than resting on static conceptions of style or geography, a scholar focused on a particular scene has to engage with the interactions among actors and institutions on both local and translocal levels over time.
In this context, Barry Shank’s 1994 study of the “rock’n’roll” scene in Austin, Texas, is exemplary. He sees its emergence as the result of both local practices and modes of identification reaching back to the late nineteenth century and larger interactions with the recording industry and other nonlocal agents and institutions. For him, a musical scene is a “signifying community,” “a necessary condition for the production of … music capable of moving past the mere expression of locally significant cultural values and generic development—that is, beyond stylistic permutation—toward an interrogation of dominant structures of identification, and potential cultural transformation” (122).3 Although Shank might be accused of uncritically grafting the subcultural work of Hebdige (1979) onto American cultural forms, he is on more solid ground in describing musical scenes as systems capable of producing meaning, ones that allow for varied associations to be made among “cultural signifiers [e.g., musical signs and individual bodies] of identity and community” (125). Scenes for Shank are thus predicated on the interaction between older notions of community—geographically and historically rooted—and extralocal processes of communication and identification. Musicians involved with local scenes are concerned simultaneously with the construction and maintenance of local and translocal identities and their attendant boundaries (see also Kruse 1993, 38).
Choosing the scene as the unit of study, therefore, involves enlarging one’s focus within a single locale as well as beyond it. Shank’s inquiry highlights the important roles played by musicians as well as various social movements, economic factors, publications, record stores, zoning regulations, and performance spaces in the constitution of a scene on the local level. In addition, he links those local activities to the larger national and international activities of the recording industry and various musical forms. All of them are important in the constitution of the Austin scene and, by extension, other local scenes.
Drawing upon popular music writing, as well as those local jazz studies cited earlier, one might begin to glimpse the general contours of jazz scenes. Each one consists of groups of participants (musicians, audiences, teachers, venue owners, managers, recording industry personnel, critics, and historians), as well as educational institutions, performance venues, record labels, and publications, which collaborate to present, develop, and comment upon musical events in both recorded and live forms. The specific shape of any local scene is dependent upon the participation of different combinations of these groups of agents and institutions. Their collective work, moreover, is both enabled and constrained by accommodations to and modifications of the built environments in which they are situated. The regulation of public space expressed in zoning laws, for example, determines whether, when, and where performance venues can exist. The emergence and eventual demise of jazz districts in specific
