Student name: Matthew Teakle

Student number: s5118741

My chosen essay topic is:

Option 1:
What are three factors (e.g. funding/technology/culture/education/function etc.) that shape how Jazz
functions in today’s Australian society? In your informed opinion are these factors helping or
hindering everyday people’s engagement with the genre?

I have chosen the first option because it will allow me to focus on a single genre and explore it in
greater depth, this will enable me to gain a greater insight into the role of my genre of focus rather
than gaining a broad but shallow understanding of the role of two genres. For this assignment my
focus will be Jazz, this is because I plan to work in Jazz performance and education after I complete
my degree, therefore it would be to my advantage to broaden my understanding of the dynamic of
the Jazz music industry in Australia today. It is also a topic of interest for me as it is a musical genre
that is functioning outside of its country of origin without the associations of national identity that it
would receive in its country of origin.

Reference List
Bowie, A. (2009). Jazz. In J. P. E. Harper-Scott & J. Sampson (Eds.), An introduction to music
studies (pp. 176-185). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Chesser, A. (2009). Australian Jazz musician-educators: an exploration of expert’s approaches to
teaching Jazz (Honours Thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia). Retrieved from
https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/5781/1/Chessher%202009.pdf
Clare, J., & Brennan, G. (1995). Bodgie dada & the cult of cool. Sydney, Australia: University of
New South Wales Press.
Creative Victoria. (2017). All that Jazz. Retrieved from https://creative.vic.gov.au/showcase/all-
that-jazz
Denson, L. (2014). Perspectives on the Melbourne International Women’s Jazz Festival. Jazz
Research Journal, 8(1-2), 163-181. doi:10.1558/jazz.8vi1-2.26774
Higgins, L., & Mantie, R. (2013). Improvisation as ability, culture, and experience. Music
Educators Journal, 100(2), 38-44. doi:10.1177/0027432113498097
Johnson, B. (2014). Jazz in Australasia. Jazz Research Journal, 8(1-2), 5-22. doi:10.1558/
jazz.v8i1-2.27135
Rechniewsky, P. (2008). The permanent underground: Australian contemporary Jazz in the new
millennium. Sydney, Australia: Currency House.
Shand, J. (2009). Jazz: The Australian accent. Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales
Press.
Virkkula, E. (2016). Informal in formal: The relationship of informal and formal learning
in popular and jazz music master workshops in conservatoires. International Journal Of
Music Education, 34(2), 171-185. doi:10.1177/0255761415617924

One of the themes of this essay will be to observe the culture and stigma that surrounds Australian
Jazz, for this reason I have selected one source (Rechniewsky, 2008) which discusses the relative
success of the genre despite its marginalisation by the media and lack of government funding. This
will allow me to discuss how these factors can cause the public to be disengaged with the genre
while also observing how the genre survives in spite of this adversity. Another theme of the essay
will be the approach to teaching Jazz in Australia. For this reason, I have included two sources
(Higgins, Mantie 2013 and Chesser, 2009) which discuss different approaches to Jazz education
with a focus on the teaching of improvisation. The first discusses theoretical approaches towards
learning improvisation in Finland while the second discusses already present methods of teaching in
Australia. From these I can form an argument on the present shortcomings in Jazz education in
Australia and how it may be a factor in the disengagement of students from Jazz. In these two
arguments and a third on it’s function I can formulate an argument on how these factors combine to
either help or hinder people’s engagement with Jazz.