Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium 2024
Sheets of Sound:
Jazz, Improvisation, and Liner Notes
September 11–14, 2024
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
(Full schedule below)
Follow this link to view a photo carousel of colloquium highlights!
In what ways have liner notes shaped the way the music is received? To what extent do liner notes contribute to the ways in which we negotiate and construct meaning about the music, how we understand history, how and why we listen? In what ways have digital dissemination and streaming services disrupted our notions of liner notes? And how has this shifted listener/audience understanding about their favourite artists?
In his liner notes for John Coltrane’s 1958 recording Soultrane, jazz critic Ira Gitler famously coined the phrase “sheets of sound” to describe Coltrane’s unique style of improvisational playing. It’s an apt phrase not only for attempting to capture in writing the spirit and energy of Coltrane’s distinctive style, but also for acting as a metaphoric descriptor for the very genre of liner notes. As an important part of the history of jazz and creative improvised music, liner notes might themselves be considered as something akin to “sheets of sound” that have played a vital role in shaping our understanding of the music.
Citing the “far-out notes produced by Sun Ra, John Coltrane,” and others, Daphne Brooks in her book Liner Notes for the Revolution explains that “liner notes hold out the possibility of operating as critical, fictional, or experimental works of writing in and of themselves. Conventional liner notes,” she suggests, “often walk a fine line between pedagogy and socialization, between sociohistorical and cultural reportage and heuristic conditioning (here’s how and why to love the artist in question). The most ambitious notes strive toward the narrative realization, or the narrative reimagining, of a sonic collection of songs altogether.” What, then, does it mean to engage in a narrative realization or reimagining of music? What are some of the critical, fictional, conceptual, or experimental forms and practices being advanced by writers of liner notes? What is it like to hear about the music from the artist’s perspective, and how might this shape the listener’s sonic experience? What is the future of liner notes in an age dominated by the digital delivery and dissemination of music? Does writing liner notes constitute a lost art or is the practice enjoying a resurgence? In what ways do archived/archival forms of liner notes play into thinking and writing about jazz and creative improvised music today? And what roles do artwork, design and layout play in the presentation and impact of liner notes and the reception of an album?
This year’s edition of The Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium showcases panels, workshops, and artistic presentations that creatively respond to these tasks, and that take up the question of what it means to use the liner note genre to write about jazz and creative improvised music.
Presenter abstracts and bios are available online!
The Schedule
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
9:00 AM Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Ajay Heble (Founding Director, International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, University of Guelph)
@ImprovLab
MacKinnon Building, Room 108,
University of Guelph Campus
9:15–10:45 AM Roundtable
Liner Notes from the IICSI Sites
Moderator: Eric Fillion (International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation/School of Languages and Literatures, University of Guelph)
Kevin McNeilly (Department of English, University of British Columbia)
Eric Lewis (Department of Philosophy, McGill University)
Charity Marsh (Creative Technologies and Design, University of Regina)
Andrew Staniland (School of Music, Memorial University of Newfoundland)
Jesse Stewart (Department of Music, Carleton University)
Paul Stapleton (SARC, Queen’s University Belfast)
Benjamin Mayer Foulkes (17, Institute of Critical Studies, Mexico City, Mexico)
Alyssa Woods (School of Fine Art and Music, University of Guelph)
11:00 AM–12:00 PM Performance
Musicalligraphics
Host: Shawn Van Sluys (Musagetes)
Jesse Stewart (Department of Music, Carleton University)
Jim Davies (Department of Cognitive Science, Carleton University)
Jamaal Amir Akbari (former Poet Laureate, City of Ottawa)
12:00–1:00 PM Lunch
1:00–2:15 PM Panel 1
Sonic Inversions: “Liner Notes for an Imagined Musical Work”
Words of Welcome from Karina McInnis (Associate Vice-President, Research Services, University of Guelph)
Moderator: jashen edwards (International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, University of Guelph)
Brandon Davis (University of Toronto)
Walter S. Gershon (College of Education, Rowan University)
Jonathan Kay (East-West Psychology Department, California Institute of Integral Studies)
Joe Sorbara (Critical Studies in Improvisation / School of Fine Art and Music, University of Guelph)
2:30–3:45 PM Panel 2
The Craft of Writing Liner Notes
Moderator: Jordan Zalis (Ethnomusicology, Memorial University of Newfoundland/International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation)
Howard Mandel (New York University), “Writing and Improvising: The Engagement”
Stuart Broomer (George Brown College), “Sounding Musical Architecture: Writing Liner Notes for Abdul Moimême”
Gayle Young (composer, author, editor), “Words about Music: The Musicworks Magazine Cassette Recordings”
4:00–5:00 PM Exhibit and Listening Party
Daphne Brooks’ Liner Notes for the Revolution: A Multimodal Experience
Host: jashen edwards (International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, University of Guelph)
Sounds and Projections with DJ Zahra
Thursday, September 12
9:00–10:15 AM Panel 3
Context, Please: Interpretation and Experience
Moderator: Rebecca Barnstaple (School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph)
Monique Lanoix (School of Ethics, Social Justice, and Public Service, Saint Paul University, Ottawa), “Parallel Streams: From the Page to Interstellar Awakening”
Jeff Albert (School of Music, Georgia Institute of Technology), “Always Read the Plaque, or at Least Some of It”
10:30–11:45 AM Panel 4
Time Keeping, Record Keeping
Moderator: Joe Sorbara (Critical Studies in Improvisation, University of Guelph)
Nick Fraser (Critical Studies in Improvisation, University of Guelph), “‘Mop Mop’ AKA ‘Boff Boff’ AKA ‘For Big Sid’: Max Roach, Transcription, Composition, Improvisation, Rhythm, and Creativity”
Rob Wallace (Honors College, Northern Arizona University), “Notes on ‘Notes and Tones‘; or Drummers as Writers”
Matthias Domingo Mushinski (Film and Moving Image Studies, Concordia University), “Amiri Baraka, Live at Birdland, and the Inconceivability of Black Music”
12:00–1:00 PM Lunch
1:00–2:00 PM Workshop
hakosalo_tuohino, “Liner Notes as Score for Improvised Music”
Host: James Harley (School of Fine Art and Music, University of Guelph)
Osmo Hakosalo (Center for Arts Innovation, Oulu University, Finland)
Jussi Tuohino (Music Technology, Oulu University, Finland)
2:15–3:30 PM Panel 5:
Liner Notes, Cultural Labour, and Social Activism
Moderator: Alyssa Woods (School of Fine Art and Music, University of Guelph)
Alexandria Smith (School of Music, Georgia Institute of Technology), “It’s All in the Mix”
Dana Reason (College of Liberal Arts, Oregon State University), “CALL and (HER) Response: Improvisation and The Myth of Absence”
Jennifer Messelink (Department of African American Studies, Yale University), “‘Tinklin Treble, Rolling Bass’: Locating an Alternative Archive of Boogie-Woogie Liner Notes”
3:45–4:45 PM KEYNOTE
Liner Noting in the Time of Streaming
Moderator: Eric Fillion (International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation/School of Languages and Literatures, University of Guelph)
Ashley Kahn (NYU Tisch School of the Arts)
Friday, September 13
9:00–10:15 AM Plenary Session(Rescheduled to Saturday, September 14 at 10:00 AM!)
Big Ideas in Improvisation
Moderator: Kevin McNeilly (Department of English Languages and Literatures, University of British Columbia)
Darius Jones (Music, Wesleyan University) and Harmony Holiday (writer, dancer, archivist, experimental filmmaker) in conversation
10:30–10:45 AM Workshop/Performance
Improvising Melodicism
Host: Jordan Zalis (Ethnomusicology, Memorial University of Newfoundland/International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation)
Bob Wiseman (Critical Studies in Improvisation, University of Guelph),
11:00 AM–12:15 PM Panel 6
Liner Notes as a Way of Knowing: Poetry and Pedagogy
Moderator: Taylor Graham (International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, University of Guelph)
Kevin McNeilly (Department of English and Literature, University of British Columbia), “Reading Out Between the Line(r)s: Moor Mother’s Truth”
Philip Freeman (Burning Ambulance), “Technique is a Weapon to do Whatever Must be Done—Cecil Taylor’s Use of Poetry as Liner Notes”
Marina Santi (Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy and Applied Psychology, University of Padova, Italy), “The Lost, the Last, the Least Noteworthy on Liner Notes”
12:15–1:15 PM Lunch
1:15–2:15 Workshop
Writing Workshop: Liner Note Poesis
Host: Anna Bowen (Musagetes)
Fan Wu (Film and Media, Queen’s University)
2:30–3:45 Keynote
Liner Notes for the Hurricane: Crate Digging for Porgy and Bess
Moderator: Canisia Lubrin (School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph)
Daphne Brooks (Department of African American Studies, Yale University)
Saturday, September 14
NEW TIME!
10:00–11:15 AM Plenary Session
Big Ideas in Improvisation
Moderator: Kevin McNeilly (Department of English Languages and Literatures, University of British Columbia)
Darius Jones (Music, Wesleyan University) and Harmony Holiday (writer, dancer, archivist, experimental filmmaker) in conversation
(A ticketed performance will follow this free event.)
