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Article: "Classical jazz" and the Black Arts Movement.
- Article from:
- African American Review
- Article date:
- June 22, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 African American Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The period between 1960 and 1970 represents an era of important and extraordinary cultural change in the United States. Longstanding issues of the relationship of ethnic vernacular art to the "mainstream," and that of the American "mainstream" to European "high art," came into focus in these years in a particularly contentious yet artistically fruitful manner.
If one recalls artists such as John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Eric Dolphy, it is clear that jazz musicians were never before so technically proficient on their instruments or in their mastery of European "classical" traditions. On the other hand, these artists consciously intended to foreground non-European ...