Bebop and Deconstruction

[Dave Monroe]

Okay, recently posted to the list was Jeff Schwartz's
"Postmodernity, History, and the Assassination of JFK"
(M.A. Thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1992)
...

http://www.geocities.com/jeff_l_schwartz/thesis.html

Checking out his website ...

http://www.geocities.com/jeff_l_schwartz/

http://www.geocities.com/jeff_l_schwartz/publist.html

I now find that not only did I post a link to a paper
of his on the reception of Susan McClary's Feminine
Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Mpls: U of Minn
P, 1991) ...

http://www.geocities.com/jeff_l_schwartz/mcclary.html

... but that among several other interesting
publications of his available online is the following,
"Bebop and Deconstruction: The Philosophy of the
Harmonic Limit," e.g. ...

"Deconstruction is about the necessity and
impossibility of metadiscursive concepts such as
ontology and essentialism. The understanding of
harmony in bebop and post-bop improvisation must work
along these same lines. I will demonstrate this in two
ways: first, by arguing that bebop increased the
complexity of jazz harmony to the point that it could
no longer serve a prescriptive function, defining
certain "right" and "wrong" notes, and second, by
examining how three alto saxophonists apply this
freedom while remaining within song form and the
tradition of jazz. In bebop, the logic of harmony is
carried to a limit where it can no longer dictate what
is played, but harmony is not abandoned. Indeed, it is
more important than ever."

http://www.geocities.com/jeff_l_schwartz/bebop.html

And a nice page of musical links as well ...

http://www.geocities.com/jeff_l_schwartz/music.html

Note, for example, http://www.pfmentum.com/.  Reminds
me, Keith seems to have gone deus absconditus on us. 
Tres Pynchonesque ...


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