Professor Shirish Korde & Professor Matthew Jaskot
Winter Term (January) 2021
Monday through Friday, 2:00-5:00 PM

Course Description

Utilizing film and live performances, this course will consider the inter-relationship of music and race in America. We will begin with the formation of the Blues in the early decades of the 20th century and primarily study Jazz styles like New Orleans, Swing, Bebop and Modern Jazz through the lens of segregation and the civil rights movement of the 1960's, as reflected in the music of Jazz masters like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. We will study the radical shifts in musical styles with the development of Hip Hop and issues related to race and gender, for example in the music of N.W.A., as well as the graffiti artists of the 1980s such as Jean-Michel Basquiat. We will also consider how artists such as Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar were influenced by and collaborated with jazz artists such as Kamasi Washington. We will also be looking at artistic responses to recent events after the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing demonstrations led by the Black Lives Matter movement, including the work of composers Matthew Evan Taylor and Joel Thompson.