Critiquing the “What Is Jazz” Puzzle in a Diasporic Setting: “Jazz-Related” Performance and Patronage in Australia before “Jazz”

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article proposes that the framing of jazz diaspora in relation to Australia must embrace significant antecedents of jazz-related performance and culture in Australia, including blackface and African-American minstrel show music, improvisatory popular and art music practices and various subgenres of ragtime. It argues that the spirit of “jazz” as a vehicle for extroverted self-expression and identification with American popular modernity and youthful rebellion through music, dance, and fashion was already present in the Antipodes from around 1912 to the final year of World War I, when a “ragging” and “jazzing” novelty act called Australia’s First Jazz Band appeared in vaudeville.