COVID-19 and British Jazz Musicians

Abstract

Jazz is a genre that relies heavily on live performance. It is therefore understandable that the COVID-19 related lockdown greatly affected jazz musicians. In this article, I reflect on London-based jazz musicians’ stories by using the idea of “liminal state”, as conceptualized by Arnold van Gennep (1960) and Victor Turner (1982), examining how they described the lockdown, in particular the financial and emotional impacts it had on them. Between spring 2020 and spring 2021, ten structured theme interviews with jazz musicians were conducted. The article commences by overviewing the data gathered and the ethical procedures adopted, after which I examine the overall emotional and psychological effects that COVID-19 had on jazz musicians who participate in live music. After reflecting on the support that the musicians have received during the pandemic, the article proceeds to outline the new skills that the musicians learned during lockdown.