Letter from the Editor

Abstract

During the course of its existence, many articles in Jazz Perspectives have engaged in forceful critiques and re-examinations of jazz’s history and practice; in fact, this might be seen as something of a running theme in the pages of the journal, to constantly question the ways we engage with and understand what jazz is. The boundaries of jazz have perplexed musicians, critics, scholars, and audiences since the earliest days of the music. Be it the symphonic strains of George Gershwin and Paul Whiteman, the electric fusion of Miles Davis and his collaborators, or the saccharine stylings of Kenny G, jazz people have never been reluctant to espouse opinions on what jazz is, or more to the point, what jazz is not. In magazine articles, internet forums, Facebook posts, and Twitter feeds, the debate about where jazz ends and begins rages on. Scholars too have participated in these debates for many years. To give one recent example, in the 2012 book Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music and its Boundaries, editors David Ake, Charles Hiroshi Garrett, and Daniel Goldmark presented a series of essays that spotlight these issues, calling into question the utility of jazz’s boundaries, be they boundaries of sound, culture, community, or history. The boundaries of the music have been, as the editors of Jazz/Not Jazz note, “fiercely guarded and very difficult to define.” Given recent debates over jazz’s identity, history, and place in society, it is clear that this process persists to this day. Scholarship in jazz often must by necessity engage with such issues, particularly when examining music and issues which might be considered at the “margins” of the genre. In this issue of Jazz Perspectives, we feature works that continue in this spirit, exploring topics that problematize the effort to clearly define jazz vas-a-vis popular music, or classical forms. The three articles in this issue all speak to this permeability of boundaries. Brian Felix’s essay on Wes Montgomery’s collaborations with producer Creed Taylor engages in a critical discussion of the fault lines between jazz and popular forms, be it in terms of musical practice, critical reception, or audience taste. Felix examines Montgomery’s “pop” recordings of the late 1960s, with a particular emphasis on his 1967 album A Day in the Life, a recording that represents (by virtue of its title, named for Montgomery’s version of the Beatles track of the same name) the nexus of discourses of pop and jazz, and of art and commerce. Montgomery and