“Filipino Seekers of Fortune”: Jazz as Labor in 1920s Colonial Asia

ABSTRACT Filipino musicians were critical for the spread of jazz throughout Asia yet their place in histories of the music remains peripheral. I argue that the emergence of the Filipino jazz musician was based on contradictions central to a new imperial jazz economy: the possibilities of jazz as a form of labor in colonial Asia have to be paired with the devastating impact of U.S. imperial policies. Furthermore, the Filipino semimonopoly on musical labor in Asia that brought many Filipinos a sense of political pride was made possible by racialized hierarchies of work that served to undermine claims for Philippine independence.