Civic Jazz. American Music and Kenneth Burke… by Gregory Clark (2015)

As many readers of this site will be familiar with jazz music, fewer will have heard of Kenneth Burke. This new title seeks and finds many parallel aspects and even identifies a number of major principles that both are at the root of jazz communication and civic behavior in the US.

While Burke is best known for his writings on literary theory, symbolism and rhetoric theory, he always identified the meaning of interaction, common good and the evolution of rhetorical strategies as powerful elements in the evolution of modern man.
Several other aspects of his works also strongly influenced important writers such as Ralph Ellison, who picked up on the theme of alienation in US society in Invisible Man and who was in contact with Burke for a while. Even if Burke never wrote about jazz in detail, he took many aspects of communication, group identity (versus individuality) and the forging of alliances by groups of people to reach a certain goal as the major source for the development of  civic life in democratic society.

His approach to social interaction that made him famous obscured the fact that he was actually very fond of music and once in his early life, had almost decided on a career in music. He understood music basically as rhetorical and saw it equal to oratory, another outstanding subject in his writings. For him, music had a number of effects on the listener as well as on the creator/originator. In his concept of artistic forms, music as a work of art did not just communicate information. It held the power to influence  others as the product of rhetorical mechanics. This (musical) experience in his model then may alter the way man perceives his circumstances.

This is what author Gregory Clark, University Professor of English at Bringham University and writer of more titles on Burke and rhetoric, takes as his starting point in Civic Jazz.

Clark’s conclusions then point to a set of strategies that simplify and even organize man’s life. So taking on top new challenges each time can be seen as equal to a jazz improvisation, something that gets us further while after each challenging situation, we go back to our same-old ways. Only that the fresh experience and the new solo may have altered our ways of perception and may have taught us some brand new solo; a statement we can build on the next time we need to improvise or feel the urge to make an impression while synthesizing something old and something new.

In seven entertaining chapters, he builds a strong case out of the many similarities both jazz culture and American democracy offer: namely freedom (of expression), self-determination and equality. These are important key concepts that for centuries were denied to African-Americans, who mostly invented jazz. While in detail Kenneth Burke’s notions of experience, overcoming difficulties and cooperation are very complex subjects, not to mention his use and interpretation of symbols, Professor Clark highlights several overlapping aspects in which jazz musicians achieve cooperation and interaction. Even though jazz musicians give up individuality for a certain time in order to experience cooperation and group activity, the possibility to play a solo then allows and even fosters individual performance.
Clark observes clear links to Burke’s conclusions of a democratic process in action:  it requires community action and the fulfillment of a group identity as well as cooperation on certain terms for a certain amount of time; and thus profits from self-determination.

Review by Dr. A. Ebert © 2015

Gregory Clark. Civic Jazz: American Music And Kenneth Burke On The Art Of Getting Along. University of Chicago Press, 2015, 210 p.