From the ‘Sultan’ to the Persian Side:: Jazz in Iran and Iranian Jazz since the 1920s

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    Abstract

    Jazz has long played a marginal but significant role in Iran’s music and sociocultural scenes. It has been linked variously with the country’s relations with ‘the West’, especially the United States, notions of ‘modernisation’, visions of freedom, sociability through collaboration, identification with oppressed people internationally and a form of national or cultural expression through fusion with Iranian art and regional music.2 With its turbulent modern history, intersected by a colonial dynamic, Iran presents distinctive problems in the analysis of its relationship with jazz. The country has experienced a succession of regimes with totalitarian tendencies, in that they have sought to exercise control over cultural practices, including music.3 The reasons for these controls have varied with the agendas of the successive regimes and, while jazz has rarely been completely suppressed, the possibilities open to particular practitioners of jazz in Iran have been deeply affected by those various agendas. The understanding of jazz itself has been in flux since it first arrived in Iran, illustrating the complex heterogeneity of the relationship between the music and totalitarianism.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationJazz and Totalitarianism
    EditorsBruce Johnson
    Place of PublicationNew York NY USA
    PublisherRoutledge
    Chapter13
    Pages297-324
    Number of pages28
    Edition1st
    ISBN (Electronic)9781315713915
    ISBN (Print)9781138887817, 9781138887824
    Publication statusPublished - 2017

    Publication series

    NameTransnational Studies in Jazz
    PublisherRoutledge

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