Pleased to speand a couple of days in residence at the University of Nevada Las Vegas presenting the research from my book “What is This Thing Called Soul” and engaging students in pointed conversation on the topics of appropriation, cultural connectivity and the lack of Black culyure in the teaching of Black music in college environments. Presentation description:

“What Is This Thing Called Soul: The State of Black Cultural Influence in Collegiate Jazz Pedagogy”

How does collegiate jazz education affect the Black cultural value of “soulfulness” in jazz music? Does jazz music’s foundational roots in African-American music culture require educators and practitioners to adjust both how the music is taught and performed by those who claim expertise in the field? Does presenting jazz in an academic setting perpetuate a problematic fixation on those quantifiable and theoretical elements that thrust aside intangible elements that directly connect jazz to African-American music culture? If the centrality of musical elements like soulfulness, expressiveness, and/or other emotive musical aspects are not prioritized by those who teach jazz to others, do we run the risk of negating (or potential erasure) of the Black cultural stamp that is vital to the very identity of one of the greatest artistic accomplishments of African-American culture? 

This presentation will explore Phillips’ 2017 book What is This Thing Called Soul: Conversations on Black Culture and Jazz Education; the very first academic offering to directly and openly explore the potential consequences of forcing the Black musical style of jazz into an academic system that is specifically designed to facilitate the practice and pedagogy of European classical music. His work argues that the cultural, emotional and esthetic elements at the very core of jazz’s unique identity - along with the music’s overt sonic connection to Black culture - is effectively being “lost in translation” in traversing the divide between academic and non‐academic (street) jazz spheres. The validity of the problem’s likely source being the academy itself has yet to be closely examined within the field of jazz studies, jazz education, ethnomusicology or cultural studies prior to WITTCS’s publication.