South African Jazz Cultures and the Archive

Researcher

• Jonathan Eato

  

  Jonathan Eato is a composer and saxophone player with interests in a wide range of contemporary musics, jazz, improvisation, South African popular music, interdisciplinary performance, music and postcoloniality, and music for dance.

‘South African Jazz Cultures and the Archive’ aims to facilitate a critical engagement with current archival initiatives across a range of stakeholders for South African jazz by organizing and documenting a series of interdisciplinary discussion days (in both South Africa and the UK).

It will also address a significant lacuna in the archive by documenting a series of interviews with musicians that focuses on musical thinking and priorities, rather than socio-historical information. Two fully funded masters studentships will be created to work on South African jazz at Stellenbosch University and assist in the interviewing process, to be jointly supervised by Professor Stephanus Muller (University of Stellenbosch) and Dr Jonathan Eato (University of York). Training on various aspects of archival documentation will be provided for the masters students, whilst staff and academics associated with the Documentation Centre for Music at Stellenbosch will be assisted in bringing jazz music into their remit. The project will produce video and print outputs relating to archival policy for jazz and research building on the interview material gathered.

Funded by a British Academy Newton Fellowship Research Grant 2015