ABSTRACT
Historians of British Cultural Studies generally agree that Marxist writings on popular culture acquired a new sophistication in the 1970s. Although Eric Hobsbawm in no way regarded himself as a spokesman for the rock generation, one of his most important goals in The Jazz Scene was to show that not all British Marxists were as ill-equipped as the likes of A. L. Lloyd, Ewan MacColl and Sam Aaronovitch to understand the new media culture. It should be clear that The Jazz Scene occupies an intermediate position in the evolution of British Marxist writing on popular culture. In its attempt to describe jazz as a species of folk music and in its suspicion of the culture industry and respect for the independent sector, it takes its lead from the folk revivalists and anti-American fundamentalists who defined the Communist Party of Great Britain's (CPGB's) approach to culture in the 1950s.
