Introduction

This edited collection began as a conference. On 31 May 2014, we invited musicians, archivists, promoters, enthusiasts and academics from diverse disciplines to the University of Warwick. Our aim was to provide a forum for those working in different ways with jazz to share ideas, experiences and approaches. Many of the papers given on that day are included in this volume in expanded form; others are the result of conversations begun in question-and-answer sessions and continued in the days, weeks and months that followed. In this sense, the chapters collected here do not claim to be a traditional ‘conference proceedings’. They are, rather, a record of evolving ideas and collaborations which have ensued from the initial contact made at the New Jazz Conceptions event. At the time of writing, two years later, the West Midlands is an exciting locus of jazz practice and scholarship. Particularly gratifying are the social and professional associations that have directly resulted from our conference, formalised recently in the AHRC Jazz Network developed between the University of Warwick and Birmingham City University.