ABSTRACT
Jazz history reveals that jazz has, at regular intervals, been an arena for the expression of deep conflicts and vast differences of opinion. Often, such conflicts have concerned the changing and evolution of certain musical styles, yet they have also been connected to the values underlying decisions about how and why jazz should be constructed as a historical presentation. In this article, the aim is to reconstruct stories of what can be understood to be partly conflictual musical gentrification-like or -related occurrences in Norwegian jazz and in the Norwegian jazz field in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on a wide range of historical accounts as well as interviews with musicians who participated in this particular field, the chapter recounts stories of many occurrences, big and small, that went into changing the rhythms, ideas and, ultimately, the status of jazz in Norway. It also shows that what happened in and around the Norwegian Jazz Forum in the 1960s contributed significantly to the social and cultural elevation of this specific musical style.
