ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by outlining the notion of postmodernism in jazz, drawing on the work of Umberto Eco and Margaret Rose, and noting the range of techniques – including irony, parody, appropriation, and intertextuality – utilized by many contemporary jazz musicians and composers. In the following sections, employing three specific case studies, the chapter explores the prevalence of parody in jazz, addressing the social critique inherent in the unequivocal satiric parody of Charles Mingus's “Fables of Faubus,” a ferocious condemnation of a white, segregationist U.S. State Governor; the intriguing and somewhat puzzling shift from satiric to ironic parody, spanning several decades, in contrasting versions of a “Gershwin Medley” by Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers, in an analysis that draws on a 2019 interview with alto saxophonist and composer Bobby Watson; and the interpretive uncertainty generated by the ambiguity inherent in 1960s performances of popular songs and Ellington ballads by Archie Shepp, in which explanatory claims for Shepp's musical practice include problematic ascriptions of satiric parody by Ekkehard Jost and others. The chapter concludes with a number of broadly contemporaneous examples which further illustrate the argument in this chapter regarding the ambiguous and fluid nature of musical meaning, opening up the possibility for new interpretations, new connotations, and new values.
