Temaer i dansk jazzhistorieskrivning

Abstract

This article examines the historiography of Danish jazz as written in a wide range of Danish jazz-history texts from the 1920s to the 2020s. Drawing on insights and methods from new jazz studies, the article has a special focus on which narratives underpin the aesthetic, ideological, and social projects of various authors and critics. Combining chronological overview and thematic analysis, these authors are grouped into three generations of Danish historians with the suggestion of a current fourth generation. Central themes include the framing of jazz as an art form caught between highbrow and popular culture; the role of institutions such as the Danish Broadcasting Corporation as symbolic battlegrounds for cultural recognition; recurring golden age narratives; and the complex processes of Americanization, assimilation, and appropriation. Particular attention is paid to how race and Blackness have been treated. The analysis shows how topics of race often marginalized or rendered colourblind in postwar historiography. Ultimately, the article argues that Danish jazz history has been written as the story of the jazz community’s own struggle for recognition. Whether it concerns aesthetic discourses or, for example, distancing oneself from racism, a central approach for almost all jazz writers has been to position jazz as a genre that deserves higher aesthetic, economic, or institutional status.