Serious jazz can be found in places where it is least expected, in mainstream Hollywood films. This thesis aims to demonstrate how film composers (such as Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones and Lalo Schifrin) challenged established conventions in the music and film industries between the late 1950s and the late 1970s. During this period, film composers were producing jazz for a global audience; their musical contribution is integral to our current understanding of jazz history. It is by viewing the history of film music through the various ways in which it is received (in music journals, performances, publications, recordings, films) that a new perspective on jazz history will be achieved. Giving focus to individual film scores, using detailed analysis and transcription, this thesis will highlight key moments in history that reveal how important film composers are to the story of jazz. With the study of journalistic and academic publications, it will also show how wider changes in American society were represented by jazz composers in film scores. Considering the history of jazz through the reception of Hollywood film scores enables new ways to define the genre. For instance, by taking into account the future performance life of a composition, this thesis will provide a new perspective on the fundamental characteristics of a jazz composition. These new ways to consider the genre demonstrate why film music should be included within the jazz-historical canon.

The central aim of this thesis is to address the research question: In what ways are digital media affecting the dissemination of jazz in Britain? Within this are four sub-questions: 1. Has the changing position of jazz in British culture since 1980 affected its audience? 2. Has digital media had the same impact on the dissemination of jazz as it has on mainstream popular music? 3. How is digital technology affecting jazz scenes in the UK? 4. Is there an ‘online community’ of jazz enthusiasts in Britain? The term ‘digital media’ suggests that geographical boundaries are irrelevant, but basing this project in the UK provides a focus for the research, both in terms of jazz as an established cultural form in Britain and in order to investigate British jazz audiences. Theoretical approaches from several disciplines are drawn upon, including cultural studies, new media studies, ethnomusicology, popular music studies and jazz studies. Research methods include surveys of audiences at selected jazz festivals in Britain using questionnaires along with interviews with the festival directors, online surveys, and interviews with jazz enthusiasts. The broad findings indicate that while jazz is one of many types of music available to contemporary audiences who may also listen to other genres, there are fans of particular styles choosing to attend certain live events – increasingly making use of digital media to find information and facilitate their decisions. Sites such as YouTube are popular with jazz audiences, and there are independent jazz record labels that use digital media effectively, unlike, according to some respondents, certain jazz musicians. Audiences (which include a significant proportion of musicians) are now using social networking sites to create online groups with shared musical interests, but this activity has not prevented jazz being essentially a music of live performance – and indeed may be helping to keep it live.

Les musiques afro-américaines et le jazz en particulier, nous interpellent de manière opportune sur les relations interculturelles qui se jouent dans nos sociétés occidentales. Analyseurs des relations interculturelles, les phénomènes musicaux d’origine afro-américaine nous invitent à repenser sous un angle original les questions de la ségrégation et des discriminations exercées sur la communauté afro-américaine. En outre, c’est notre rapport à la culture et à l’art dans nos sociétés occidentales qui s’en trouve interrogé. À travers la transmission et la diffusion du jazz de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique, en Europe et notamment en France, j’analyserai les perspectives et développements contemporains du jazz en interrogeant en particulier l’enchevêtrement des multiples traditions. La cohabitation, dans le maelstrom contemporain, de diverses traditions jazzistiques peut être perçue comme autant de tentatives originales et conflictuelles de musicalisation du monde. / The Afro-American music and jazz in particular, question us in a convenient way on the intercultural relations which happen in our western societies. “Analyser” of the intercultural relations, the musical phenomena of Afro-American origin invites us to rethink under an original angle the questions of segregation and discriminations exercised on the Afro-American community. More over, the relationship we have with culture and art in our western societies has to be questioned here. Through the transmission and the distribution of Jazz on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in Europe in particular in France, I shall analyse the perspectives and the contemporary developments of the jazz would thus be perceived as so many original and contradictory attempts of “musicalisation” of the world.