How does collegiate jazz education affect the Black cultural value of “soulfulness” in jazz music? Does presenting jazz in an academic setting perpetuate a problematic fixation on those quantifiable and theoretical elements that thrust aside the intangible elements that directly connect jazz to African-American music culture? If the centrality of musical elements like soulfulness, expressiveness, and/or other emotive musical aspects are not prioritised by those who teach jazz to others, do we run the risk of negating (or potential erasure) of the Black cultural stamp that is vital to the very identity of one of the greatest artistic accomplishments of African-American culture?

This presentation will explore Phillips’ 2017 book What is This Thing Called Soul: Conversations on Black Culture and Jazz Education; the very first academic offering to directly and openly explore the potential consequences of forcing the Black musical style of jazz into an academic system that is specifically designed to facilitate the practice and pedagogy of European classical music. His work argues that the cultural, emotional and aesthetic elements at the very core of jazz’s unique identity – along with the music’s overt sonic connection to Black culture – is effectively being “lost in translation” in traversing the divide between academic and non‐academic (street) jazz spheres.