Syllabus
Jazz in independent Czechoslovakia after 1918
Jazz and 20th-century serious music (Martinů, Schulhoff, Stravinskij, Ježek, Weill)
The Liberated Theater (Voskovec, Werich, Ježek), E. F. Burian, K. Teige, A. Hoffmeister
Jazz and swing music in the 2nd decade of independence
Jazz under the Nazi rule: \"entartete Kunst\"
Brief comeback: 1945-48
Jazz under the communist rule: \"music of spiritual poverty\"
Protracted rebirth after 1956
The Golden 1960s
Post-1968 Normalization: The Jazz Section
Annotation
The aim of the course is to show, exemplified on jazz, the penetration of American culture into Czechoslovakia during the 20th century. The reception of jazz will offer to students broader perspectives like the impact of various historical events on Czech culture, the problem of racism, the encounter of the Czech cultural environment with the result of cultural mixing in a previously remote region, the role of propaganda and antipropaganda. reactions to jazz in various periods tell a lot about the society of the time.
The course will include many sound examples of American, Czech and SLovak jazz.