Alcajazz: Afro-Peruvian Forms of Musical Knowledge and the Shaping of Afro-Peruvian Jazz [abstract only]

Abstract

This paper is focused on the recent collaboration between local jazz and Afro-Peruvian musicians to develop a new, locally rooted style of jazz that uses Afro-Peruvian musical genres as a departure point. While there have been prior attempts at such musical synthesis can be traced back to the late 1970s, I argue that a shift in perspective among the latest generation of jazz both jazz and Afro-Peruvian musicians has led to more fruitful working relationship. Specifically, I suggest that jazz musicians have increasingly come to acknowledge and value their Afro-Peruvian counterparts for having access to distinct forms of musical and cultural knowledge that are deemed vital to the development of this new jazz idiom. To this end, I will look at the music of Gabriel Alegría and the Afro-Peruvian Sextet, playing particular attention to how stylistic features of Alegría’s music have grown out of an ongoing dialogue among band members with markedly different social, ethnic, and musical backgrounds. I will also explore the broader implications that this new type of collaboration has for rooting Afro-Peruvian jazz among the larger Afro-Peruvian musical community rather than remaining predominantly a middle class and upper middle class activity at the hands of musicians who are not of African descent.