Jazz luonnollisena systeeminä : fenomenologis-semioottinen tutkielma modernin jazzin myytistä ja sen merkityksestä

Abstract

The meaning aspect of jazz music is widely analyzed in this thesis and an effort has been made to reduce jazz music to the basic level of human existence and perception; thus the title of this thesis 'Jazz as a natural system'. Jazz as a cultural Phenomenon is linked to existence and perception through fundamental assumptions of different traditions of phenomenology and semiotics. Arguments running through the entire discourse are on one hand the Heideggerian existentialistic point of view (Sein und Zeit) and on the other hand, jazz as a collective culture with its individualistic aspects (community/the myth of the ego). The text is divided into three sections: 1. 'The phenomenology of jazz' where a descriptive basis for the observation of the meaning is created to describe the basic features of jazz as viewed from the standpoint of Gestalt psychology, the performance practice of jazz and its African background, sociology, phenomenology and analytic philosophy of language, theory of information, developmental psychology, psychoanalytic theory and brain research. In the last two main chapters, the semiotic point of view is emphasized as follows: 2. The research of. jazz myths is separated into the level of meaning which refers to everyday life and into the formal level of meaning which exists in the structure. 3. Further, the narrative level of the meaning of jazz is divided into the linguistic and the image aspects, (i.e. "word" and "image") which are in defined balance in jazz music. Jazz music's close relationship to the natural languages further strengthens the conception of the 'natural system'.