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Today we reconsider the very origins of jazz, delve into its historical context and address several questions such as Why New Orleans? What was the role of America's largest red light distinct,, how was Jazz related to the targest Union movement in the Southern United States and what was the relationship between Jazz and the failure of the politics of post-Civil War Reconstruction.

We introduce to listeners the century long debate over the role and presence of African survivalisms in this music, a question that continues to vex sociologists, anthropologists and musicologists.

Our opening musical example is a fascinating modern day experiment that pairs the West African instrument of the Kora with its long lost descendant the American banjo,, a link that forms one of the strongest musical arguments for survivals from the Mother Continent.

What we can be more certain of is that Jazz is modernist and that Jazz is hybrid. Jazz galvanises the break with tradition, from the whole formal world of the 19th Century with its boundaries and hierarchies. Jazz is carried onward by the new tempos of the 20th Century, and the fragmented, cubistic art of that era of Picasso and Stravinsky.

So contrary to the manichean fundamentalist racial dualism of the Anglo world, Jazz was catalysed by the remnants of another system entirely, that off the Creole gens de coleur the hybrid New World born people officially accepted by the New World Catholic Empires of France and Spain. These burning embers of of the Haitian Revolution came ashore in New Orlean forming a distinct Caribbean Diaspora, a colony of the dispossessed within a colony in the South. From Jelly Roll Morton, to Kid Cry, to Sydney Bechet all the way up to Winton Marsalis, it is the Creole dimension that has done so much to catalyse Jazz at its birth and to keep it alive today.

We close today with Black Bottom Stomp by Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers from 1926, that fittingly features some rip roaring banjo amidst the joyous polyphony of collective improvisation that is jazz in its earliest and archetypical form.

For reading I suggest:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/853007

· Why Jazz?: A Concise Guide, Kevin Whitehead, , p. 19-53

· A New History of Jazz, Alyn Shipton, p. 13-53; 124 -146

· Louis Armstrong & Paul Whiteman, Joshua Berett (entire book)

· The Myth of the Negro Past, Herskovitz Melville

· Black Bourgeoisie, E Franklin Frasier

· When Genres Collide, Matt Brennan

· And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, Joe Boyd

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Today we explore with nuance ravin in Hong Kong. Amongst the 5th most densely populated cities in the world, along with falling 5 straight years on the World Happiness Index, high stress and some classic grump infuse the Special Administrative Region's image. Its no shock that the psychic abandonment of ravin' and euphoric release would hold special appeal. Home to no Pattaya Beach Trance party or Beatforest Festivals as in Thailand or World DJ in Seoul, ravin' in Hong Kong is about finding well enshrouded GPS coordinates, on small islands buried in the trees.

Stanford researcher Pauline Mornet gathers a number of different cases of ravin' in Hong Kong deftly marshaling thought provoking theory to explain the politics of its performance. Pauline explains given the territory's recent traditions its all about hybrid/ambivalent performance and the complicated oritentation to the music and dance movements of the former British colonial overlord. Further complicating matters are state attempts to coopt dance music alongside grassroots collectives.

We frame this discussion by listening to a news story about the "last saturday night out in British HK," the so-called handover rave that featured Grace Jones in 1997. Stay tuned until the end for an excerpt of Faye Wong's "Chanel," a Hong Kong pop icon heavily influenced by jungle, on this Drum and Bass track from the year 2000.

And check out these links for a collective and festival we discuss in the episode:

https://www.instagram.com/ba___oi___ba/ bà queer collective mentioned and https://www.shifumiz.com/ Shi Fu Miz festival with next event March 21 2026

Merry Listening ahead.

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As a thank you and gift to listeners, please enjoy Slava'a "Wagner in Drinks": https://viacheslavv.substack.com/p/richard-wagners-favorite-drinks-announcement

Russia is a font of alternative perspectives usually unavailable in the West. With its strong Byzantine past, Russia, arguably now still, and forever remains an exemplar of Caesaorpapism - the subordination of the church and matters sacred inside the state, a strong symphony or church and state lending the country's overall arc an air of the messianic. This background greatly shaped what is distinct about the Russian reception of the ever popular, if controversial German composer and father of the "total work of art," Richard Wagner.

If in the West Wagner is seen as a problematic arch-reactionary, even a proto-Nazi, however looking out from Russia westward, if anything, Wagner has had a progressive role in musical aesthetics. His works challenged the old regime of the Tsars, and even the Soviet Union championed his work during and after the Nazi invasion. Our guest, Slava Vlasov, a passionate Wagnerian and author of much creative fiction based on Wagner, highlights how in his early career, at least in terms of his contacts and circles, Wagner can be seen as much a Russian composer as one German. This is a very personal journey, a special Russian journey into the world of Wagner.

In this episode we discuss Wagner's Russian side:

• the controversy over his semi-sacred, mostly heretical Parisfal
• Wagner's breaking open of the possibilities on the Russian stage.
• How Wagner was viewed by the Soviet Union and in Post-Soviet Russia.

Our conversation is enclosed by two lovely piano renditions of Wagner :

1. The Quintet from Mastersingers of Nuremberg
2. Album Leaf for Dutchess Metternich