event, generally before going to sleep or, when that was not feasible, upon awakening later in the day. In the typewritten notes I attempted to capture as much as I could remember of what I observed but had not written down, mingling reporting with interpretation and evaluation. In addition, my chronological field notes contain records of phone conversations and other discussions that were not tape-recorded, appointments, phone numbers, contact information, biographical sketches, and any other information directly related to or drawn from the participant observation portion of my fieldwork—both at and away from musical events.
The central activities that comprised my fieldwork entailed progressively deeper involvement with the functioning of the scene. In the first couple of months I limited my activities to attending live performances alone and making contact with musicians and other participants. I used this time to establish myself as a regular on the scene, to be recognized as a participant in it. That process required major shifts in my lifestyle, particularly my sleeping habits. I quickly found myself waking between noon and 1 PM and retiring between 4 and 5 AM. Such a schedule made it easier for me to hang out with the musicians I knew and was coming to know. Being able to stay through the last set of a musical performance (such as the 2 AM set at Bradley’s) and, more importantly, for the socializing that took place after it ended allowed me to participate in conversations that the most casual scene participants—or those with day jobs—typically miss. In part because of that schedule, my involvement with friends and colleagues not related to my research became largely non-existent. By the end of my fieldwork period, the jazz scene had become my social world: whenever I went to live performances I would see someone I knew well in the audience, whether or not I knew the musicians who were performing. I’d frequently sit through a set or two with whomever I met and go with them afterward to Bradley’s for the late set.
During those times I engaged in conversation with musicians and others about aspects of performances and got recommendations about upcoming performances that I should attend as well as certain “blessed records” that they liked or felt had exerted great influence on them.31 In some cases, discussion of such recordings was triggered by the music that happened to be playing on the stereo system in the venue.32 Sometimes musicians who didn’t know me well would test me by asking me to identify the performer(s) on a recording by listening attentively. Making both my own choices about performances and following the recommendations of musicians and Peter Watrous, I generally attended no fewer than four live performances per week during the fieldwork period, sometimes going to three venues in the course of one evening. By attending performances and studying blessed recordings, I gained more insight into the criteria that distinguished good performers and recordings. I also enhanced my ability to recognize songs from the standard jazz repertoire and to analyze performances instantly, discerning elements of form, feel, meter, harmony, and substitutions as well as other parameters.
After this early period I started attending performances with the musicians and other individuals whose acquaintance I had made. The conversations that resulted from our reactions to what we were hearing and experiencing helped me to understand the evaluative criteria of individuals on the scene and to compare those criteria with my own. Among the many things that I learned in this process was that my criteria were not significantly different from those of the musicians and listeners with whom I interacted. Like them, I was listening, for example, for aspects of form, arrangement, style, creativity, and play in individual performance and group interaction.
In late September I started attending recording sessions sporadically as well as spending time with musicians outside of performance contexts, such as in their apartments or on social outings. These activities, combined with the observation of numerous performances, helped me to ascertain the “communicative norms” of individuals on the scene. Charles L. Briggs (1986) recommends that one attempt to learn these norms in the early phases of fieldwork, paying particular attention to how queries are framed, who has the right to ask questions, of whom, and on which topics. Based on that investigation, one can then design an interview methodology that takes into account what one has discovered.
In late October I started reviewing my field notes to see which issues had been prominent during my field experience. In those notes I had included potential questions to ask in interviews, such as questions about the role of various people in the recording industry, the importance of audience interaction, and conflicts among musicians in touring groups. I also noticed topics on which I needed more information. In comparing the issues raised in my notes with my central questions, I began to formulate an interview schedule focused on the dynamics of the scene, its various agents and actors, and interactive parameters of performance. I started conducting tape-recorded formal interviews with musicians in November 1994 and continued until September 1995. Although some interviews were conducted in restaurants, cafés, or offices, the majority were conducted in the homes of the musicians. Conducting interviews in musicians’ homes generated other questions regarding their record collections and memorabilia.33 (I also conducted a series of informal interviews with recording industry personnel, most frequently in performance venues, that allowed me to understand the work they did and its function in the scene.) I prepared for musicians’ interviews by reviewing whatever notes I had taken on performances by them, reviewing comments that had been made about them by other musicians or in the press, and listening to a sample of their recordings to generate questions specifically geared toward them. When interviewing non-musicians, my questions focused on their work, their pathways to it, and their knowledge and understanding of music.
The musicians’ interviews, although guided by the schedule, were open-ended. A few lasted as little as ninety minutes. More typically, they lasted from two to four hours, and some had to be done in multiple sittings. I reviewed each of the tapes and took detailed notes. In comparing the notes, I identified common concerns and selectively transcribed relevant portions. Those excerpts were then combined in word-processing documents so that I could look at individual comments on the same topic in close proximity to one another and thus make comparisons and further refine the concepts that emerged from them. The data gathered from the interviews provided more questions for observation in the last phases of fieldwork, particularly regarding the ways in which performers actualized their normative statements about performance. I rendered my transcriptions as literally as possible, making no attempts to convert the grammatical irregularities of speech into the regularities readers are accustomed to seeing. My reason for doing so was to preserve the moments of “interpretive time” that characterized the interviewees’ and my attempts to “force awareness to words” (Feld 1994b, 93).
In the spring of 1995, while I continued attending live performances, observing recording sessions, and conducting interviews, my involvement with the scene became deeper as I became a freelance writer, researching a two-page sketch of jazz past and present for the New York Times Magazine (Jackson 1995) as well as writing a number of artist biographies, brochures, and record reviews for various labels and publications. These activities exposed me to more of the behind-the-scenes work that led not only to writing about record releases and public performances but to the recordings or performances themselves. I had already begun to learn, through my internship with Watrous, the kinds of information that record labels provided to writers, but by becoming one myself, I participated in the creation and dissemination of such information.34 I also learned more about the role that publicity firms, record release parties, and other promotional activities play in the day-to-day functioning of the scene by fostering familiarity and contact among critics, recording industry personnel, and musicians.
Through engaging in all these activities over an eighteen-month period, I gained an understanding of the complexity of the interactions that comprise the scene. The roles of specific individuals on the scene were often multiple and overlapping. Writers whom I associated only with the popular press sometimes had serious commitments to the recording industry. At least one of them, Jeff Levenson, moved from a job as a writer (jazz editor at Billboard magazine) to a position at a record label (Warner Brothers). I also noted the cyclical nature of the scene, which was characterized by the prolonged absence of many performers from the city during the summer festival season, the opening and frequent closing of clubs, the launching and failure of jazz labels, and the signing and dropping of performers from those labels’ rosters.
My fieldwork in the mid-1990s and in 2000–2001 forms