ABSTRACTS<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soundtracking Danger: Adapting the Jazz Noir<\/em> Fallacy in Game Noir<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n James Heazlewood-Dale (Brandeis University)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Embedded in the sounds of a sultry saxophone solo, a walking double bass, and a swinging high hat are sinister and salacious undertones. Within cinematic contexts, jazz has accumulated codings to signify criminality, urbanity, and immorality. The jazz crime trope<\/em> has pervasively made its way into the soundscapes of interactive media. There is a complexity in examining transmedial adaptations of film noir due to various periods of noir (classic noir, period noir, and neo-noir), and there is a great deal of nuance in the relationships between the jazz idiom and these three shades of film noir. Steven Reale, Andra Iv\u0103nescu, and Iain Hart’s ludomusicological scholarship focus on how jazz operates ludically, musically, and aesthetically in L.A. Noire <\/em>(2011), establishing Rockstar Games\u2019s love letter to classic 1940s film noir as a seminal case study for examining game noir<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The present research builds on the ideas, tools, and methodologies of these scholars, in addition to film scholars such as David Butler, Mark T. Conrad, Andrew Spicer, and Patrick Ness, to investigate a more extensive list of more than 70 game noir case studies, including Chicken Police – Paint it RED! <\/em>(2020), Genesis Noir <\/em>(2021), and Voodoo Detective <\/em>(2022). <\/em>I argue that these case studies illuminate how game noir perpetuates the fallacy of jazz noir<\/em>, the mythologized relationship between classic noir and jazz music. By examining jazz in a wider range of ludic contexts, this research seeks to illuminate jazz music\u2019s often-overlooked role in game scoring practices and offers insights into ludomusical storytelling and cultural representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***********<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musical Networks, Genealogy, and the Tree of Jesse in Fifteenth-Century France<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeannette D. Jones (Maynard, MA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n French poetry demonstrated a cultural shift at the beginning of the fifteenth century that exalted the work of the artist as one whose works deserve tribute as artistic nobility, characterized by lists of poets and musicians. These lists depict an artist lineage that serves a discursive function, emulating genealogies of the ruling class. A dynastic system depends on the legitimacy of heirs, ensuring future legacy. The lists of poets and musicians build value for their work, establishing their lasting glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sound imagery pervades these poems, but also reflects visual depictions of sound and genealogy, particularly in Tree of Jesse images. These images typically show a tree growing upwards from a supine Jesse with small portraits of the ancestors, reflected in several biblical genealogies. While the number of ancestors may vary depending on the level of detail, King David is always present, holding his harp. A cluster of miniatures representing the tree of Jesse emerged in fifteenth-century northern French sources in which all the ancestors hold instruments. The array of instruments reflects the soundscape of coronation and regal processions, as well as resonating with instruments surrounding the poetic scenes of artistic lineage. I argue that the tree imagery invites us to think of an ecology of artistic networks in France, especially adding a crucial dimension to what is known about the lives and institutions of musicians in these circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***********<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freder\u2019s Fever Dream: How the Dies Irae<\/em> Disrupts and Determines Narrative<\/strong> Logic in the Film Metropolis<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex Ludwig (Berklee College of Music)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVerily, I say unto you, the days spoken of in the Apocalypse are nigh\u2026!\u201d These words appear on an inter-title card during Fritz Lang\u2019s film Metropolis<\/em> (1927) as the protagonist, Freder Frederson, suffers from an anxiety attack. Our bedridden hero envisions a series of apocalyptic images brought about by a \u201cfalse idol\u201d that eventually culminates in an enormous, G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/em>-like flood of the titular city. Freder\u2019s nightmare is sufficiently colored by the score\u2019s frequent citation of the medieval melody Dies Irae<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Composed by Gottfried Huppertz, the film score for Metropolis <\/em>contains multiple iterations of the Dies Irae<\/em> in support its apocalyptic narrative. Given its status in the 19th century as a musical memento mori<\/em>, the Dies Irae<\/em> clearly shapes the narrative of the film, appearing more than ten times throughout Metropolis<\/em>. In its incipit form, the Dies Irae functions as a leitmotif for a spy that follows Freder; full statements of the melody accompany descriptions or visions of the Apocalypse. By far, the most dense grouping of the Dies Irae<\/em> appears in the \u201cIntermezzo,\u201d or middle act of the film, wherein the protagonist, Freder Frederson, frantically searches for his beloved Maria. Unbeknownst to Freder, Maria has been abducted and her likeness applied to a \u201cFalse Maria\u201d sent to not only sow discord amongst the workers beneath the city, but also to wreak havoc in the Frederson family, as she drives a wedge between father and son. Drawing on analyses of multiple cues in the score, including both the incipit and fully-fledged melody, I demonstrate how Huppertz\u2019s use of the Dies<\/em> Irae<\/em> shapes our understanding of the film\u2019s narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***********<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cootje van Oven\u2019s Legacy as a Student and Collector of the Indigenous Music of Sierra Leone<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Richard Mueller (Willington, CT)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1960 at the age of 40, Cootje van Oven arrived in Freetown to take up duties as a music teacher at the Grammar School. Over the next 23 years she collected and studied indigenous music in all provinces of the country with the goal of creating a textbook to be used to teach Sierra Leone\u2019s music to students in schools. Overcoming many obstacles, she published two books on Sierra Leone\u2019s music (1981-2) and made over 300 recordings, 236 of which form her Collection in the Sierra Leone Museum. Once back in the Netherlands, she wrote a 532-page autobiography (unpublished) documenting, among other things, her work in Sierra Leone and the history of music education in Sierra Leone from 1960 to 1983. In 2003, Pan Records produced a CD \u201cBush Animals Don\u2019t Like Hunters\u201d that makes available 22 recordings. Her published books and the CD are available at various universities. Copies of her recordings were deposited at UCLA and Indiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My review of the analyses and descriptions of her books will illustrate some ethnomusicological shortcomings while showing the importance of her work as a historical document and a basis for scholarly work on Sierra Leone\u2019s music and the yet-to-be studied life and music of an early Krio researcher and composer, N.G. Ballanta. Background details in her autobiography, books, and her Museum Collection help identify recordings on the unavailable cassettes of her books and aid understanding within and between indigenous musical traditions. I will discuss the music of the title piece and cover photograph of her CD while revealing how favorably her work was received by educators and musicians. In so doing, I seek interest among scholars in finding a publisher for her autobiography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***********<\/p>\n\n\n\n SPEAKER BIOS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Musicologist and composer Mark DeVoto<\/strong> is an expert in early 20th-century music. A graduate of Harvard College (1961) and Princeton University (Ph.D., 1967), he is professor emeritus of music at Tufts University. He wrote the revised fourth (1978) and fifth (1987) editions of Harmony<\/em> by his teacher Walter Piston, and in 1997 edited the Altenberg Lieder<\/em>, op. 4, for the new edition Alban Berg’s complete works. In 2004 he published Debussy and the Veil of Tonality: Essays on his Music<\/em>, and in 2011 Schubert’s Great C Major: Biography of a Symphony<\/em>, both with Pendragon Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growing up in Sydney\u2019s vibrant music scene, scholar, performer, and Grammy-nominated bassist James Heazlewood-Dale<\/strong> relocated to Boston to study jazz double bass at the Berklee School of Music and the New England Conservatory on full scholarships. He has since performed with world-renowned artists, including Jacob Collier, Maria Schneider, Terence Blanchard, and Zakir Hussain, and currently serves as Grace Kelly’s musical director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A recipient of Brandeis University’s Provost Research Award, his Ph.D. research focuses on the rich intersection between the jazz idiom and video game music. James has presented ludomusicological research at several national conferences, including those for the American Musicological Society, the Musicological Society of Australia, the Jazz Education Network, the College Music Society, and the Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games. His work can be read in Jazz and Culture<\/em> (University of Illinois Press), Environmental Humanities and the Video Game<\/em> (Palgrave Macmillan), and Adaptation, Rearrangement, and Music Across Screen Media<\/em> (Routledge).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most recently, James was commissioned by Decca Records to write the liner notes to the soundtrack release of The Callisto Protocol <\/em>(2022) and appeared as a scholarly guest in Adam Neely’s video essay \u201cThe Nintendo-fication of Jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeannette D. Jones<\/strong> received her Ph.D. in historical musicology from Boston University in 2019. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the greater Boston area. Her research focuses on cultural and social networks in late fifteenth-century France. She has contributed to the collection Gaspar van Weerbeke: New Interpretations<\/em> (2019) and the Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability<\/em> (2015). She is active in the fields of early music, disability studies, digital humanities, and environmental humanities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex Ludwig<\/strong> is an Associate Professor in the Liberal Arts & Sciences department at Berklee College of Music. Along with Simone Pilon, he co-edited the book, Woodstock Then and Now: A 50th Anniversary Celebration, <\/em>published by Clemson University Press. Alex has published articles and presented papers on various topics, including the analysis of Joseph Haydn\u2019s string quartets and the role of rhythm in the editing of film musicals. His current research project concerns the medieval chant \u201cDies Irae\u201d and its use in modern-day film scores. You can find more information on this topic, including an exhaustive list of films quoting the \u201cDies Irae\u201d and a series of YouTube compilations, at his website <alexludwig.net>. Alex serves as a Director-at-Large for the Haydn Society of North America and the Secretary\/Treasurer for the American Musicological Society\u2019s Pedagogy Study Group. He holds a Ph.D. and M.F.A. in Musicology from Brandeis University and a B.M. in String Performance from Boston University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Richard E. Mueller<\/strong>, an independent scholar and musician, holds degrees in music from Harvard (BA, 1966), Indiana (MMus theory, 1970), and University of Chicago (MA composition, 1974, and PhD musicology, 1983). Notable publications include Beauty and Innovation in <\/em>la machine chinoise: Falla, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel<\/em> (Pendragon Press, 2018, 2021), Imitation and Stylization in the Balinese Music of Colin McPhee <\/em>(1983),\u201cJavanese Influence on Debussy\u2019s Fantaisie<\/em> and Beyond,\u201d 19th <\/sup>Century Music<\/em> (1986), the two-part article \u201cBali, Tabuh-Tabuhan<\/em>, and Colin McPhee\u2019s Method of Intercultural Composition,\u201d Journal of Musicological Research<\/em> (1991), and a paper read at the 2023 MULICO conference in Montpellier celebrating the 100th<\/sup> anniversary of Falla\u2019s El Retablo de Maese Pedro<\/em>: \u201cContinuities and Transformations of Stylistic Structural Procedures in Falla\u2019s El Retablo<\/em> and Harpsichord Concerto.\u201d He is a research scholar at the Archivo Manuel de Falla, Granada, Spain since 1996, and his plans for research include Falla and other modernist composers, Chopin and Falla, the oriental music of Henry Eichheim, and Cootje van Oven and the music of Sierra Leone. He was elected New England chapter representative to the AMS Council, 2020-2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ABSTRACTS Soundtracking Danger: Adapting the Jazz Noir Fallacy in Game Noir James Heazlewood-Dale (Brandeis University) Embedded in the sounds of a sultry saxophone solo, a walking double bass, and a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1410,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1415","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newengland.ams-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newengland.ams-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newengland.ams-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newengland.ams-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newengland.ams-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1415"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.newengland.ams-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"https:\/\/www.newengland.ams-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1415\/revisions\/1421"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newengland.ams-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newengland.ams-net.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}