The book: The History of Jazz in Europe

The first meeting of the editors

In The Netherlands at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, on the 8th of November 2001, Jim Collier, USA, Wolfram Knauer, Germany, and Wouter Turkenburg, met for the first time. Jim Collier based in New York, the author of several books on the history of jazz, Wolfram Knauer, the director of the Jazz Institute in Darmstadt, and Wouter Turkenburg, lector in jazz history at the University of Leiden. They exchanged ideas on the possibility of writing a book on the history of jazz in Europe.

Jim Collier had not only written various books on jazz, he had also travelled numerous times to the western and the eastern countries of Europe to visit jazz musicians and writers. Over the years, he had maintained good contacts with everybody he had met. Wolfram Knauer not only directed the Jazz Institute, he also had written articles and books on jazz in Europe. For numerous years he had organized the 'Jazz Days' in Darmstadt: conferences with a wide variety of topics concerning jazz. At the jazz department of the Royal Conservatory, Wouter Turkenburg had students from almost all countries in Europe, informing him on the past and present of the jazz scenes in the countries they came from.

Although plenty of contacts, knowledge and information was already assembled by Collier, Knauer and Turkenburg, they felt that more was needed to have enough data to write the book 'The History of Jazz in Europe'. The first step they made was to attribute several countries to each of them for further investigation. The following selection was made:
Jim Collier: Ireland, Great Britain, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece.
Wolfram Knauer: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Russia, Baltic Countries, Poland, Czech-Slovakia.
Wouter Turkenburg: Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Benelux, France.

The initial plan for the book

A structure was developed for the writing of the book 'The History of Jazz in Europe'. Collier, Knauer and Turkenburg decided that they would be the three editors-in-chief. Each of them, according to the selection made, would ask contributors to write the history of jazz of their country. Once all contributions were collected, the editors-in-chief would write an over arching final chapter. The entire book should be about 500 pages, about 150,000 words. Conferences should be organized in which contributors could exchange their progress, and could help each other to finalize their contributions.

The guidelines

The editors were aware that guidelines needed to be developed for the contributors to obtain a certain degree of coherence in the book, but without being too restrictive. The articles to be contributed, should focus on the beginning and development of jazz in a country. Economical, political and social circumstances were to be kept to a minimum. Comparisons to 'the great names' from the USA should be avoided as much as possible. The contributors were asked to provide an outline of their contributions for a first screening. To produce the guidelines that could support the contributors, a meeting was organized with both the editors and the contributors in Siena, Italy, in 2004.

The first steps

In the course of 2005, several contributions came in. However, not all counties in Europe were covered by these contributions. Despite many efforts by the editors, not enough contributors were found to fill the gaps. Not all submissions were of the quality that was hoped for by the editors. Often the focus was more on the political, social and economic history of the country or region than on the development of jazz. Furthermore, the lining up of great and successful men and groups were given more prominence in the contributions than the jazz from that country. Therefore, the editors decided to turn around the writing process. First, the editors wanted to create an overarching text, a framework, that later could be filled in by the contributions of the contributors.

The halt and the take-over

Europe was divided into three parts among the editors. They started to write texts that focused primarily on jazz as music, in the region that was attributed to each of them. This resulted in lively discussion per email, as well as the exchange of lists of musical examples. The next problem that arose, was how much priority should be given to which example. Although the three editors stayed in contact with each other, and saw each other occasionally, the work did not progress very much. By 2010 their work was reduced to a minimum. This led to the statement of one of the contributors, Francesco Martinelli, to declare that 'the project was dead'. Martinelli, with the financial help of the EJN, the European Jazz Network, took over the initiative for the book. He went back to the initial idea of asking several contributors to submit articles and to write an overarching article himself. This has resulted in the book: The History of European Jazz.

The book 'The History of European Jazz'

The book was published in 20xx. Collier, Knauer and Turkenburg were given some credits in the preface of the book. Although they were the first to come up with the idea and the initiative to write such a book, they were not asked to contribute the book of Martinelli. It is a monumental book, supplying the readers with an abundance of information and references. However, the book is not up to the standards that the initial editors had hoped for. Furthermore, the term 'European Jazz' is questionable. There is no 'European Jazz'. Jazz is jazz. Definitely, there is a lot of jazz made and played in Europe. Either it is jazz or it is not jazz. The appropriation of jazz in Europe into 'European Jazz' is not correct as well as confusing.