{"id":{"repo_id":"maryland","oai_identifier":"oai:drum.lib.umd.edu:1903/18436"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/maryland/oai:drum.lib.umd.edu:1903/18436","repository":{"repo_id":"maryland","name":"University of Maryland","base_url":"https://api.drum.lib.umd.edu/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Ideals, Aesthetics, and Practices of Professionalization in the Tokyo Jazz Scene","abstract":"In the early twenty-first century, jazz has a history in Japan of approximately 100 years. In contemporary Tokyo, Japanese musicians demonstrate their right to access jazz performance through a variety of musical and extra-musical techniques. Those accepted as fully professional and authentic artists, or puro, gain a special status among their peers, setting them apart from their amateur and part-time counterparts. Drawing on three months of participant-observation in the Tokyo jazz scene, I examine this status of puro, its variable definition, the techniques used by musicians to establish themselves as credible jazz performers, and some obstacles to achieving this status. I claim two things: first, aspiring puro musicians establish themselves within a jazz tradition through musical references to African American identity and a rhetoric of jazz as universal music. Second, I claim that universalism as a core aesthetic creates additional obstacles to puro status for certain musicians in the Tokyo scene.","abstract_html":"In the early twenty-first century, jazz has a history in Japan of approximately 100 years. In contemporary Tokyo, Japanese musicians demonstrate their right to access jazz performance through a variety of musical and extra-musical techniques. Those accepted as fully professional and authentic artists, or puro, gain a special status among their peers, setting them apart from their amateur and part-time counterparts. Drawing on three months of participant-observation in the Tokyo jazz scene, I examine this status of puro, its variable definition, the techniques used by musicians to establish themselves as credible jazz performers, and some obstacles to achieving this status. I claim two things: first, aspiring puro musicians establish themselves within a jazz tradition through musical references to African American identity and a rhetoric of jazz as universal music. Second, I claim that universalism as a core aesthetic creates additional obstacles to puro status for certain musicians in the Tokyo scene.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Scally, William Donawerth"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":"Music","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Witzleben, J. Lawrence"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2016,"date_issued":"2016","date_published":"2016","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:02:20Z","subjects":[],"languages":["en"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://doi.org/10.13016/M2BF6H"],"render_values":[{"text":"https://doi.org/10.13016/M2BF6H","href":"https://doi.org/10.13016/M2BF6H","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/1903/18436","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Witzleben, J. 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In contemporary Tokyo, Japanese musicians demonstrate their right to access jazz performance through a variety of musical and extra-musical techniques. Those accepted as fully professional and authentic artists, or puro, gain a special status among their peers, setting them apart from their amateur and part-time counterparts. Drawing on three months of participant-observation in the Tokyo jazz scene, I examine this status of puro, its variable definition, the techniques used by musicians to establish themselves as credible jazz performers, and some obstacles to achieving this status. I claim two things: first, aspiring puro musicians establish themselves within a jazz tradition through musical references to African American identity and a rhetoric of jazz as universal music. Second, I claim that universalism as a core aesthetic creates additional obstacles to puro status for certain musicians in the Tokyo scene."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Ideals, Aesthetics, and Practices of Professionalization in the Tokyo Jazz Scene"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Witzleben, J. Lawrence"],"dc:contributor.department":["Music"],"dc:creator":["Scally, William Donawerth"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2016-06-22T06:22:59Z"],"dc:date.available":["2016-06-22T06:22:59Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2016"],"dc:description.abstract":["In the early twenty-first century, jazz has a history in Japan of approximately 100 years. In contemporary Tokyo, Japanese musicians demonstrate their right to access jazz performance through a variety of musical and extra-musical techniques. Those accepted as fully professional and authentic artists, or puro, gain a special status among their peers, setting them apart from their amateur and part-time counterparts. Drawing on three months of participant-observation in the Tokyo jazz scene, I examine this status of puro, its variable definition, the techniques used by musicians to establish themselves as credible jazz performers, and some obstacles to achieving this status. I claim two things: first, aspiring puro musicians establish themselves within a jazz tradition through musical references to African American identity and a rhetoric of jazz as universal music. Second, I claim that universalism as a core aesthetic creates additional obstacles to puro status for certain musicians in the Tokyo scene."],"dc:identifier":["https://doi.org/10.13016/M2BF6H"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/1903/18436"],"dc:language.iso":["en"],"dc:title":["Ideals, Aesthetics, and Practices of Professionalization in the Tokyo Jazz Scene"],"dc:type":["Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:02:20Z"}