A Rhetorical Analysis Of High Modernists By Bruce Johnson

In his article, Bruce Johnson discusses how the production and commodification of jazz has changed to accommodate modernist culture. A crucial element to jazz is the use of improvisation. Johnson explains that it is difficult to embody jazz in a score because jazz is produced within the performer itself. “High Modernists” have changed and “deformed” jazz in order to conform it to their ideals. The author does a good job discussing how jazz has become deformed and why it has become altered as a result of making it a commodity. Johnson references various scholarly people, including Goddard and Ted Gioia, as evidence to support his claims. He explains that in order to suit to the modernist aesthetics, true jazz is at risk of diminishing. The author states that high modernists hold intellectual challenges that violate jazz in order to “legitimize its cultural claims on our attention” (Johnson, 6). In other words, they apply their modernist views to jazz, thus transforming it into something entirely different.

Gioia, in an attempt examine jazz as a high art form, actually establishes his conclusions with modernist principles. Johnson states that Gioia views improvisation as spontaneous and unplanned, and thus try’s to apply modernist standards to the music. This supports Johnson’s claim that modernist principles are changing jazz.

The author also uses Goddard as a reference to support this claim that jazz is becoming deformed as a result of modernist ideals and the commodification of jazz. Johnson explains that Goddard separates race and the music. Goddard presents the results of “a high and low” antipode. The author states that Goddard supports the belief that black people have a “natural” ability to improvise. Although this assumption is false, these beliefs encourage modernist ideas regarding jazz music to be held true. As a result, this deforms jazz and falsifies