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Topic

A Tune by Any Other Name: Jazz, Musical Works, and Copyright

School of Music

Date & location

• Monday, April 7, 2025
• 1:00 P.M.
• MacLaurin Building, Room B117

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Alexis Luko, School of Music, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Jospeh Salem, School of Music, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. James Young, Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Oliver Schmidtke, Department of Political Science, UVic

Abstract

This thesis explores musical ontology in jazz. Treating Lydia Goehr’s work concept as a starting point, I examine jazz by drawing on philosophical, musicological, and legal scholarship. I analyze the features of jazz that render it a compelling ontological puzzle using George Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm and Duke Ellington’s Cottontail as examples. I explore the boundaries of musical identity in jazz with reference to jazz standards, contrafacts, and indeterminacy, and I address the various ways that jazz practice is at odds with Goehr’s work concept. With reference to the work of James O. Young and Carl Matheson, Andrew Kania, Nicholas Cook, Stephen Davies, and Brian Kane, I explore the positions that scholars have taken on musical ontology in jazz. I build on Brian Kane’s network-based ontological model by proposing melodic primacy as an important ontological feature of jazz and I trace its origins to the aesthetic and legal traditions that migrated to the United States from Europe. I apply Lydia Goehr’s historical method to conclude that ontology in jazz emerged in part from the legally mandated ontology of copyright law.