Possible Pasts of Popular Music: Historical Narratives of Jazz and Rock

Abstract

This article proposes to rethink historical narratives of popular music through the historiography of jazz and rock. Its objective is to historicize and integrate in these two genres, understood as assemblages, the ways of writing about them, as well as to present their recurring historiographical inertias. It is divided into eight short sections. The first four analyze the scarcity of historiographical reflections in popular music studies and classify the dominant historical narratives on jazz and rock, considering their advantages and disadvantages. The following four examine the problems shared by these emplotments and propose several alternatives in relation to the recent historiographical turns.