bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Changing The Ethical Standards Of Organizations
Authors: D'Aquila Jill M.
Published: March 2016

The scandals of Enron and WorldCom appear to be contagious and are the impetus for the media’s current focus on ethical issues.  Business has been and continues to confront ethical dilemmas that impact decision-making and financial reporting.  Codes of conduct and a focus on ethical standards continually surface as proposals to change the ethical values of organizations.  Many argue that it is the “tone at the top” that is the driving force behind any serious changes to the ethical culture in organizations.  This study presents the results of a survey of practicing CPAs.  A factor analysis identifies the actions and procedures that are linked with a management culture that emphasizes the importance of integrity and ethical values.  The results provide guidance on the key factors involved in invoking ethical change in organizations.  These results should prove to be of assistance to both educators and employers in the development of feasible programs that maximize the ethical potential of organization members.
The Theory Of Opportunizing And The Sub-Process Of Conditional Befriending
Authors: Christiansen Olavur
Published: March 2016

By applying the orthodox grounded theory methodology, the article offers a new conceptual theory of the Business Company, as well as new and grounded concepts as building blocks of the theory. The core variable of the emergent theory is the discovered latent pattern of “opportunizing”. Opportunizing explains practically all the variation in the data. It is found to be the main concern and the recurrent solving of it in business. One of the five sub-dimensions of opportunizing is “conditional befriending”. It consists of three sub-processes: “confidence building”, “weighing up for influence/match” and “modifying behavior”. The theory suggests new insights into business management practices. The data indicate relationships between performance of companies and the “weighing up” of elements in the sub-process of “confidence building”. Opportunizing is compared to the “hard core” of different theories of business, and opportunizing as well as conditional befriending are compared to the sub-disciplines of business economy. This comparison reveals some fundamental differences. One explanation for these differences might be the grounding of the discovered theory in the agenda of those being studied rather than in the compulsory, preconceiving agenda of the mainstream research community.
Brand Loyalty In The Cosmetics Industry: A Field Study On Turkish Womens Brand Loyalty Among Cosmetics Products
Authors: Ergin Elif Akagun , Ozdemir Handan , Parilti Nurettin
Published: March 2016

Cosmetics industry has a share of 135 billion dollars in the global market. The biggest multinational cosmetics companies in the world such as Avon, Procter and Gamble, Estee Lauder, Nivea, L’oreal are very much interested in the Turkish market. Turkey is a developing country in terms of cosmetics consumption and has a great potential with a population of 70 million. This study aims to determine whether turkish women have brand loyalty among skin-care products in the cosmetics sector. It is our hope that the results of this study will help foreign and domestic cosmetics companies, already existing in or planning to enter the Turkish market, in shaping their marketing strategies.
A Review of Building A Lemonade Stand Is Not Just For Kids Anymore
Authors: Ramirez-Damon Dulce M. , Tuma Concepcion L. , Houlne Kimber L.
Published: March 2016

Book Review
Expanding The Accounting Education Horizon: Sensitizing Students To The Professions Societal Obligations
Authors: Carpenter Brian W. , Mahoney Daniel P.
Published: March 2016

This paper presents an alternative teaching pedagogy that goes beyond the learning of complex rules to provide accounting students with a better appreciation for their profession’s societal obligations.  The proposed pedagogy presents students with the evolution of accounting standards in a given topical area, and challenges them to evaluate the extent to which the different stages of evolution succeeded in meeting the profession’s obligations to society.  These obligations are defined in terms of the financial reporting objectives set forth in the Concepts Statements of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.  The proposed pedagogy is offered as a means of addressing problems with respect to the more conventional “memorize these rules” method of accounting instruction.  Our aim is to develop students who take a greater interest in the standard setting process and in fulfilling its promise of meeting the financial reporting needs of society.
Symmetric Combination With Leviathan Combinatorial Theory Applied To Public Choice
Authors: Villacis Jose
Published: March 2016

Utility or welfare depend on the number of goods consumed, the variety of such goods and particularly in what order they are consumed from a temporal perspective, i.e. how they are combined. This is our starting point, which is new to economic science. We apply the combinatorial theory to the theory of consumption. Depending on the number of combinations we will obtain different levels of utility.  Leviathan is present in our market offering a set of goods, as well as the citizens who seek a beneficial combination. The citizens have to negotiate with Leviathan. But before that they must reach an agreement among themselves. Leviathan knows his combination but the citizens don’t. This results in an asymmetric information situation.
An Examination Of The Business Sector Differentials Between Historical Measures Of Risk And The Risk Implied By Economic Value Added
Authors: Jones Wes , Lowry George
Published: March 2016

The corporate world is continually striving to identify an effective means of evaluating management performance.  Corporate concern over this issue stems from both the perspective of managerial compensation and maximizing shareholder value.  Some companies have used such measures as returns on assets, equity, or investment.  Some have relied on other measures like inventory management, trade credit management, or cash management.  The common ground shared by these measures is that they rely on accounting measures of firm activity.  The weakness of using such means to measure firm performance is that they are driven by a rule based system, and anyone with sufficient understanding of the rules can manipulate the information to present the picture of the firm’s performance in a way that may be inconsistent with the reality of the firm’s performance.  This does not suggest that managers will engage in such deception, rather it suggests that the opportunity to do so exists, and must somehow be incorporated into the shareholder’s interpretation of the reported performance.
Tax Shelters Sound Strategy Or Dangerous Game?
Authors: Masar Paul , Butterfield Scott
Published: March 2016

Tax shelters, once thought to be extinct due to the at-risk and passive activity loss rules, continue to appeal to corporations and wealthy individuals.  While some legal activities such as owning your own business, home ownership, retirement plans, and like-kind or section 1031 exchanges may allow you to “shelter” income, some individuals and organizations continue to invest in schemes that the Internal Revenue Service finds unacceptable.  Known as abusive tax shelters, the IRS issued a new set of regulations on February 28, 2003 in an attempt to identify these transactions, and ultimately, end their use by taxpayers.  This article provides an overview of tax shelters, highlights some of the more famous tax shelter scandals, and provides guidance on the rules surrounding the use of tax shelters.
Measuring, Adjusting, And Forecasting Beta: The Case Of All The Lebanese Listed Firms
Authors: Naimy Viviane Y.
Published: March 2016

Beta is commonly used in many publications as a measure of risk of an investment or as an index for safety. Such a risk assessment has never been done for the Lebanese stock market. This paper presents the alternative types of models for estimating future correlation coefficients and the sources of their forecast errors. Betas of all the Lebanese listed firms are measured and a special tailored adjustment technique is conceived to fit their constraints.
Hispanic Women Entrepreneurs: Human Capital, Financial Capital, And Network Structure Relationships
Authors: Smith-Hunter Andrea E. , Venezio Carol
Published: March 2016

In this paper, Hispanic women entrepreneurs are examined through a variety of perspectives.  First, the analysis presented is an overview of miscellaneous characteristics, including financial information, age and marital status.  The analysis continues with a look at the relationships between human capital, financial capital and network structures for the Hispanic women entrepreneurs.  The study thus serves three purposes.  First, it explores in depth areas of women entrepreneurship that are not always given an extensive focus; namely human capital and network structures.  Second, it delineates how these dimensions are measured and are related to each other.  Finally, it adds to the limited body of research on Hispanic women entrepreneurs, providing additional illumination for this sector.
A New Global Partnering Production Model NGP-PM Utilizing Advanced TPS
Authors: Ebioka Keiichi , Yamaji Manabu , Sakai Hirohisa , Amasaka Kakuro
Published: March 2016

In order to improve quality at leading manufacturers’ overseas production bases from the perspective of “global production,” “a New Global Partnering Production Model, NGP-PM” - the strategic development of the “Advanced TPS” model - is proposed and its effectiveness discussed. The aim is to increase global quality by generating a synergetic effect that organically connects and promotes continual evolution of the production plants in Japan and overseas, as well as greater cooperation among production operators.
Modeling The Performance Evaluation Of Local Investment And Economic Development Corporations
Authors: Bernard Frederic , Desrochers Jean , Martel Denis , Prefontaine Jacques
Published: March 2016

The purpose of this research is to propose an overall performance evaluation model for local development companies that takes into account social, financial and operational aspects.  While there are many ways to evaluate business performance, few make it possible to take into account all the objectives of the organization. After reviewing the literature on the topic, we developed a model that uses a surface measurement to classify organizations. We then applied this model to the Société locale d’investissement et de développement d’emploi du Québec (SOLIDEQ), which itself comprises 84 SOLIDEs.  The mission of these organizations is to provide venture capital to regional companies. As an arm of a labor-sponsored venture capital corporation, the SOLIDEs must obtain a return on investment commensurate with the risk incurred, achieve local development objectives such as job creation and maintenance, and lastly, manage operations wisely given that the management committee consists of volunteers. The study results show that our model can be effectively used to measure the performance of each SOLIDE and to create a classification that takes into account all their objectives.
Resenha de KURTZ, Marcus J. Latin American State Building in Comparative: social foundations of institutional order. New York: Cambrigde University Press/Ohio University Press, 2013
Authors: Makino Rogério
Published: March 2016

Resumo Em seu livro, Kurtz tenta entender a atual diferença nas capacidades estatais de Argentina, Uruguai, Chile e Peru a partir de uma perspectiva institucionalista, sendo fortemente influenciada pela noção de dependência de trajetória. Dois momentos teriam sido cruciais nessa trajetória: as relações de trabalho (livre ou servil) à época da independência administrativa e o timing da incorporação das massas ao processo eleitoral.Palavras-chavecapacidade estatal, dependência da trajetória, América Latina ---AbstractIn his book, Kurtz analyzes the current diferences in the state capacity of Argentina, Uruguay, Chili and Peru from na institutionalist perspective under strong influence of the notion of path dependence. Two moments would have been crucial in their state-building: the labor relations (free or servile) by the time of their administrative independence and the timing of universalization of vote.Key wordsstate-building, path dependence, Latin American---ResumenEn su libro, Kurtz intenta entender la actual diferencia en las capacidades estatales de Argentina, Uruguay, Chile y Perú a partir de una perspectiva institucionalista, destacadamente influenciada por la noción de dependencia de la trayectoria. Dos momentos habrían sido cruciales en esa trayectoria: las relaciones de trabajo (libre o serviles) a la época de la independencia administrativa y el timing de la incorporación de las masas al proceso electoral.Palabras-clavecapacidad estatal, dependencia da trayectoria, América Latina---
As Experiências de Integração da ALALC e ALADI
Authors: De Castro Vieira Jeferson
Published: March 2016

RESUMOEste artigo avalia as experiências de integração celebradas entre os países-Membros da ALALC e ALADI. Descrevem os mecanismos do processo de integração, seus objetivos de curto, médio e longo prazo, seus princípios e normas, criados pelos Tratados de Montevidéu de 1960 e 1980. Levanta-se a hipótese que a conformação do mercado interno e de fluxos reduzidos de intercâmbio comercial com parceiros locais dificultam a formação de um conjunto regional coeso de países para participar da economia mundial. Conclui-se que o processo de integração depende da vontade política dos seus países-Membros em definir uma agenda que seja útil para todos e adequada ao processo de transformações da economia. Palavras-chave: experiências de integração; integração econômica; integração ALALC e ALADI; América Latina.***RESUMENEste artículo evalúa las experiencias de integración celebrados entre los países miembros de la ALALC y ALADI. Describen los mecanismos del proceso de integración, sus objetivos de corto, medio y largo plazo, sus principios y normas, creado por los Tratados de Montevideo de 1960 y 1980. Se plantea la hipótesis de que la conformación del mercado interior y los flujos reducidos de intercambio comercial con socios locales, dificultan la formación de un grupo regional marcado por la cohesión de los países integrantes para participar de forma conjunta en la economía mundial. La conclusión es que el proceso de integración depende de la voluntad política de sus países miembros en definir una agenda que es útil para todos y adecuado con el proceso de transformación de la economía.Palabras-clave: experiencias de integración; Integración económica; integración ALALC y ALADI; Latinoamérica.***ABSTRACTThis paper evaluates the experiences of integration treaties between the Member countries of ALALC and ALADI. Describe the mechanisms of the integration process, its short, medium and long term, its principles and rules, created by the Montevideo Treaties of 1960 and 1980. Raises the hypothesis that the conformation of the internal market and reduced trade flows business with local partners hinder the formation of a cohesive regional group of countries to participate in the global economy. Conclude that the integration process depends on the political will of its Member countries to set an agenda that is useful and appropriate for all the transformations of the economy.Keywords: integration experiences; economic integration; ALALC and ALADI integration; Latin America.
When Beats Meet Critique: Sample-Based Hip-Hop as Knowledge-Practice
Authors: Swiboda Marcel Anthony
Published: March 2016

This article explores sample-based hip-hop (Schloss, 2004) as a mode of critical knowledge-practice. Situated in the broader context of breakbeat culture as a feature of hip-hop music-making, hip-hop sampling is considered in its technical, aesthetic, formal, discursive and intellectual aspects. The "internal logic" (Schloss, 2004) of sample-based hip-hop is explored in how it illustrates "Afrological" versus "Eurological" musical tendencies (Lewis, 2004a; Stewart, 2010). These tendencies are examined in the context of the technological and material transformations heralded by the advent of digital technologies, rendering hip-hop sampling an example of Afrological compositional-improvisative music-making. Hip-hop sampling is hereby used to sound the critical and theoretical stakes of academic critical writing regarding idiomatically specific practices such as hip-hop sampling, at the same time as highlighting how sample-based hip-hop constitutes a mode of "critical culture" (Stiegler, 2006) in its own right.
Tricia Rose Interviewed by George Lipsitz
Authors: Lipsitz George
Published: March 2016

In this very special interview for Critical Studies in Improvisation, two esteemed researchers come together to discuss hip-hop, improvisation, and Black expressive culture.

George Lipsitz is Professor of Black Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His publications include The Fierce Urgency of Now: Improvisation, Rights, and the Ethics of Cocreation (co-authored with Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble), How Racism Takes Place, and Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story. He serves as President of the Board of Directors of the African American Policy Forum and chairs the Advisory Board of the University of California, Santa Barbara Center for Black Studies Research which is an institutional partner of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.

Tricia Rose is an internationally respected scholar of post civil rights era black U.S. culture, popular music, social issues, gender and sexuality. She is most well known for her groundbreaking book on the emergence of hip hop culture, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, considered a foundational text for the study of hip hop, one that has defined what is now an entire field of study. In 2003 Rose published a rare oral narrative history of black women's sexual life stories, Longing To Tell: Black Women Talk About Sexuality and Intimacy. In 2008, Professor Rose returned to hip hop with The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop-And Why It Matters.
Of Sunshine and Happy Endings: Jazz, Parody, and the Limits of Interpretation
Authors: Stanbridge Alan
Published: March 2016

Given the complexities of his musical thought, the composer and music theorist George Russell has been a prime target for formalist analysis, which tends to emphasize his use of polytonality, his intricate rhythmic schemes, and his unique instrumental textures. But Russell’s 1962 and 1965 recordings of ‘You Are My Sunshine’ present themselves as something of a conundrum to such textualist formalism. The alternative, contextualist, view of the piece is usually based on the background information contained in the liner notes to the 1962 album, The Outer View. Following a trip to Sheila Jordan’s home town in the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania, Russell began experimenting with the tune, and in his notes Joe Goldberg suggests that Russell’s treatment “mirrors his impression of the humanity of the people pitted against the cold, bleak, often brutal demands of the region.”

In this paper, I argue that descriptions such as these ultimately fail to address the full range of potential musical meanings inherent in Russell’s parody of the original song, which can only be interpreted on the basis of a fuller understanding of the dialogical interrelationship of the musical texts – the earlier canonical versions (recorded by Gene Autry and Bing Crosby) and Russell’s contemporary readings – and their respective contexts. I suggest that Russell’s earlier recording embodies an ambivalent tension which refuses a univocal reading, with Jordan’s affecting vocal performance entering into a complex ironic dialogue with its canonical predecessors, offering a new and radically unstable series of meanings and connotations, thereby denying definitive or categorical interpretation.
Tripping On Wires: The Wireless Body: Who is Improvising?
Authors: Oliveros Pauline
Published: March 2016

The author has been tripping on wires onstage and offstage for half a century of technological change in music. She has observed the trajectory of the disembodiment of music from analog instruments to tape to laptop computer performance. The process of disembodiment that began millennia ago with the use of instruments that distanced the musical use of voice, hands and feet with the body in resonance has accelerated in the 20th century to a crisis point. How do musicians, composers and audiences relate with the disconnected body and disembodied music? The call now seems to be to reintegrate the body with technology. The solution seems to indicate that the technology and body will merge in a re-embodied wireless future.
Appel, Ellington and the Modernist Canon
Authors: Lewis Eric
Published: March 2016

This review/article questions the function of cannon building by focusing on Appel's recent attempt to include, among others, Ellington into the cannon of great modernist artists. I demonstrate that his arguments are insensitive to what may be different about Ellington's relationship to (so-called) primitivism when comparted to Picasso and others. I also show that his "readings" of assorted Ellington works assume a version of Neo-Liberalism that may well be at odds with Ellington's own relationship to contemporary America.
A Subtle Novelty: Repetition, transmission and the valorisation of innovation within North Indian Classical Music
Authors: Napier John James
Published: March 2016

This paper investigates the interrelation between two aspects of North Indian classical music that at first might appear to occupy opposite poles of creativity and constraint. The first is the soloist’s actual construction of melody itself, and the interpretation of this as improvised. The second is sangat, the imitative instrumental accompaniment afforded such melodies when performed by vocalists. I argue that the conventional description of North Indian music as ‘improvised’ downplays the importance of the re-presentation of fixed materials, thus underemphasising the projection of tradition and transmission. In turn, I suggest that sangat has a homologous relationship to pedagogy, the process of transmitting traditional materials. Both melodic construction and imitative accompaniment derive aspects of their overall form and quality from, and may be understood in reference to, an ideational cluster that attempts to reconcile a socially validated and hierarchically underscored conservatism with an acceptance of individual innovation. Both practices may be seen as performed subjectivities standing at temporal interstices between tradition and contemporaneity, the broadly cultural and the individual.
Asian Americans and Creative Music Legacies
Authors: Dessen Michael
Published: March 2016

This essay is an introduction to what has been called the Asian American Creative Music Movement, focusing especially on musicians based in the San Francisco Bay area. It examines the history of those musicians' networks and situates their work as both musicians and activists in relation to African American creative music legacies.
Black Jazz in the Digital Age
Authors: Tate Greg
Published: March 2016

Originally presented as a keynote address at the 2006 Guelph Jazz Festival and Colloquium, this personal essay explores the author’s past and present in jazz and asks important questions about jazz’s future as a relevant Black music. Exactly what information did African American genius, living under American apartheid, bring to the formation of jazz that jazz is losing or has lost access to today? Even more pointedly, what will jazz lose if it loses contact, loses the call and response conversation it used to enjoy with Black working class humanity and that group's racialized self-consciousness and ritualized cultural practices? There is, of course, further the question of whether we err on the side of novelty by thinking of jazz in teleological, futurological terms, of thinking of jazz as in need of a newer post-modern post-Black destination point.
Improvisation & Identity: a Qualitative Study
Authors: Sansom Matthew James
Published: March 2016

Drawing on qualitative analytic studies of improvising musicians this paper discusses ways in which the construction and representation of self-identity can be observed in improvisational practice. Focusing upon improvisation’s relational context and the characteristics and qualities of its interactions, a phenomenological and interpretive analysis is presented that explores the idea of musical meaning as an activity serving the construction and representation of identity.

As a contribution to the now well-established challenge to musicology engendered by post-structuralist and post-modern thought, it explores musical meaning’s ontological significance through an analysis of the dialectical processes apparent in musical experience. Demonstrating a connection with processes that serve to define the self, as expressed in social theory and psychotherapeutic models, it becomes possible to better understand music, in particular creative musical experience, as a carrier of identity. As an alternative to a more structuralist semiotic agenda, this paper’s epistemological orientation seeks musical meaning in the experienced dynamics of the encounter.
Schooling the future: Perceptions of Selected Experts on Jazz Education
Authors: Mantie Roger Allan
Published: March 2016

Aspects of both the functionalist and interactionist schools in sociology consider formal education as a form of social reproduction. Despite the large number of students that participate in school jazz programs at the secondary level, very little research examines jazz education practices at this level. This paper is a re-interpretation of data collected for the author’s Master’s thesis that examines jazz education practices at the secondary level.

Interviews of selected experts revealed that improvisation is considered fundamental to jazz curricula, and yet it is largely neglected in the performing practices of school jazz ensembles. The kinds of jazz education practices that exist in schools would seem to raise several important questions. With what kind of community of practice are students engaging? What kinds of meanings are students able to construct and negotiate, given the practice of performing commercial, Big Band arrangements? What message is communicated when improvisation is largely or completely neglected in school instruction, in favour of ‘polishing’ the sound of the orchestrated passages? School jazz education practices are examined through the theoretical lens of Lave and Wenger’s ‘situated learning,’ with implications presented for culture and society.
“I Feel My True Colors Began to Show.” Designing and Teaching a Course on Improvisation
Authors: Schlicht Ursel
Published: March 2016

This article discusses my design and teaching of an interdisciplinary, multi-style course "Improvisation in Music". It discusses fundamental considerations on improvisation and a variety of pedagogical considerations and factors that influenced the course design. After a synopsis of the core elements and topics, each course meeting is described as it happened, and the article concludes with a final analysis of the overall process.
Keynote Address at the Guelph Jazz Festival, 2007
Authors: Braxton Anthony
Published: March 2016

Anthony Braxton gave the keynote address at the 2007 Guelph Jazz Festival and kindly let us video record it. Here we offer the streaming video (including many audio examples) along with an edited transcription. Professor Braxton has also provided three supplementary charts, included as appendices, that help to explain his terminology and his system.
Jazzwomen: Conversations with Twenty-One Musicians
Authors: Coulthard Karl
Published: March 2016

Jazzwomen: Conversations with Twenty-One Musicians portrays an intriguing cross-section of musicians, from familiar vocalists and pianists to violinists, drummers, and composers. Wayne Enstice and Janis Stockhouse prove to be engaging storytellers, drawing from these women a broad swath of experiences that illustrate the uncertain terrain female jazz musicians must navigate as they try to retain some professional identity as women without letting this identity become a spectacle unto itself.
Speaking Justice, Performing Reconciliation: Twin Challenges for a Postcolonial Ethics
Authors: Nicholls Tracey
Published: March 2016

This article is concerned with problems of injustice that arise from law’s emphasis on the status quo. I contend that a commitment to social justice means that we will (at least sometimes) need to improvise processes and institutions within the broader political community, rather than relying on law to bring about justice. I explore the efficacy and pitfalls of these kinds of improvised justice movements—undertaken within an extra-legal social sphere—with particular attention to the possibilities of truth and reconciliation commissions. In the first part, this exploration takes the form of a comparative analysis of two different national orientations to the question of postcolonial justice. I consider truth and reconciliation commissions more closely in the second part: the sense in which they can coherently be seen as improvised justice, the ways in which they may be inadequate vehicles, or even distortions, of justice, and the possibility that these potential defects can be overcome through behaviours that reveal an ‘ethos of improvisation’. As I think that performativity is a common element of both musical improvisation and truth and reconciliation commissions, I aim to show that this ethos is a common feature of both processes, albeit perhaps with some modifications, and that it addresses concerns about the limitations of extra-legal attempts at justice.
“I Made a Promise to a Lady”: Critical Legal Pluralism as Improvised Law in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Authors: Adams Wendy
Published: March 2016

Given traditional understandings of law, one might be sceptical of a claim that improvisation and justice are not mutually-exclusive concepts. Does not the significance of the rule of law, the requirement that we be governed by rules and not arbitrary, ad hoc discretion, call into question the legitimacy of improvisation in law? To this very lawyerly question, I provide a very lawyerly answer: it depends.

Legal orthodoxy may indeed refuse to acknowledge any role for improvisation in law, but other theories of law, particularly a theory of critical legal pluralism, is likely to be more accommodating. Critical legal pluralism rejects the characterization of law as an external force obeyed by legal subjects. Instead, critical legal pluralism recognizes the improvised nature of law; legal subjects are not law-obeying but rather law-creating, generating their own legal subjectivity and establishing legal order in real time as a knowledge process of creating and maintaining reality.

This article analyzes Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a popular television series, to explore the concept of critical legal pluralism as improvised law. Read jurisprudentially, the series provides numerous examples of the improvised nature of law as the social construction of legal meaning. A particularly compelling example is the character of Spike. True to the traditional (pre-Twilight, pre-True Blood) genre, Spike is an evil vampire, a demon without a soul whose capacity and appetite for violence have earned him the title of William the Bloody. Yet viewers readily accept a character arc in which Spike, motivated by chivalry (the genre of knights-in-armour, not vampires) vows to protect a human being even at the expense of his own existence. As a law-creating legal subject, Spike is bound by his commitment to both genre-hybridism and the improvised legal meaning of his circumstances; he has made a promise to a lady, and such promises must be kept, even by soulless vampires.
The Creative Life of Law: Improvisation, Between Tradition and Suspicion
Authors: Ramshaw Sara L
Published: March 2016

Originally applying solely to chefs, waiters, dishwashers and the like, New York City (NYC) regulations governing cabaret employees were altered in 1943 to include musicians and entertainers, who until the late 1960’s would be required to hold a NYC Cabaret Employee’s Identification Card. The introduction of these notorious “police cards” occurred roughly contemporaneously to the emergence in after-hours night clubs in Harlem of a new and supposedly “wild”, improvisatory brand of jazz: bebop. This article adds to the many rather practical theories on why these cards were introduced a more abstract discussion coined in terms of the relationship between suspicion and tradition and focusing on differing essences of law and improvisatory jazz. While law breathes tradition and is suspicious of improvisation and unpredictability, the converse is true of jazz. Allusion to tradition in jazz improvisation is often viewed as a betrayal of its creative and spontaneous nature. And yet it is only through its departure from the stable transmission of past meaning that improvisation gains meaning. Law, in contrast, while appearing to be entirely composed of tradition, to transmit some sort of determinate and fixed meaning, is constantly betraying itself. As no two legal actions can be exactly the same, judges must improvise on tradition and past precedent every time they are asked to decide a case. Law can thus neither dispense with nor be completely determined by tradition. The legal decision instead lies on the border between what it “is” and what it otherwise could be and every judicial act is, in some sense, a species of improvisation. This article uses the cabaret cards to explore this uncertain terrain between law and improvisation, between tradition and suspicion.
(Pre)caution Improvisation Area
Authors: Gorgoni Guido
Published: March 2016

At first sight, law and improvisation do not appear to have much in common. Law is (or at least aims to be) the realm of rules and certainty, while improvisation is the realm of unheard sounds and unpredictable patterns. Law allows room for interpretation, but does it allow room for improvisation?

The precautionary principle shapes a prospective form of legal responsibility rather than the traditional retrospective one, designing a responsibility in exercise, which can be included in Herbert Hart's category of “role-responsibility.” Improvisation can be taken as a paradigm explaining the ways in which precaution operates, adding a new dimension to our comprehension of responsibility.
Thoughts on an Improvisation
Authors: Lassonde Julie
Published: March 2016

On June 20, 2009, late afternoon, I improvised with Joe Sorbara as part of Lex Non Scripta, Ars Non Scripta: Law, Justice & Improvisation, a conference organised by the McGill Centre for Intellectual Property Policy as well as the Improvisation, Community and Social Practice research project. The performance entitled “Improvised Contemporary Movement and Sound Performance” took place at Sala Rossa in Montreal. I was moving, using corporeal mime and other movement techniques, and Joe was making sound with various percussion objects. Joe and I were improvising based on a score that we developed together. The score was spatially defined in the shape of a line that we followed as we improvised. The coordination of our movements and sounds was also defined. Although primarily Joe was the musician and I was the mover, sometimes the line was blurred between who was moving and who was producing sound. Our improvised performance lasted around 17 minutes. This commentary aims to build on those 17 minutes by exploring the improvisational structure of the performance and examining this structure as the “law” of our improvisation. This text will also reflect on the broader relationship between law and improvisation.
“Patience, Sincerity, and Consistency”: Fred Anderson’s Musical and Social Practices
Authors: Steinbeck Paul
Published: March 2016

The August 19, 2009 symposium held in honor of Chicago tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson, and the eightieth-birthday concert that took place the following evening, provided tangible representations of the acclaim and appreciation received by Anderson in his last years. Though Anderson was best known for his work as a performer, bandleader, and “gray eminence” on the international jazz and improvised-music scene, he was equally successful in the social realm as an educator, a community builder, and—critically—the steward of the Velvet Lounge nightclub, which he owned and operated from 1982 to 2010. In this article, I examine Anderson’s musical and social practices, demonstrating how he constructed inclusive, supportive spaces for multiple personal expression via musical sound and social interaction. I also consider the relationships between Anderson’s efforts and the goals of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the African American artists’ collective that Anderson was affiliated with for more than four decades. The “data set” for this investigation includes the proceedings of the above-mentioned symposium, my own interviews with Anderson, and analyses of his compositions, performances, and music-theoretical discoveries.
Giving Back Time: Improvisation in Australian Hip-Hop Pedagogy and Performance
Authors: Caines Rebecca
Published: March 2016

This article documents improvisatory practices in Australian community-based hip-hop, with reference to the work of Australian hip-hop artists Morganics and Wire. It places their teaching work with disadvantaged Indigenous communities in context with the work of free improvisation teachers and theories of improvisation and history, drawn from key critical texts in improvisation studies. Improvisation is shown as key to hip-hop practice and pedagogy in Australia. This paper argues, by employing a performance studies model of the archive and the repertoire, that improvisation in these case studies offers participants the chance to be part of a type of history making that accepts the constructed and performed nature of history and forwards improvisation-led challenges to social injustice.
“Wild notes” … Improvisioning
Authors: Fischlin Daniel
Published: March 2016

This essay unpacks a new term in improvisation studies and discourse, improvisioning. Improvisioning––for want of a better word or, perhaps, as the best word to describe this practice beyond words—unifies notions of diverse improvisatory practices with what those practices express, the vision—aesthetic, social, intimate, unspeakable––that only an embodied, live, improvised performance can bring into being. Improvisioning implies not only the active elements in creative practices based on improvisation, but also the seeing into things (the envisioning) that improvisation makes possible, the calling forth of the unexpected, the making present of a response that could not have been predicted except in that moment, there in that specific context.

The epigraph to Fischlin's essay––from orator, social reformer, abolitionist, and author Frederick Douglass’s (1818-1895) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845); as part of an extended passage on 19th century musicking made by American slave populations––reminds us of two things. One, that music made in the key of slavery and oppression literally sees into the nature of things (in this case the “horrible nature of slavery”) in ways that other discourses do not—cannot. Two, that musical meaning is made out of specific contexts that challenge listeners’ capacity to take what is apparently “unmeaning jargon” and grasp its intent. “Jargon” here designates the very sign of difference upon which the social practice of slavery was predicated––those who can’t understand the “unmeaning jargon” are diminished by their incapacity. But this jargon also marks the utterly unique response, the singularity of the musical vision that captures and “impress[es]” minds with the unspeakable nature of oppression. Song, in this sense, improvisions: it sees, literally and figuratively, into things in an utterly distinctive fashion and reveals embedded truths about realities in powerfully affective ways.
In Praise of Improvisation in Brazilian Soccer: Modernism, Popular Music, and a Brasilidade of Sports
Authors: Buarque de Hollanda Bernardo Borges
Published: March 2016

This essay presents a discussion on Modernist discourse about Brazilian soccer during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Though extant in disperse and incidental form, it is possible to compile a series of references about the Brazilian soccer phenomenon among the Modernist authors of São Paulo (Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade, and Antônio de Alcântara Machado) and the Regionalists of the Northeast (Gilberto Freyre and José Lins do Rego). Based on poems, short stories, chronicles, and essays, this paper seeks to show how, starting in 1940, the Modernist discourse enthroned soccer in its project of constructing a Brazilian culture and identity. To do so, it seeks to show how the discourse of a Modernist Brazilianess (brasilidade)—already present in popular music and folklore during the 1920s—gave soccer its legitimacy in the cultural and artistic environment of the 1940s.
“Writing by Ear”: Clarice Lispector, Machado de Assis, and Guimarães Rosa and the Mimesis of Improvisation
Authors: Librandi Rocha Marília
Published: March 2016

The article proposes that at the core of Brazilian literature pulsates an aural writing elaborated by authors who “write by ear.” To prove this hypotheses, I relate “writing by ear” to two procedures found in Clarice Lispector, Machado de Assis, and Guimarães Rosa’s works: 1) a multiplicity of authorial voices—where the author is no longer the one who writes but the one who listens; and 2) a validation of improvisation (effective or pretended) as a method of literary composition. If the above description is valid, I propose that “writing by ear” is a concept potentially useful to understanding literature produced in a culture where orality and musicality predominate.
Pushing at Boundaries: The Path of a Brazilian Instrumentalist
Authors: Korman Cliff
Published: March 2016

Over the course of his career as instrumentalist, composer, and arranger, Paulo Moura participated in, contributed to, and initiated some of the most influential movements of Brazilian popular music. His ability to perform at the highest level of proficiency in a wide range of styles and genres demonstrated the flexibility and scope of a professional urban musician; his commitment to creativity, transformation, and improvisation revealed the mind of an innovator, visionary, and master.

In this eulogy, pianist Cliff Korman, one of Moura’s duo partners, considers elements of Moura’s artistic and aesthetic motivation, his commitment to improvisation as an underlying premise of popular music, and the path he forged to eventual mastery. In a look at their last presentation, accompanied by reference to supplementary video clips, Korman offers a descriptive analysis of their approach to preparation and performance and contemplates Moura’s evolving definition of improvisation.
Ambivalence, Paradox and the Poison-Remedy of Brazilian Improvisation: A Conversation with José Miguel Wisnik
Authors: Kramer Micaela
Published: March 2016

This interview with distinguished scholar, composer, and musician José Miguel Wisnik addresses the different guises of improvisation in Brazilian culture and life. From the characteristically improvisational manner of playing soccer, to the informal Bossa Nova gatherings, to the playful relationship with language and its slippery signifiers, to the fluidity between public and private spheres, Wisnik explores the modes of ambivalence and paradox that he identifies as pivotal to Brazilian tendencies.
“A Door to Other Doors”: Henry Threadgill Interview with Daniel Fischlin
Authors: Fischlin Daniel
Published: March 2016

Henry Threadgill is one of the great original, iconoclastic voices in American music, and sits comfortably with other great voices from the U.S. and elsewhere: from Charles Ives through to Aaron Copland and Elliot Carter; from Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler through to Anthony Braxton and John Zorn; from Igor Stravinsky through to Edgard Varèse and Luciano Berio. In this extended interview with Daniel Fischlin, Threadgill covers aspects of his personal history as a youth growing up in Chicago, his first contact with the AACM and other experimentalist musicians in Chicago, his thoughts on the connections between improvised music and the Civil Rights Movement, and a lengthy reflection on the importance of improvised music and its pedagogy. Conducted in public before a large audience of 2011 Guelph Jazz Festival goers, the interview shows Threadgill as an eloquent, impassioned, and astute observer of musical phenomena, especially in his appeal to improve access to quality musical education in North America and in his dismissal of the attempt to impose European musical structures on African American forms of musicking based on “replication” as opposed to “creation.”
Teaching the Ethics of Free Improvisation
Authors: Lange Barbara Rose
Published: March 2016

The factors that motivate some improvising musicians to teach include the music’s profound ethical dimensions, the ideal that egalitarianism should be a core principle in music-making, and the belief that this music enables the musician’s full self to flower. Using an ethnographic approach, this essay argues that pedagogies, as cultural systems, encompass ambiguity, so that improvisers’ ideals work irregularly in an educational setting. The MECA improvisation ensemble, a group for middle and high school students in Houston, Texas, was a voluntary organization that attracted members from a variety of backgrounds. Its leader, an improviser, utilized traditional teaching dynamics, but the alternative arts setting and the premises of free improvisation enabled the students to cross barriers within the city and between each other.
Outside of the Self: Subjectivity, the Allure of Transcendence, and Jazz Historiography
Authors: McCormack Ryan Sawyer
Published: March 2016

This article explores and critiques the place of "transcendence" as a political object in jazz historiographical writing. More specifically, I seek to introduce what it is about "transcendence" itself that makes it such a powerful meme for musicians and listeners alike, to trace the impact this word has had on our ideas about jazz since the mid-20th century.

My brief critique will unfold in three parts. First, I trace the emergence of ideas about transcendence in jazz writing, leading up to popular contemporary takes (i.e. Ken Burns) on the "transcendental improvising subject" and various critiques of that subject position. Second, I unpack a tertiary discourse in Western philosophy from Kierkegaard to Adorno that links together transcendence and embodiment in a way that questions the viability of transcendence's political role in the jazz canon. Third, I posit a brief case from Michael Titlestad's work on South African jazz as an example of the potential for everyday subjective trauma within which the aforementioned constructions of transcendence are potentially imbricated.
Réflexions sur l’improvisation et l’implication sociale de l’éducation musicale. Dialogue avec Jean-Yves Bosseur
Authors: Velasco Pufleau Luis
Published: March 2016

Entretien en forme de dialogue avec le compositeur français Jean-Yves Bosseur. Les sujets abordés par les auteurs sont notamment la nature de l’improvisation et sa place dans la création musicale du XXe siècle, l’implication sociale et politique de l’improvisation contemporaine et le rôle de l’improvisation dans l’éducation musicale. Parmi les compositeurs et improvisateurs abordés lors de la discussion nous trouvons notamment John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Luc Ferrari, Henri Pousseur, Bernard Lubat, Pierre Boulez, Alain Savouret, Earle Brown et Archie Shepp.