Dear readers,
In contemporary music, as it seems, the questions regarding the relation between the past and the present are still topical. It has always been obvious that modern music could not have come into existence without historical continuity with the previous development, and the contemporary artists realize this fact still more acutely. If their creativity is earnest, it must reach the deep or wide stream of possible sources. Modern musicians, or contemporary musicians, used to have miscellaneous opinions of the music of the past. Sometimes they acknowledged it straightforwardly, at other times they demonstrated ignorance as a part of their aesthetic program, attitude towards arts, pretending that they are the creators of some new, avant-garde or alternative art.
The current issue of our journal presents the contributions which focuse on a disclosure of the relations towards the past in such genres, in which the historical awareness of listeners and artists was subdued to a certain extent. We are speaking about traditional music of flamenco, spirituals or jazz. Despite different attitudes to their history spirituals find their modern reflection in gospel music and worship chants, traditional flamenco in flamenco nuevo, and the basis for any current style in jazz remains the traditional and historically approved rhythm section.
In the current issue of our journal we invite the authors to send their proposals for the contributions to the jazz conference European Jazz Personalities organized by the Department of Musicology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Comenius University on 22 – 24 April 2013.
Yvetta Kajanová
Supported by VEGA 1/0728/11