Matching Items (842)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Jazz
Description
Witching Hours is the debut studio album of Chicago-born, Phoenix-residing trumpet player John Michael Sherman. It is a consummation of his work in the Arizona State University jazz studies program both as a performer and composer. Featured on the album are several other musicians who John Michael played alongside throughout his tenure at ASU, including Chaz Martineau on tenor saxophone, Evan Rees on piano, Reid Riddiough on guitar, Vince Thiefain on bass, Matt McClintock on drums, and Dan Meadows on baritone saxophone. The album features seven pieces, all original compositions or arrangements. The first track, "Workin' My Nerves", is a blues shuffle in the key of F. This is followed by "Scarborough Fair", an arrangement of the classic English folk tune in a rock style. The title track, "Witching Hours", is an cadaverous linear composition in 7/4 which is followed by "Goliath", a pseudo-tone poem about the biblical giant. "I Should Have Known" is a pensive ballad featuring an a capella intro and cadenza, followed by the most recent composition, a minor blues-esque piece entitled "Who Said That?" The final track, "Don't Change A Thing", is an upbeat samba which was written in John Michael's first year of college. These pieces demonstrate an understanding of the jazz tradition and exhibit influences from such musicians as Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, and Snarky Puppy. The album was recorded at Tempest Recording in Tempe and produced by Clarke Rigsby. Clarke is a veteran recording engineer and is the first choice of many of Phoenix's finest jazz musicians, including thesis director and head of the ASU jazz department Michael Kocour. The pieces were composed and recorded under the guidance of Mike Kocour and Jeff Libman. Witching Hours represents a culmination of John Michael's course in the Arizona State University jazz department and his endeavors as a trumpet player and composer.
ContributorsSherman, John Michael (Author) / Kocour, Michael (Thesis director) / Libman, Jeffrey (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
The Nash, a jazz venue in Phoenix, Arizona, is an example of a decades-long process of the formalization of jazz—being codified as an art music relying on academic and philanthropic support. Formalization developed as jazz began to be taken seriously as art music worth of critical evaluation from critics, academics, and the hallowed establishments of American high art. Jazz became increasingly dependent on an infrastructure of institutional support, and a neoclassical ideology sought to define what styles of jazz were ‘real’ and worthy of preservation. In Phoenix, the origins of The Nash were laid in 1977 when Jazz in Arizona was formed, a non-profit organization that aimed to support jazz through information dissemination, music scholarships, festival organizing, and attending jazz events throughout Arizona. The Nash was conceived as a way to more fully engage young people in the community. Herb Ely, a prominent Phoenix attorney and philanthropist, pitched the idea to Joel Goldenthal, then Executive Director of Jazz in Arizona. The venue was built under the auspices of Jazz in Arizona, and operates as the organization’s headquarters. In keeping with the broader trend of formalization, The Nash presents jazz as a performance of artistic expression. Continued philanthropic support allows The Nash a degree of independence from economic concerns. The Nash is also committed to providing support for jazz education, by partnering with local educational institutions and presenting educational programming. The focus on providing opportunities for young musicians, as well as its location in the hip neighborhood of Roosevelt Row have contributed to The Nash becoming relatively popular among young people. However, the formalized approach to jazz espoused by The Nash has created some conflicts within the Phoenix jazz community, as some professional musicians feel that The Nash is underpaying musicians for their labor. The American Federation of Musicians Local 586 argues that musicians are workers, and The Nash ought to be paying union scale.
ContributorsBelliston, Lincoln Tyler (Author) / Davis, T. J. (Thesis director) / Hutchinson, Mary (Committee member) / Bridgewater, Devon (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Driver distraction research has a long history spanning nearly 50 years, intensifying in the last decade. The focus has always been on identifying the distractive tasks and measuring the respective harm level. As in-vehicle technology advances, the list of distractive activities grows along with crash risk. Additionally, the distractive activities become more common and complicated, especially with regard to In-Car Interactive System. This work's main focus is on driver distraction caused by the in-car interactive System. There have been many User Interaction Designs (Buttons, Speech, Visual) for Human-Car communication, in the past and currently present. And, all related studies suggest that driver distraction level is still high and there is a need for a better design. Multimodal Interaction is a design approach, which relies on using multiple modes for humans to interact with the car & hence reducing driver distraction by allowing the driver to choose the most suitable mode with minimum distraction. Additionally, combining multiple modes simultaneously provides more natural interaction, which could lead to less distraction. The main goal of MMI is to enable the driver to be more attentive to driving tasks and spend less time fiddling with distractive tasks. Engineering based method is used to measure driver distraction. This method uses metrics like Reaction time, Acceleration, Lane Departure obtained from test cases.
ContributorsJahagirdar, Tanvi (Author) / Gaffar, Ashraf (Thesis advisor) / Ghazarian, Arbi (Committee member) / Gray, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The percussion jazz ensemble is a long-established yet rare component of 21st century percussion studios in the United States. While many American collegiate programs have percussion ensembles that perform jazz-based pieces, none are identified as a “percussion jazz ensemble.” This may be for a variety of reasons. Professors may not have considered adding a percussion jazz ensemble to their program because of its scarcity in American universities. Including such a class would be challenging if the instructors did not feel comfortable or familiar enough with jazz idioms and vernacular. Additionally, very few compositions or arrangements are available for this group. While there are several method books on jazz vibraphone, there are no pedagogical resources designed specifically for the percussion jazz ensemble. The purpose of this document is to provide historical context, curricula, resource materials, and arrangements necessary for establishing a percussion jazz ensemble at the collegiate level. The end result will be to demonstrate the importance of an ensemble such as this for aspiring percussionists and motivate institutions focused on Western classical music to incorporate jazz elements into their percussion program. Research conducted for this project was limited to academic universities, pedagogical approaches, and ensembles found only in the United States and will not include a survey of those outside this country.
ContributorsMoreau, Danielle (Author) / Smith, Jeffrey (Thesis advisor) / Feisst, Sabine (Committee member) / Swoboda, Deanna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Driving a vehicle is a complex task that typically requires several physical interactions and mental tasks. Inattentive driving takes a driver’s attention away from the primary task of driving, which can endanger the safety of driver, passenger(s), as well as pedestrians. According to several traffic safety administration organizations, distracted and inattentive driving are the primary causes of vehicle crashes or near crashes. In this research, a novel approach to detect and mitigate various levels of driving distractions is proposed. This novel approach consists of two main phases: i.) Proposing a system to detect various levels of driver distractions (low, medium, and high) using a machine learning techniques. ii.) Mitigating the effects of driver distractions through the integration of the distracted driving detection algorithm and the existing vehicle safety systems. In phase- 1, vehicle data were collected from an advanced driving simulator and a visual based sensor (webcam) for face monitoring. In addition, data were processed using a machine learning algorithm and a head pose analysis package in MATLAB. Then the model was trained and validated to detect different human operator distraction levels. In phase 2, the detected level of distraction, time to collision (TTC), lane position (LP), and steering entropy (SE) were used as an input to feed the vehicle safety controller that provides an appropriate action to maintain and/or mitigate vehicle safety status. The integrated detection algorithm and vehicle safety controller were then prototyped using MATLAB/SIMULINK for validation. A complete vehicle power train model including the driver’s interaction was replicated, and the outcome from the detection algorithm was fed into the vehicle safety controller. The results show that the vehicle safety system controller reacted and mitigated the vehicle safety status-in closed loop real-time fashion. The simulation results show that the proposed approach is efficient, accurate, and adaptable to dynamic changes resulting from the driver, as well as the vehicle system. This novel approach was applied in order to mitigate the impact of visual and cognitive distractions on the driver performance.
ContributorsAlomari, Jamil (Author) / Mayyas, AbdRaouf (Thesis advisor) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Committee member) / Gray, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
While various collision warning studies in driving have been conducted, only a handful of studies have investigated the effectiveness of warnings with a distracted driver. Across four experiments, the present study aimed to understand the apparent gap in the literature of distracted drivers and warning effectiveness, specifically by studying various warnings presented to drivers while they were operating a smart phone. Experiment One attempted to understand which smart phone tasks, (text vs image) or (self-paced vs other-paced) are the most distracting to a driver. Experiment Two compared the effectiveness of different smartphone based applications (app’s) for mitigating driver distraction. Experiment Three investigated the effects of informative auditory and tactile warnings which were designed to convey directional information to a distracted driver (moving towards or away). Lastly, Experiment Four extended the research into the area of autonomous driving by investigating the effectiveness of different auditory take-over request signals. Novel to both Experiment Three and Four was that the warnings were delivered from the source of the distraction (i.e., by either the sound triggered at the smart phone location or through a vibration given on the wrist of the hand holding the smart phone). This warning placement was an attempt to break the driver’s attentional focus on their smart phone and understand how to best re-orient the driver in order to improve the driver’s situational awareness (SA). The overall goal was to explore these novel methods of improved SA so drivers may more quickly and appropriately respond to a critical event.
ContributorsMcNabb, Jaimie Christine (Author) / Gray, Dr. Rob (Thesis advisor) / Branaghan, Dr. Russell (Committee member) / Becker, Dr. Vaughn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This dissertation describes the public sphere that coalesced in the Soviet jazz scene during Josef Stalin’s reign. Scholars debate the extent to which Soviet citizens, especially under Stalin, were coerced into cooperating with the regime through terror; willingly cooperated with the regime out of self-interest; or re-aligned their speech, behavior, and thoughts to conform to Bolshevik ideology and discourse. In all cases, citizens were generally unable to openly express their own opinions on what Soviet society should look like. In this dissertation, I attempt to bridge this gap by analyzing the diverse reactions to jazz music in Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union. I argue that audience engagement with jazz and discussions about the genre in the Soviet press and elsewhere were attempts to grapple with bigger questions of public concern about leisure, morality, ethnicity, cosmopolitanism and patriotism in a socialist society. This jazz public sphere was suppressed in the late 1940s and early 1950s because of Cold War paranoia and fears of foreign influences in Soviet life. In its place, a counterpublic sphere formed, in which jazz enthusiasts expressed views on socialism that were more open and contradictory to official norms. This counterpublic sphere foreshadowed aspects of post-Stalinist Soviet culture. To support my arguments, I employ archival documents such as fan mail and censorship records, periodicals, memoirs, and Stalin-era jazz recordings to determine the themes present in jazz music, how audiences reacted to them, and how these popular reactions overlapped with those of journalists, musicologists, bureaucrats, and composers. This project expands our understanding of when and where public spheres can form, challenges top-down interpretations of Soviet cultural policy, and illuminates the Soviet Union and Russia’s ambivalent relationship with the West and its culture.
ContributorsBeresford, Benjamin J. (Author) / Von Hagen, Mark (Thesis advisor) / Manchester, Laurie (Committee member) / Schmelz, Peter (Committee member) / Moore, Aaron (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017