School for Cool

Swingin' in the Iron Cage explores the fundamental tension at the core of jazz culture. To learn how to play jazz means pitting creative agency and improvisation against the rational institutionalization and routinization of training. Indeed, institutionalized art education in general has long been considered a contradiction in terms by many artists and critics. Swingin' in the Iron Cage, then, explores these tensions as they play out in two premiere collegiate jazz programs - at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and the New School in New York City. Tracing the trajectories of neophyte artists from the moment of their enrollment to their integration in the professional jazz scene, the book unravels the myths around the paradoxical combination of creativity and institutionalized schooling and explains why and how jazz has been successful at reinventing itself despite the relocation of jazz training from the club to the classroom. Swingin' in the Iron Cage gives a provocative insider's look at how modern artists negotiate the imperative to be creative in institutional settings.