Abstract

In his book, Le champ jazzistique, Alexandre Pierrepont denounces the prevalent gesture, among jazz theorists, consisting in finding a « common denominator » unifying the various practices juxtaposed under the label « jazz ». It is instead into the very multiplicity of these practices that we must look in order to uncover the constitutive power of jazz, a power both to combine and to individualize. By reinventing a continuum over the abyss of their historical trauma, African-American musicians are providing mankind with a uniquely empowering way to fight the cultural vacuum that plagues our age. They also lead us to question who or what speaks when we open our mouth... Hence the polyphonic form of this article, in which some of Alexandre Pierrepont’s directing ideas echollapse with Diderot’s dialogues or Novarina’s machines