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This dissertation maps the interaction between jazz, identity, modernity and nation during the so-called "golden age" of jazz in Montreal (1925-1955). Drawing on the fields of musicology, women's studies (black feminist theory and feminist research methods in particular), critical dance studies, and cultural studies, this project provides a critical re-writing of the history of Montreal jazz, one which acknowledges various roles that racialized and ethnicized women played in the shaping of modern identities, pleasures and sounds in Quebec. Montreal's particular status as a "showtown" makes it a rich laboratory to study the collaborative creative relationships between jazz music and dance on the black variety stage in the first half of the twentieth century. I also map the specific parameters that articulate the discursive relationship between jazz and vice, in particular as these relate to the gendered and racialized embodiment of morality in interwar Quebec. Finally, this dissertation produces the first extensive biographical accounts and critical listening of several prominent Montreal-based female jazz artists, including pianists Vera Guilaroff and Ilene Bourne, all-girl groups such as The Spencer Sisters and the Montreal Melody Girls Orchestra, black women performers such as Tina Baines Brereton, Bernice Jordan Whims, Marie-Claire Germain, Mary Brown, Natalie Ramirez, as well as piano teacher Daisy Peterson Sweeney and dance teachers Ethel Bruneau and Olga Spencer Foderingham.

Carefully preserved in the archives of the Ursuline and Hôtel-Dieu Monasteries of Quebec are several manuscripts containing Canada’s first sacred works for female voices. The manuscripts contain dozens of intricate motets composed in the French Baroque style, a repository of music which has not been sung for hundreds of years. These motets form a neglected part of Canada’s musical heritage which is waiting to be unearthed and explored. Ursuline and Augustinian nuns arrived to the French territories of the New World to educate and evangelize young women. Singing formed a core element of their teaching and worship. For over one hundred years (1639-1760), church music provided a backbone to Canada’s vibrant musical culture. When the French territories were lost to Britain and Spain, musical culture shifted radically and the sacred French music simply faded into obscurity. An overview of the sweeping events of the French Baroque era includes discussion of France’s social conditions, the political and religious climate, the flowering of the arts and the exploration of the New World. In France, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were a time of great strife which heralded the massive social changes to come in the nineteenth century. France’s struggles directly impacted the colony of New France, including that of its religious institutions and music. This study traces the musical activities in the Ursuline community of New France as the nuns lived their mission on the frontier, teaching Aboriginal and colonial girls. The evolution of female emancipation stemming from religious evangelism is considered. Examination of a trove of 160 motets located in the female monasteries of Québec City reveals the high caliber of music practiced by the nuns. No interpretive editions for performance purposes exist. Newly transcribed works have been generated from the manuscripts, with period performance guidance for appropriate ornamentation and ensemble requirements. An in-depth discussion of New France Baroque vocal and choral musical styles is provided, with reference to historical records of how it was taught, as described in contemporaneous music treatises and many original documents specific to these religious female communities.

La précarité du domaine musical professionnel au Québec se traduit pour les musicien-ne-s par l'expérience de l'incertitude matérielle et existentielle, conséquence d'un cadre d'emploi flexible (Bain et McLean, 2012). Ce mémoire vise à comprendre leur trajectoire professionnelle et se situe dans la perspective des études organisationnelles sur les carrières « sans frontières » (Arthur et Rousseau, 1996). La première forme d'incertitude rencontre la nécessité : 1) de développer un savoir/savoir-faire flexible à l'emploi; 2) de multiplier des métiers au sein du domaine musical; 3) et de cultiver un réseau professionnel. La seconde se définit par l'« équivocité » (Weick, 1995, 1996, 2005) et est liée : 1) à l'acquisition du savoir-être; 2) à la question du sens de la carrière; 3) et au soutien social. Nous inscrivons également cette recherche dans cette nécessité d'effectuer plus d'études empiriques sur le rôle des relations interpersonnelles dans la carrière musicale (Di Maggio, 2011; Cummins-Russell et Rantisi, 2012; Azam, 2014; Menger, 2014). Ainsi, comment vivent-elles-ils les incertitudes de la carrière musicale? En quoi leur réseau de relations interpersonnelles leur permet-il de les réduire? Cela nous a amenés à rencontrer six musicien-ne-s professionnel-le-s québécois-es pour les questionner sur leur parcours, leurs enjeux professionnels et cartographier leur réseau de collaboration selon la « méthode du générateur de noms » (Saint-Charles et al., 2008) et plus largement la démarche de analyse de réseaux sociaux (Wasserman et Faust, 1995). Nos résultats indiquent que la réduction de l'incertitude matérielle passerait par un processus de professionnalisation aux frontières des organisations du domaine musical et l'entretien de relations interpersonnelles de confiance. Pour elles/eux, la carrière musicale se distingue des carrières « typiques » puisqu'il s'agit surtout d'une « histoire de passion » où le succès professionnel est déterminé par la capacité à se lier aux autres et à vivre cette « expérience de sociabilité » du domaine musical. Ce mémoire vise à explorer un phénomène peu documenté et à identifier certaines pistes de recherches futures sur ce sujet.

The life story of Mrs. Daisy Sweeney, an African Canadian native of Montreal, Quebec, helps fill a void in the historical documentation of Montreal Blacks (especially female elders). Of particular significance is her prominence as a music educator and othermother during her life. The current literature on African Canadian othermothering experiences is not synonymous with both White or African American females and inclusion of their voices in academic, as well as mainstream spaces, is virtually non-existent. This dissertation asks: What did it mean to be a first generation 'Negro' working class bilingual female in a largely hostile White francophone Quebec metropolis in the early 20th Century? How can her narratives help shape and inform life history and African Canadian othermothering research? My sojourn with Mrs. Daisy Sweeney referenced African centered epistemology in my conceptual understanding of herself and community mothering. Capturing her conversations meant engaging with multiple methodologies articulated through African oral traditions, life history, archival canons and interdisciplinary inquiries. It is striking to note that there were not only certain tensions associated with memory loss and physical limitations (prompted by the aging process) that destabilized and enriched our 'interactive' communication, but also revealed a rupture and reversal of the participant/researcher dynamic. In spite of blatant racial discrimination that plagued Montreal's Black communities during that time, Daisy Sweeney fulfilled a life-long dream and taught hundreds of children the canon of classical piano for over 50 years. She lived her voice through her music, finding ways to validate her own identity and empowering others in the process. She used the musical stage as her platform to draw invaluable connections between race, gender, language and social class. Daisy Sweeney's generation of othermothers is dying out and, as the carriers of culture, the urgency to tell their stories must be emphasized. The account respects, reclaims and reflects those voices. It is time to write in African Canadian female elders and diversify the exclusionary genre of life history and archival research.

Cette thèse a pour but l’étude sociologique de la musique actuelle au Québec. La musique actuelle est une pratique de création créée en dehors des institutions académiques et des centres de recherche. La professionnalisation de ce milieu artistique est décrite et analysée dans une perspective sociologique en prenant les cas des Productions Supermusique et du label DAME ainsi que du festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’acquérir une connaissance sur la façon dont s’est développé ce milieu musical des années 70 à aujourd’hui.