Christopher Capizzi

Christopher Capizzi
University of Pittsburgh

A PhD student in jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Capizzi presented conference papers at the Society for American Music and American Musicological Society-Allegheny chapter and went on to receive a research grant from the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. He is a jazz pianist, a composer and teaches jazz piano and improvisation at Carnegie Mellon University School of Music.

Talk Title: Suffering, Levinas, and Modern Jazz: The Liturgical Music of Mary Lou Williams

In early liturgical works like Mass and St. Martin de Porres: Black Christ of the Andes, Mary Lou Williams was working out a concept of ‘sacred jazz’ that draws from black American music – particularly the Negro spiritual, blues and modern jazz – and engages directly with black suffering and the origins of jazz. This project tries to access Williams’ liturgical and sacred music through a consideration of black suffering. Through Williams’ writings and upon analysis of score examples taken from major works like Mass and Black Christ of the Andes, she emerges as composer, scholar and documentarian of black American music. Via the lens of Levinas in his essay Useless Suffering, this thesis asks if  jazz and Williams’ music might be explained as the expression of ‘certain psychological content’ acquired as suffering.