Article2013

Creative labour and collective interaction: the working lives of young jazz musicians in London

67 citations0/0 files storedWork Employment and Society

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Cultural Industries and Urban Development Music History and Culture Employment, Labor, and Gender Studies

Abstract

This article explores the types of work undertaken by jazz musicians in London, categorizing their activities using two axes derived from debates over ‘creative labour’. Firstly, the extent to which different jobs offer scope for creative autonomy and, secondly, the extent to which they involve collective as opposed to individualized working relationships. It focuses on the process of becoming established on the London ‘scene’, presenting qualitative interview data primarily with young workers seeking to build their careers. Musicians may make conscious decisions to pursue types of work which enable greater creative autonomy, but in doing so they may exacerbate fatalism about poor working conditions and undermine professional solidarity. The article also explores how pressures towards ‘entrepreneurialism’ in other forms of music work constitute further barriers to collective contestation of working conditions. Finally, it points towards types of music work where notions of professional economic interest have more traction.

Citations in this library

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References

2018Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste*2002The Rise of the Creative Class 1976Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century.2008In the Social Factory?2005From cultural to creative industries 2008Creative cities: the cultural industries and the creative class 2002CLUBS TO COMPANIES: NOTES ON THE DECLINE OF POLITICAL CULTURE IN SPEEDED UP CREATIVE WORLDS 2007The Politics of Cultural Work

Cited by

2015“That’s the Experience”2015Interrogating Creative Theory and Creative Work: Inside the Games Studio 2016Artists and Multiple Job Holding—Breadwinning Work as Mediating Between Bohemian and Entrepreneurial Identities and Behavior 2023How Do Young Workers Perceive Job Insecurity? Legitimising Frames for Precarious Work in England and Germany 2017Moral economy, intermediaries and intensified competition in the labour market for function musicians 2020“There’s No Way That You Get Paid to Do the Arts”: Unpaid Labour Across the Cultural and Creative Life Course

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