Chapter 3, “Generic Ontologies and the Stakes of Refusal,” explores the question What is jazz manouche? Through close readings of ethnographic encounters and interviews, I show that interlocutors’ endeavors to define and situate themselves in relation to genre also give shape to complex political stances. In talk about music, how do speakers intersubjectively develop ideas about ethnorace and citizenship? Most speakers critique the very notion of jazz manouche. Refusing this generic label is one way to address the tension between identifying as Manouche and as French: to have it subsumed by the supposedly universal nature of jazz, or to position the genre as quintessentially French. Yet many simultaneously embrace the genre’s exoticizing connotations, and some use it to reshape dominant ideas about Manouche identity. Apparently contradictory stances reflect the continuously shifting, dialogical unfolding of subject positions.

In contrast to the section-by-section approach of this website’s other chapter media pages, this page focuses on several of the musicians I discuss in chapter 3. Each musician’s work demonstrates one or more of the positions on jazz manouche that I detail in the chapter. Page numbers indicate only where each musician appears in the chapter; all make appearances elsewhere in the book, as well.

As I mention on pp. 109 and 114, Gigi Loeffler (109-111, 114, 118-19) and I collaborated on a documentary film project. Although the film itself was never completed, we did produce a trailer (below), centered on a performance at the Nancy Jazz Pulsations festival. The trailer reflects both Gigi’s insistence that jazz manouche is a form of jazz, as well as his goal to promote the inclusion of Manouche culture in broader conceptions of Alsatian and France cultures. It also features Yorgui Loeffler (103-104, 110-11, 125-26) and Billy Weiss (98-100, 104, 114, 125).

In the mid-2010s, Engé Helmstetter (123-25) and Railo Helmstetter (120, 123) formed the quartet Ytré along with violinists Tchatcho Helmstetter and Yardani Torres Maiani. Ytré’s website states that for the ensemble, “The bossa-nova cadences, jazz harmonies and classical arrangements are all pretexts for the creation of ambiences, polyphonies and sound textures. The audacious writing that at times leads them to the frontiers of contemporary aesthetics contrasts with a certain love for simplicity, a search for purity.”