This chapter introduces the key concepts and theories that undergird the book, Jazz Sells: Music, Marketing, and Meaning. I begin my providing a brief overview of the history of consumer capitalism, focusing on North America and Western Europe, followed by a general discussion of the role of music in advertising and the proliferation of consumer capitalist ideology. I highlight several central theoretical tools that figure prominently in my analysis in the remaining chapters of the book: Louis Althusser’s notions of “interpellation” and “ideological state apparatus,” Guy Debord’s work on “spectacle,” and Thorstein Veblen’s work on “conspicuous consumption.”
Chapter One
Introduction
Most jazz isn’t really about jazz, at least not in terms of how it is actually consumedKrin Gabbard, Jammin’ at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema (University of Chicago Press, 1996: 1)