Biography

Before entering the UC Santa Cruz Social Documentation program, Jesse Fankushen enjoyed five years working at Lonely Planet Publications, the world’s leading independent travel publisher.  As the Associate Marketing Manager, Jesse implemented Lonely Planet’s USA marketing efforts with booksellers around the United States, and developed an awareness program “Becoming A Global Citizen,” which presented programs of responsible and conscientious travel to audiences around the USA.  Prior to his time with Lonely Planet, Jesse was a production intern on the KQED-FM program “Forum With Michael Krasny” in San Francisco.  As part of this highly competitive internship program, Jesse was responsible for researching show topics, interviewing and booking program guests.  Jesse also spent 3 years working at the Bay Area Video Coalition, where he went through the video training program, later serving at the organization’s financial assistant.

Project Summary

Jesse’s thesis project examines the intellectual, spiritual and social conditions at work in the creation of soul-jazz, using the Hammond organ as a point of reference.  These developmental factors and the Hammond organ itself have been almost entirely ignored within conventional scholarly and popular jazz studies.   The rise of soul-jazz represents a fracture in common jazz history, which suggests after bebop the narrative thread of jazz splinters into hard bop, avant-garde and fusion, followed years later by a neoclassicist rise.  Soul-jazz is seen by many as an unfortunate development; by having proudly worn its rhythm & blues influences on its collective sleeve, having been aggressively produced and marketed by record companies, and above all by proactively and successfully appealing to the masses, soul-jazz represented a move away from jazz as high art and towards simple, popular African-American expression.  This popular reach, however, largely accounts for its appeal.

Jesse’s project features an exploration of the life of a working soul-jazz musician of the past and present and what, if any, relationship exists between self-identification and the notion of jazz musician as a creator of high art.  To look into soul-jazz is also to explore the grey area where rhythm & blues, gospel, soul, and funk become defining characteristics of the music. Jesse’s project goes further—to inform jazz discourse beyond the contributions of the prominent jazz critics who have comprised dominant discourse to hear from those who find value soul-jazz. Jesse’s project will examine soul-jazz as a form of predominantly African-American expression and in what ways its development was logical and what impact it has had throughout its history, and what its lasting contributions are perceived to be today.

Organists Dr. Lonnie Smith, Reuben Wilson, Gene Ludwig, Tony Monaco, Jackie Ivory, Bob Birch, Nick Rossi, Steven Roberts, Linda Dachtyl, Atsuko Hashimoto, and Wil Blades have all contributed their time to Jesse’s thesis, as have record producer Joe Fields, producer and promoter Pete Fallico, guitarist Calvin Keys, academics David Ake, Steven F. Pond, Rickey Vincent, and Hammond technician Bob Schleicher.  The result will be a video documentary presented in June 2007.