The Ox in the Concert Hall: Jazz Identity and La Création du Monde

by Gonzalez-Appling, Julio M

Darius Milhaud’s La Création du monde has often been categorized as one of many modernist forays into jazz. Milhaud employed a distinctly different approach to jazz, however, than his contemporaries. He sought not only to imitate jazz gestures, but to understand jazz culturally. This thesis examines how Darius Milhaud’s respect for folk music and personal commitment to culture led to La Création du monde, a work demonstrating a more comprehensive grasp of the jazz idiom than any of his European contemporaries.