Jazz Trumpet and the Semiotics of Vulnerability

From Louis Armstrong to Marvin Hannibal Peterson and beyond, jazz trumpeters have done much to construct ideas of power around their practice. But this presentation seeks to explore power’s unheralded twin: focusing on three iconic mid-20th century players – Lee Morgan, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard – the paper examines the various ways that musicians have used (and been used by) the trumpet in constructing a semiotics of vulnerability