The Global Jukebox is dedicated to our remote ancestors, to our parents, grandparents and teachers, and is a gift offered to present and future generations—a gift of sound, movement, and growing knowledge. It honors the expressive traditions of all peoples, and the cultural diversity that enriches us as individuals, and is crucial to our common survival as a species.
The Global Jukebox was conceived by the eminent musicologist, Alan Lomax, whose dream was to reach audiences from all walks of life and all countries. It was based on research in the expressive arts. The Association for Cultural Equity, the not-for-profit entity Lomax founded in 1983, is bringing the Jukebox to fruition with new knowledge, tools, and technologies. We are spurred on by findings in the sciences archeology and ethnology; recent work in ethnochoreology and ethnomusicology; new methods in musical analysis; and by the rewards of collaborative research.
The Jukebox offers pathways to learning and a place to ponder our deep heritage. It is a means of exploring old and contemporary forms of music, dance, conversing, phonating and phrasing; and of finding out how our shared preoccupations as culture members may reveal themselves in song and poetry.
As an expanding, interactive website, the Jukebox aspires to be a resource for teachers, students and scholars, and a source of data and ideas for scientists.
It aspires to reach young generations searching for music and dance that resonates with them, who may also recognize their ancestors from the sound of their voices and the movement of their bodies.
The Jukebox is for those who ask, as we do, what can aesthetic patterns reveal about the kinship between peoples over time?
It is for migrants, refugees, nomadic peoples and hard travelers who miss the sounds and body language of home.
It is for indigenous peoples, villagers and metropolitans rich and poor desiring to hear the thrilling voices of their grandparents and great grandparents, and to see the dances which had been for them the most beautiful.
The Jukebox was released on April 18, 2017 as a work in progress.
There is still more to do. Archival dance sequences on film need to be restored, digitized and edited; 60 Indigenous American tribes and ca. 20 Indigenous Australian communities need to contacted in person for permission to play their songs and dances. All these things are contingent upon funding.
You can help support the Global Jukebox. Donate now.