Slaten, Whitney

July 25, 2008 by wslaten

(B.M. in Sound Engineering Arts and Jazz Performance from William Paterson University, 2005; M.A. in Ethnomusicology from Columbia University, 2007) is an ethnographer, a live recording and reinforcement sound engineer, and a jazz saxophonist. His M.A. thesis entitled, "Sounding the World: The Live Sound Engineering of World Music in New York City," explores the extent to which the intercultural encounter and negotiation between American live sound engineers and musicians from a diverse set of traditional performance practices drastically shape the technological mediation of musical sound. Currently, Whitney conducts continued ethnographic research on live sound engineering as the basis for his upcoming dissertation. This work intends to explore the dynamic subjectivity of live sound engineers as working class laborers through the social life of fidelity: the faithfulness of a sound’s reproduction. Whitney positions this research within the scholarship on the relationships between both music and technology and science and society. As a saxophonist, Whitney has worked in the New York City jazz and world music scene for over 7 years, playing with artists as diverse as Babatunde Olatunji and Clark Terry. He has worked as a live sound engineer for many years, first as an apprentice of his father and later as a freelance engineer throughout the tri-state area. His most recent engineering work includes his work with Jazzmobile, providing live jazz concerts throughout many neighborhoods in NYC.

Visit Whitney's website

Email: wjs2105@columbia.edu

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