Research

Teen Musician Armaan Mishra’s Mission: Harnessing Music for the Good of the Community

Dan Cohen is a public speaker and dementia-care advocate best known for founding Music & Memory, a nonprofit that brings personalized music playlists to people living with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other cognitive or physical challenges. Cohen’s efforts were featured in the 2014 award-winning documentary Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory, which showed the powerful effects of music on nursing-home residents and helped spread awareness of personalized music as a meaningful tool in dementia care. He later founded Right to Music, an advocacy effort focused on making access to personal music a regular part of healthcare, long-term care, and family caregiving. Cohen interviewed Armaan, discussing Armaan's current work regarding music and dementia and sharing his insights.

Dan Cohen

Savage to Sophisticated: The Legitimization of Jazz in the Early 20th Century

This paper examines how jazz, once condemned by mainstream white cultural authorities as primitive, immoral, and artistically illegitimate, gained recognition as a serious American art form in the early twentieth century. Focusing on the 1920s through the 1940s, it argues that jazz’s legitimization was not driven solely by musical innovation, but by three interconnected processes: the westernization of jazz through classical forms and notation, the racial reframing of the genre into more “palatable” white-associated styles, and validation from respected European classical composers. At the same time, the paper emphasizes that these mechanisms often depended on sanitizing or obscuring jazz’s Black origins, even though Black musicians were the true innovators of the genre. Ultimately, the essay distinguishes between cultural validation and cultural memory, arguing that while white intermediaries helped jazz gain institutional legitimacy, history has increasingly restored recognition to the Black artists who created and transformed the music.

THE SOUND OF CONNECTION: Practical Tips For Teen Musicians and Music Directors Who Work With People Living With Dementia

This project develops a practical guidebook for youth musicians performing for people living with dementia. The guidebook helps student musicians approach performances not just as concerts, but as opportunities for connection, engagement, and care. In collaboration with Julene Johnson, PhD, the project draws on the current research about music, memory, and dementia. Ultimately, the project aims to make live music in dementia care settings more thoughtful, inclusive, and meaningful for both musicians and audience members.

Julene Johnson, PhD, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the UCSF Division of Geriatrics; Dan Cohen, Founder & CEO Right to Music, Founder Music & Memory