Any Romani, Sinti, or other English-speaking European players here interested in being interviewed?

Buco

I can't think of any instances where a Gypsy saw the term as the problematic one. On the contrary, I'm always left with the feeling that they use it as a matter of pride. Perhaps exactly in order to change perceptions for some and show the world how amazing they are. Just recently I saw this

https://youtu.be/71xjsYejVFo

Sinti is in forefront but Gypsy is mentioned several times too.

Maybe the closest I saw term potentially being problematic was in this documentary I saw, maybe 4 years ago, about Sinti culture. I'll try to dig it out, it helped me a lot to understand the culture better and learn many things and it would probably help you too.

Buco

This is it, this site has all the docu movies this guy, Bob Entrop, made. I'll have to watch again White Whale with Lalla Weiss to see if I remember correctly and she approached the subject. But it's well worth watching. As is No Place of Their Own. Haven't seen the others.

https://www.cultureunplugged.com/filmedia/storyteller/Bob_Entrop#/myFilms

Bones

Maybe ask Denis Chang he has hung out a lot with them over the years.

Russell Letson

I don't have a direct answer to the question, but I do have questions that might shape my own attempts to attempt one. The first is about the thesis itself: in what discipline are you working? You mention "the linguistics of the term itself," but you also wonder about the status of the "modern style," which suggests something more musicological (or maybe sociological). And in either case, I wonder what the effect might be of relying on Anglophone informants, especially if the thesis is going to include matters such as tradition-vs-modern approaches or the spread of a musical style beyond its traditional cultural roots.

I have done journalistic work in a similar area--Hawaiian music--and am aware of the political-social tensions that can be revealed when outsiders, no matter how admiring and careful, try to unpack and unpick the places where artistic and cultural activities get the attention of audiences outside the originating group. (I researched and interviewed players from several generations and got an interesting variety of takes on what "real" slack key guitar might be--and also encountered occasional reluctance to engage with an outsider at all.)

Even the naming conventions for the music can give rise to problems--there are those for whom any use of "gypsy" is an ethnic slur, but that is not a universally-held view, and individuals can be fussy about how they are labeled. For example, see this from a language blog: "Note: On July 4, 2019, a reader of the blog wrote us to say that she is a Roma and considers every use of 'gypsy,' ethnic or otherwise, uppercase or lowercase, 'a hurtful racial slur.' But on Dec. 22, 2019, another reader wrote us to say that he is Romani and 'No true Roma actually care nor do we find the term offensive.'" https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2019/03/gypsy.html.) **

And the people who might be called Roma (or Romani or Sinti or Manouche or Gitan) might identify as belonging to different subgroups--and the various styles of "gyspy jazz" do not necessarily map neatly onto those subgroups.

So it's complicated

** There's also an interesting NYT story on the theatrical use of the word: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/20/theater/actors-equity-association-gypsy-robe.html. (May be paywalled.)

pdg

I believe that the Roma people (or whatever you want to call them), who came from what is now Pakistan, appropriated music from wherever they traveled, and the local musical cultures they encountered were similarly influenced by the Roma players. Django appropriated American (Afro-American?) jazz into his playing. (In fact, he just wanted to play American jazz.)

So the evolution continues, sparking many variations and innovations, without causing any earlier subgenres to go extinct.