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Jazz as process: A different perspective for the 21st century
What does the word “jazz” mean in the 21st century? The layperson or 21st century student of jazz is presented with the challenge, what is representative of a jazz style? How do we differentiate between jazz and any other improvised music? Hasn’t the improvisational art form been in existence for some time now, revealed in many musical forms and traditions? Jazz pianist/composer, Bill Evans stated that “jazz is not so much a style as a process of making music” (Evans, 1966). Jazz trumpet player/composer, Dave Douglas expounds on Bill Evans’ statement, by describing his aesthetical values and expectations in the music-making process: “You’re not thinking about any one thing. You’re trying to represent everything. Every part of your experience from birth to that moment” (as cited in Peterson, 2006, p. 75).
In 1938 jazz pianist and composer, Jelly Roll Morton stated that “without a break, you have nothing” in regards to the performance of jazz (Hill, Richard & Meddings, 2003). “Even if a tune has no break in it, it is always necessary to arrange some kind of a spot to make a break. Because without a break, as I said before, you haven’t gotten jazz . . .” (ibid.). Morton’s comments are relevant today, indicating the distinctive nature of jazz for potential exploration of musical material, inherent as compositional intent, and improvisational interpretation, in rehearsal, arrangement and performance of the musical score.
Henk Borgdorff describes this process of managing artistic process and outcomes as:
Distinctive ontological, epistemological and methodological framework, its social and intellectual organisation, and its specific forms of engagement, talent development and quality control all serve to highlight what academic research could also potentially be – a thorough and sensitive investigation, exploration and mobilisation of the affective and cognitive propensities of the human mind in their coherence, and of the artistic products of that mind. This means that artistic research, through its quest for fundamental understanding, is equally dedicated to broadening our perspectives and enriching our minds as it is to enriching our world with new images, narratives, sounds and experiences (Borgdorff, 2009, pp. 15–16).
The artistic product of the mind or particular template I will refer to throughout is small jazz ensemble composition; a scenario, much easier to negotiate due to its size and shape dictating what one can actually do in the gap between compositional intention and performer’s interpretation, exhibited as the aesthetical presentation of a work, as a space for participating musicians to perform; necessary for jazzing (a suggested descriptor for this activity). To play jazz is to improvise, organising sounds into a structure, as part of or in direct correlation with a compositional performance. The small jazz ensemble compositional performance is “its own goal”, “the process is the product, and the researcher is forced to focus on the creative processes of group creativity” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 5).
Contemporary improvisers such as Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, perceive jazz from different lenses, and are not interested in “neo-traditionalism”. Musicians such as these two, use traditions and cultural influences as a means to creating something new and distinct. Numerous approaches to music-making coincide and intersect due to developing artistic practice; the connection between artist and creative output are susceptible to continuous variation and innovation (Frisk & Karlsson, 2011, p. 280). Metheny and Mehldau have both learnt their craft from listening, imitating and assimilating musical knowledge from influential contributors of jazz history; preferring to explore imaginative, interpretative ideas as composers and improvisers, resulting in an idiosyncratic approach, as indicated by Metheny:
As much as I love playing on standards and blues forms and modern jazz compositions, there was a way of playing, an improvisational feeling that although I could kind of impose it into that zone a little bit, I didn’t really find music that really allowed me to follow through on my own improvisational urge. So I started writing tunes out of necessity (as cited in Niles, 2009, p.146).
Metheny’s personal approach coincides with the need for jazz musicians to compose an “inner musical image”, used as a “framework for improvisation” (Goldstein, 1993, p. 11). "Brilliant compositions and improvisations are often a microcosm of one another" (ibid., p.16), and Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk “forged personal musical styles through improvisation”, demonstrating the “variety and richness of music which has been created in this idiom" (ibid., p. 11).
Global influences have added new interpretations/permutations, beyond familiar spheres of canon and history, to reflect a ‘jazz moment in time’, either as an improvisation, composition and or performance. Diverse information and resources on jazz composition and improvisation are abundant. With the invention of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press in 1448 (Winston, 2005, p.5), and Edison’s phonograph record in 1878 (ibid, p. 239), to music streaming and the internet; knowledge is disseminated more efficiently than ever before; challenging the rationale of jazz as having specific musical characteristics, given the evolution and array of styles. Our modern day listening habits contrast to the days of the two-sided 78 rpm Gramophone record which had less playing time. According to Art Lange in his forward to Ran Blake’s Primacy of the Ear (2010), absorption of information was a deeper experience:
The fact that there were only two songs per disc, and not a dozen or more as is often the case today, meant that the listener was able to focus--had to focus—more frequently and more intently upon those two pieces of music. We have so much more music available to us, and so little time to listen, that we tend to sample more, but spend less time digesting it… (as cited in Blake, pp. iv–v, 2010).
The environment in which musical insights and learning occur has changed significantly over the last century: a live performance to memorizing a tune from a radio broadcast; transcribing a solo off the record to rewinding and reviewing a track on cassette tape; skipping over the melody on a compact disc to searching through digital files on the internet for inspiration. Social, folkloric, and cultural traditions have contributed as a resource to music-making process, due to musical collaborations as a community, a benefit from technological advancement. Historically, the origin of jazz is African American, however, due to the coverage of music, initially through the radio to a worldwide audience, jazz was adopted by other musicians, integrated into other world cultures and vice versa. Various people groups and settings have produced fresh, new perspectives on jazz, due to exposure and influence of the traditional African-American art form in their corner of the world. “Jazz is good music–when it sets itself, as earnestly as any other form, to explore and express the feelings and conditions of its time” (Ellington, 2003, p. 257).
Tradition is a practice that becomes standard, yet creativity is a spontaneous ordered invention, thus improvisation is reflected in the modernity’s essence: society at a juncture in time, in the present tense. As Dave Douglas puts it: “It’s really quite simple: wake up every day and try to reflect what’s really going on inside you and outside you. In this period, it’s reflected in the thousands of ways music is changing and growing” (as cited in Nicholson, 2003). This aspect of change and growth is reflected in Edward De Bono’s comments on effective learning from traditional and current resources, available for invention: “Traditional methods of thinking” have taught us “how to refine such patterns and establish their validity”, however, “we shall always make less than the best use of available information unless we know how to create new patterns” (De Bono, 1977, p. 13).
This paper argues that we are evolving past style into consideration of jazz as process. ‘Process’ seems an apt word for effectively locating and developing perspectives and outcomes on music-making in the 21st century. A theory of process recognises its unification “not in terms of underlying substance” but as a “permanent form or pattern”, exhibited as “continuously changing processes”, much like a “wave maintains its form” even though variables occur as a result of “different volumes of water and different times” (Blackburn, 2005, p. 294).
I argue that the fusing of jazz, that is, an improvisational art form with other cultural interpretations, (the relationship with traditional African American influence and other social settings), resulted in great diversity as a process, and not necessarily stylistic in character. Brad Mehldau’s solution to these complexities faced by the contemporary musician/composer, seeking to find a personal voice, is to “base that identity on the inception of jazz and go from there” or not “raise the question of identity in the first place” (as cited in Peterson, 2006, p. 180). Melhldau elaborates on this dilemma of a genre's expectations, using the analogy of jazz music as:
A very generous family with a big house that has a lot of guests from all over. Every so often, a visitor is particularly illuminating and affects the viewpoint of jazz permanently, leaving something behind in that house that will stay there forever (ibid., p. 180).
By perceiving jazz as a process, I argue that certain elements come into play, contributing to and demonstrating jazz as a verb, “to take part in any capacity in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance” (Small, 1998, p. 9). Musical process is a direct outcome of and influence on “jazz community’s…performance practices, rearranging and transforming…elements”, developing “original approaches to collective improvisation”, exposing the “limitations of applying conventional labels to style periods and idioms when describing the diversity of music making within the jazz tradition” (Berliner, 2009, p. 341).
Style suggests certain characteristics particular to a certain genre, and the “strongest creative element in jazz is improvisation” (Evans, 1966), however, this music-making process has been present for some time beforehand. “In an absolute sense, jazz is more a certain creative process of spontaneity than a style. Therefore, you might say that Chopin, or Bach, or Mozart, or whoever, was able to make music of the moment (improvised music), was in a sense playing jazz" (Evans, 1966). Another perspective on the conception of a musical moment, is explained by Bruno Nettl (1974), through suggesting that “composition and improvisation were not qualitatively different”, but rather “a continuum among musical genres, from more improvised to less improvised”, indicating that “rapid composition” occurred at the “improvisational end”, and “slow composition” occurred at the “compositional end”, indicating that “Western composers, such as Schubert, composed in bursts of quick, spontaneous creation” (as cited in Sawyer, 2003, p. 80).
A solution to this subject could be a dualistic approach: investigating, absorbing, and applying ideas through study of artistic process, where permutation, narrative, design and outcomes can be achieved, both independently and interdependently as a community. By using aspects of action research, where improvement and understanding of a practice are central to its purpose (Robson, 2011, p.188), planning, acting, reviewing, developing or creating new works as a composer/improviser, results in a variety of music scenarios. Kemmis and Wilkinson argue that participatory action research is a “social–and educational–process”, “directed towards studying, reframing, and reconstructing practices”; involving self-reflective cycles of: “planning a change”, “acting and observing the process and consequences”, “reflecting on these processes and consequences” and “re-planning”, best attempted with co-participants (Kemmis & Wilkinson, 1998, p. 22). The authors state that some theorists consider action research a “solitary process of systematic self-reflection” (p. 22). I consider the perspectives of self-reflection and collaboration in action research as effective, relevant techniques to the study of jazz as process, through the use of two models for developing and investigating artistic practice: (composition/rehearsal/arrangement/improvisation/performance as a case study), exploring “possible causes”, “determinants”, “factors”, and “experiences” which contribute to creative outcomes and design (Robson, 2011, p. 138):
•Model A solitary action research as a composer/player/leader in a small jazz ensemble;
•Model B relates to the group experience i.e. participatory action research involving oneself as a player and leader, and small jazz ensemble participants, working on the composition as an experiment, gathering data informally and documenting the process through rehearsals and performances.
With a number of resources at our disposal, jazz musicians and composers now have endless possibilities to create their own unique canvas, not limited to style but encouraged by process. However, a contrasting assessment to jazz as process is raised by Wynton Marsalis in a New York Times article:
Despite attempts by writers and record companies and promoters and educators and even musicians to blur the lines for commercial purposes, rock isn't jazz and new age isn't jazz, and neither are pop or third stream. There may be much that is good in all of them, but they aren't jazz (Marsalis, 1988).
Does that mean contemporary improvising jazz musicians/composers who may draw on rock, pop, third-stream, world music etc. are not playing jazz? Yet “the combination of freedom and tradition is vital for jazz” (Collier, 2009, p. 180). Thus, I consider process to be effective in pursuing artistic practice and its development in jazz composition/improvisation in the 21st century, without the limitations of style. A suggestion could be, rather than pointing to any particular style or styles, jazz should be defined as a genre encompassing a variety of influences, allowing a space created by the composer in the form of a template for musicians to improvise, making this type of music scenario unique. Graeme Collier reiterates this point by stating that:
One of the unique strengths of jazz lies in how what is written down is treated and developed during a performance. The music used is, in the main, incomplete in some way, written in a way that allows for - in some cases, demands - being developed, or, at the very least, coloured, by improvising (ibid., p. 264)
The present tense demands a solution, the ability to seek out and solve problems in relation to a musical moment as an organised structure. As Keith Jarrett said: “Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple” (as cited in Collier, 2009, p. 31). To play jazz is to improvise, organising sounds into a structure, in direct correlation with a compositional performance. Giddens & Deveaux (2009, p. 378) define composition as a musical work, performed by musicians in various settings and formats, much like in any other genre, remaining true to the composer’s intentions, whilst the first goal of jazz improvisation is the interpretation and unique performance of the score. Interactions take place where participants are required to make decisions as to the amount of liberty taken, negotiating between the composer’s direction, and the improvising musicians’ performance as arrangers of the compositional material. ‘Arrangement’ is the cross-section between composition and improvisation where the presentation of material for performance is organised; I refer to this process as creative design. The creative design and process of this music-making activity requires a “constant balance between finding a problem and solving that problem, and then finding a new problem during solving the last one…” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 115), through the writing, rehearsal, arrangement and performance of the small jazz ensemble composition.
The word ‘jazz’ describes a unique process, made up of improvising musicians, interpreting the intentions of the composer in the hope of obtaining a positive outcome. As a jazz composer/improviser, I see “jazz” as an opportunity to generate music spontaneously, with the intention of organising ideas into a coherent framework for presentation, either independently as a soloist, or interdependently as a collective. Ingrid Monson argues that improvisation in the jazz ensemble performance must take the approach of interactive, collaborative exploration as a cause for “musical invention”, and as a “point of departure” (Monson, 2009, p. 74). As compositional structure generates a platform for improvisation and vice versa, the arrangement is the architectural design of the performance, organised during rehearsal, “challenging group members to negotiate fresh musical models in performance and stimulating the conception of ideas in the process” (Berliner, 2009, p. 233).
This example of correlation between imagination and order as a social scheme is demonstrated in the choices, contributions, and leadership of individuals to form a successful unit. “In group creativity, the process is the essence of the genre, and it must be the central focus” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 6), and the potential success of a small jazz ensemble compositional performance is dependent on improvising musicians pursuing a genuine, idiosyncratic musical moment; the ability as narrators, to portray a story efficiently and effectively, placing oneself in the shoes of the author and his or her characters. More often than not, as is the case with most jazz standards, the composer is not present, and a group of improvising musicians are left to design an inspired performance through collective listening experiences in order to discover the ideal interpretation of a musical work. The template on which ideas are documented for performance could be seen as a map, with directions to a destination, the composer’s intention; yet the discussions which take place en route is demonstrated in the performer’s interpretation, organisation and performance of the score. This “creative development is also expressed” as “physical and metaphysical relationships which take place in music structures, established in the form of a score, a rehearsal or a performance” (Lopes, 2017). Communications take place in organising a performance, unfolding at various levels: “co-existing dualities of internal/external processes contribute to musical style through the collaboration of individuals; resulting in the sharing of knowledge and experiences as jazz community”, along with the “physical world of information in the form of music fundamentals and theory, and exploration into metaphysical dimensions of imagination and creative potential” (Lopes, 2017).
Small jazz ensemble composition and/or performance is also a social experiment of sorts; presenting the challenge of “collective coherent thinking” and a “social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result” (Evans, 1959). Some composer/leaders have an autocratic approach, and others may be more democratic, with varying degrees of freedom and input for musicians or a certain improviser to contribute to the performance. Its success depends on the synergy between the composer/player/leader and his or her performing/improvising musicians, and their ambition to discover a favourable, effortless, creative moment. “Sociocultural…interactional processes of group creativity” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 6) in music-making, contribute to “art practice…as…subject matter, method, context and… outcome” (Borgdorff, 2011, p. 46).
By using creative design one can view the potential of a musical performance from various perspectives: participants can devise a method of clarification to the intentions and interpretations of the composition, intuitively and intellectually. Jazz has always been a music of exploration and adventure, ranging from the “discovery and invention of original music spontaneously, while performing it, without preconceived formulation, scoring or context” to the “ability to organize sound, silence and rhythm with the whole of his or her creative intelligence” (Dean, 1989, p. xv–xvi); it is a “simultaneous conception and production of sound in performance” (ibid., p. ix), both for the individual and the collective.
Whether our beliefs are taken as a part of understanding music “as music,” will depend, then, on our answers to the question of what music is: are we trying to understand music as a human expression, as an artifact, as an experience, as a social activity, or perhaps as a cognitive process? As the multitude of research disciplines dedicated to these phenomena attests, our answers will be different depending on how we conceive of the object of understanding (Huovinen, 2011, p. 132).
I’m certainly not against the traditions and contributions made by jazz musicians/composers/leaders, past and present; for without them, our own ideas would have no foundation from which to learn and build upon, particularly from the practice and process of individuals and collectives, and not just the study of artistic outcomes. The ongoing development of practice “entwines with jazz’s artistic tradition”, with “mutual absorption and exchange of ideas”, taking place in a community, leading to “idiosyncratic musical perspectives” (Berliner, 2009, p. 59); and like any other art form, reflects the social conditions of its time, captured in performance as an improvisation and composition and vice versa.
An individual’s participation in music is complicated at times; variable conditions, perceptions, and incidental social events, embedded in historical process, cultural circumstance, systems, and complex mediations of technology and material culture influence artistic output (Clarke, 2011, p. 612).
Musicians such as Brad Mehldau recognise that most of his contemporaries “specialise” and “focus on a few periods and delve more deeply into them”, in regards to learning and developing from the jazz tradition. He compares this process to the study of philosophy, highlighting the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as the “last philosopher who could still give a full account of the whole history of human thought in his writing”; acknowledging that it is “too much information, so people had to stop trying to go for that meta-view” (as cited in Peterson, p. 181) as a consequence. With global, social, and political change throughout the last century, ability to produce ideas and investigate new horizons has remained constant. This opportunity for artistic development and its exploration in the 21st century is identified by Wayne Shorter, who asserts failure as “an illusion” (Shorter, 2009). He continues by commenting on potential complacency in human beings if imagination is not used to further ourselves as a civilisation:
Now is the time for us to reach further than our grasp...our cognitive preservation, our cognitive power is the tip of the iceberg; so if we don’t reach the preservation of that iceberg, if we don’t reach for what is in our grasp, it might melt” (ibid.).
Pat Metheny considers this subject of human endeavor as a potential expansion for jazz tradition, acknowledging that as musicians, composers, and listeners:
We have to get to work on a vision that is more concerned with what this music can become than what it has already been…a kind of jazz that sounds nothing like the jazz of the 20th century…a new kind of animal-but one that is still unmistakably connected to the larger jazz tradition (as cited in Nicholson, 2003).
“Artistic practice is conveyed in and through the creative product as process, progressing to new ideas and understandings in one’s or other’s works” (Lopes, 2017). Varying backgrounds of artists, partnerships, and teamwork in music-making as a community, sharing life together, potentially generate diverse creative output. Therefore, music-making process “invites reflection’, but eludes defined thought regarding content; investigation involves recognising this contradiction; it “enhances… awareness of…pre-reflective nearness of things…our epistemological distance from them”, making research into arts practice an “open undertaking, seeking the deliberate articulation of unfinished thinking in and through art” (Borgdorff, 2011, p. 45). “Consequently, I am confident that further research into ‘jazz as process’ or ‘jazzing’ as a means and not an end, can be an effective tool for investigating artistic practice, contributing to small jazz ensemble composition, rehearsal, arrangement and performance technique” (Lopes, 2017). Thus, I believe a focus on imaginative, inventive and informative methods of jazz as process, as practice, as sharing, has benefits for both the student, teacher and listener of jazz.
References
Berliner, P.F. (2009). Thinking in jazz: The infinite art of improvisation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
Blackburn, S. (2005). Oxford dictionary of philosophy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Blake, R. (2010). Primacy of the ear: Listening, memory and development of musical style. Boston, MA: Third Stream Associates.
Borgdorff, H. (2009). Artistic research within the fields of science. Gothenburg, Sweden: University of Gothenburg.
Borgdorff, H. (2011). The production of knowledge in artistic research. In Biggs, M. & Karlsson, H. (Eds.), The routledge companion to research in the arts (pp 44–63). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Clarke, E. (2011). Psychology of music. In Gracyk, T. & Kania, A. (eds.), The routledge companion to philosophy and music (pp 603–613). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Collier, G. (2009). The jazz composer: Moving music off the paper. London, UK: Northway Publications.
De Bono, E. (1977). Lateral thinking. London, UK: Penguin Books Ltd.
Dean, R. (1989). Creative improvisation. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press.
Ellington, D. (1995). The Duke Ellington reader. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Evans, B. (1959). Bill Evans: Linear notes for Kind of Blue record by Miles Davis. New York, NY: Columbia Records.
Evans, B. (1966). Bill Evans: Jazz pianist on the creative process and self-teaching. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwXAqIaUahI
Frisk, H. & Karlsson, H. (2011). Time and interaction: Research through non-visual arts and media. In Biggs,
M. & Karlsson, H. (Eds.), The routledge companion to research in the arts (pp 277–292). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Giddens, G. & DeVeaux, S. (2009). Jazz. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Goldstein, G. (1993). Jazz composer’s companion. Mainz, DEU: Advance Music.
Hill, M., Richard, R., & Meddings, M. (2003). Library of congress narrative: Jelly Roll Morton and Alan Lomax. Retrieved from http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/locspeech1.html
Huovinen, E. (2011). Understanding music. In Gracyk, T. & Kania, A. (eds.), The routledge companion to philosophy and music (pp 123–133). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Kemmis, S. & Wilkinson, M. (1998). Participatory action research and the study of practice. In Atweh, B. & Kemmis, S. & Weeks, P. (Eds.), Action research in practice: Partnership for social justice (pp 21–36). London, UK: Routledge Publications.
Lopes, A. (2017). Jazzing: Intuition and Intellect. Unpublished manuscript, Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
Marsalis, W. (1988). Music; What jazz is - and isn't. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/31/arts/music-what-jazz-is-and-isnt.html?pagewanted=all&mcubz=0
Metheny, P. (2011). Pat Metheny masterclass at Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu, Barcelona. Retrieved from https://www.scribd.com/document/255266557/Pat-Metheny-Masterclass-at-El-Liceu-23
Monson, I. (2009). Saying something: Jazz improvisation and interaction. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
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Niles, R. (2009). The Pat Metheny interviews: The inner workings of his creativity revealed. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation.
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Shorter, W. (2009). Wayne Shorter at New York University graduation. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4pffzqENO8
Small, C. (1998). Musiking: The meanings of performing and listening. NH, USA: Wesleyan University Press.
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In 1938 jazz pianist and composer, Jelly Roll Morton stated that “without a break, you have nothing” in regards to the performance of jazz (Hill, Richard & Meddings, 2003). “Even if a tune has no break in it, it is always necessary to arrange some kind of a spot to make a break. Because without a break, as I said before, you haven’t gotten jazz . . .” (ibid.). Morton’s comments are relevant today, indicating the distinctive nature of jazz for potential exploration of musical material, inherent as compositional intent, and improvisational interpretation, in rehearsal, arrangement and performance of the musical score.
Henk Borgdorff describes this process of managing artistic process and outcomes as:
Distinctive ontological, epistemological and methodological framework, its social and intellectual organisation, and its specific forms of engagement, talent development and quality control all serve to highlight what academic research could also potentially be – a thorough and sensitive investigation, exploration and mobilisation of the affective and cognitive propensities of the human mind in their coherence, and of the artistic products of that mind. This means that artistic research, through its quest for fundamental understanding, is equally dedicated to broadening our perspectives and enriching our minds as it is to enriching our world with new images, narratives, sounds and experiences (Borgdorff, 2009, pp. 15–16).
The artistic product of the mind or particular template I will refer to throughout is small jazz ensemble composition; a scenario, much easier to negotiate due to its size and shape dictating what one can actually do in the gap between compositional intention and performer’s interpretation, exhibited as the aesthetical presentation of a work, as a space for participating musicians to perform; necessary for jazzing (a suggested descriptor for this activity). To play jazz is to improvise, organising sounds into a structure, as part of or in direct correlation with a compositional performance. The small jazz ensemble compositional performance is “its own goal”, “the process is the product, and the researcher is forced to focus on the creative processes of group creativity” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 5).
Contemporary improvisers such as Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, perceive jazz from different lenses, and are not interested in “neo-traditionalism”. Musicians such as these two, use traditions and cultural influences as a means to creating something new and distinct. Numerous approaches to music-making coincide and intersect due to developing artistic practice; the connection between artist and creative output are susceptible to continuous variation and innovation (Frisk & Karlsson, 2011, p. 280). Metheny and Mehldau have both learnt their craft from listening, imitating and assimilating musical knowledge from influential contributors of jazz history; preferring to explore imaginative, interpretative ideas as composers and improvisers, resulting in an idiosyncratic approach, as indicated by Metheny:
As much as I love playing on standards and blues forms and modern jazz compositions, there was a way of playing, an improvisational feeling that although I could kind of impose it into that zone a little bit, I didn’t really find music that really allowed me to follow through on my own improvisational urge. So I started writing tunes out of necessity (as cited in Niles, 2009, p.146).
Metheny’s personal approach coincides with the need for jazz musicians to compose an “inner musical image”, used as a “framework for improvisation” (Goldstein, 1993, p. 11). "Brilliant compositions and improvisations are often a microcosm of one another" (ibid., p.16), and Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk “forged personal musical styles through improvisation”, demonstrating the “variety and richness of music which has been created in this idiom" (ibid., p. 11).
Global influences have added new interpretations/permutations, beyond familiar spheres of canon and history, to reflect a ‘jazz moment in time’, either as an improvisation, composition and or performance. Diverse information and resources on jazz composition and improvisation are abundant. With the invention of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press in 1448 (Winston, 2005, p.5), and Edison’s phonograph record in 1878 (ibid, p. 239), to music streaming and the internet; knowledge is disseminated more efficiently than ever before; challenging the rationale of jazz as having specific musical characteristics, given the evolution and array of styles. Our modern day listening habits contrast to the days of the two-sided 78 rpm Gramophone record which had less playing time. According to Art Lange in his forward to Ran Blake’s Primacy of the Ear (2010), absorption of information was a deeper experience:
The fact that there were only two songs per disc, and not a dozen or more as is often the case today, meant that the listener was able to focus--had to focus—more frequently and more intently upon those two pieces of music. We have so much more music available to us, and so little time to listen, that we tend to sample more, but spend less time digesting it… (as cited in Blake, pp. iv–v, 2010).
The environment in which musical insights and learning occur has changed significantly over the last century: a live performance to memorizing a tune from a radio broadcast; transcribing a solo off the record to rewinding and reviewing a track on cassette tape; skipping over the melody on a compact disc to searching through digital files on the internet for inspiration. Social, folkloric, and cultural traditions have contributed as a resource to music-making process, due to musical collaborations as a community, a benefit from technological advancement. Historically, the origin of jazz is African American, however, due to the coverage of music, initially through the radio to a worldwide audience, jazz was adopted by other musicians, integrated into other world cultures and vice versa. Various people groups and settings have produced fresh, new perspectives on jazz, due to exposure and influence of the traditional African-American art form in their corner of the world. “Jazz is good music–when it sets itself, as earnestly as any other form, to explore and express the feelings and conditions of its time” (Ellington, 2003, p. 257).
Tradition is a practice that becomes standard, yet creativity is a spontaneous ordered invention, thus improvisation is reflected in the modernity’s essence: society at a juncture in time, in the present tense. As Dave Douglas puts it: “It’s really quite simple: wake up every day and try to reflect what’s really going on inside you and outside you. In this period, it’s reflected in the thousands of ways music is changing and growing” (as cited in Nicholson, 2003). This aspect of change and growth is reflected in Edward De Bono’s comments on effective learning from traditional and current resources, available for invention: “Traditional methods of thinking” have taught us “how to refine such patterns and establish their validity”, however, “we shall always make less than the best use of available information unless we know how to create new patterns” (De Bono, 1977, p. 13).
This paper argues that we are evolving past style into consideration of jazz as process. ‘Process’ seems an apt word for effectively locating and developing perspectives and outcomes on music-making in the 21st century. A theory of process recognises its unification “not in terms of underlying substance” but as a “permanent form or pattern”, exhibited as “continuously changing processes”, much like a “wave maintains its form” even though variables occur as a result of “different volumes of water and different times” (Blackburn, 2005, p. 294).
I argue that the fusing of jazz, that is, an improvisational art form with other cultural interpretations, (the relationship with traditional African American influence and other social settings), resulted in great diversity as a process, and not necessarily stylistic in character. Brad Mehldau’s solution to these complexities faced by the contemporary musician/composer, seeking to find a personal voice, is to “base that identity on the inception of jazz and go from there” or not “raise the question of identity in the first place” (as cited in Peterson, 2006, p. 180). Melhldau elaborates on this dilemma of a genre's expectations, using the analogy of jazz music as:
A very generous family with a big house that has a lot of guests from all over. Every so often, a visitor is particularly illuminating and affects the viewpoint of jazz permanently, leaving something behind in that house that will stay there forever (ibid., p. 180).
By perceiving jazz as a process, I argue that certain elements come into play, contributing to and demonstrating jazz as a verb, “to take part in any capacity in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance” (Small, 1998, p. 9). Musical process is a direct outcome of and influence on “jazz community’s…performance practices, rearranging and transforming…elements”, developing “original approaches to collective improvisation”, exposing the “limitations of applying conventional labels to style periods and idioms when describing the diversity of music making within the jazz tradition” (Berliner, 2009, p. 341).
Style suggests certain characteristics particular to a certain genre, and the “strongest creative element in jazz is improvisation” (Evans, 1966), however, this music-making process has been present for some time beforehand. “In an absolute sense, jazz is more a certain creative process of spontaneity than a style. Therefore, you might say that Chopin, or Bach, or Mozart, or whoever, was able to make music of the moment (improvised music), was in a sense playing jazz" (Evans, 1966). Another perspective on the conception of a musical moment, is explained by Bruno Nettl (1974), through suggesting that “composition and improvisation were not qualitatively different”, but rather “a continuum among musical genres, from more improvised to less improvised”, indicating that “rapid composition” occurred at the “improvisational end”, and “slow composition” occurred at the “compositional end”, indicating that “Western composers, such as Schubert, composed in bursts of quick, spontaneous creation” (as cited in Sawyer, 2003, p. 80).
A solution to this subject could be a dualistic approach: investigating, absorbing, and applying ideas through study of artistic process, where permutation, narrative, design and outcomes can be achieved, both independently and interdependently as a community. By using aspects of action research, where improvement and understanding of a practice are central to its purpose (Robson, 2011, p.188), planning, acting, reviewing, developing or creating new works as a composer/improviser, results in a variety of music scenarios. Kemmis and Wilkinson argue that participatory action research is a “social–and educational–process”, “directed towards studying, reframing, and reconstructing practices”; involving self-reflective cycles of: “planning a change”, “acting and observing the process and consequences”, “reflecting on these processes and consequences” and “re-planning”, best attempted with co-participants (Kemmis & Wilkinson, 1998, p. 22). The authors state that some theorists consider action research a “solitary process of systematic self-reflection” (p. 22). I consider the perspectives of self-reflection and collaboration in action research as effective, relevant techniques to the study of jazz as process, through the use of two models for developing and investigating artistic practice: (composition/rehearsal/arrangement/improvisation/performance as a case study), exploring “possible causes”, “determinants”, “factors”, and “experiences” which contribute to creative outcomes and design (Robson, 2011, p. 138):
•Model A solitary action research as a composer/player/leader in a small jazz ensemble;
•Model B relates to the group experience i.e. participatory action research involving oneself as a player and leader, and small jazz ensemble participants, working on the composition as an experiment, gathering data informally and documenting the process through rehearsals and performances.
With a number of resources at our disposal, jazz musicians and composers now have endless possibilities to create their own unique canvas, not limited to style but encouraged by process. However, a contrasting assessment to jazz as process is raised by Wynton Marsalis in a New York Times article:
Despite attempts by writers and record companies and promoters and educators and even musicians to blur the lines for commercial purposes, rock isn't jazz and new age isn't jazz, and neither are pop or third stream. There may be much that is good in all of them, but they aren't jazz (Marsalis, 1988).
Does that mean contemporary improvising jazz musicians/composers who may draw on rock, pop, third-stream, world music etc. are not playing jazz? Yet “the combination of freedom and tradition is vital for jazz” (Collier, 2009, p. 180). Thus, I consider process to be effective in pursuing artistic practice and its development in jazz composition/improvisation in the 21st century, without the limitations of style. A suggestion could be, rather than pointing to any particular style or styles, jazz should be defined as a genre encompassing a variety of influences, allowing a space created by the composer in the form of a template for musicians to improvise, making this type of music scenario unique. Graeme Collier reiterates this point by stating that:
One of the unique strengths of jazz lies in how what is written down is treated and developed during a performance. The music used is, in the main, incomplete in some way, written in a way that allows for - in some cases, demands - being developed, or, at the very least, coloured, by improvising (ibid., p. 264)
The present tense demands a solution, the ability to seek out and solve problems in relation to a musical moment as an organised structure. As Keith Jarrett said: “Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple” (as cited in Collier, 2009, p. 31). To play jazz is to improvise, organising sounds into a structure, in direct correlation with a compositional performance. Giddens & Deveaux (2009, p. 378) define composition as a musical work, performed by musicians in various settings and formats, much like in any other genre, remaining true to the composer’s intentions, whilst the first goal of jazz improvisation is the interpretation and unique performance of the score. Interactions take place where participants are required to make decisions as to the amount of liberty taken, negotiating between the composer’s direction, and the improvising musicians’ performance as arrangers of the compositional material. ‘Arrangement’ is the cross-section between composition and improvisation where the presentation of material for performance is organised; I refer to this process as creative design. The creative design and process of this music-making activity requires a “constant balance between finding a problem and solving that problem, and then finding a new problem during solving the last one…” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 115), through the writing, rehearsal, arrangement and performance of the small jazz ensemble composition.
The word ‘jazz’ describes a unique process, made up of improvising musicians, interpreting the intentions of the composer in the hope of obtaining a positive outcome. As a jazz composer/improviser, I see “jazz” as an opportunity to generate music spontaneously, with the intention of organising ideas into a coherent framework for presentation, either independently as a soloist, or interdependently as a collective. Ingrid Monson argues that improvisation in the jazz ensemble performance must take the approach of interactive, collaborative exploration as a cause for “musical invention”, and as a “point of departure” (Monson, 2009, p. 74). As compositional structure generates a platform for improvisation and vice versa, the arrangement is the architectural design of the performance, organised during rehearsal, “challenging group members to negotiate fresh musical models in performance and stimulating the conception of ideas in the process” (Berliner, 2009, p. 233).
This example of correlation between imagination and order as a social scheme is demonstrated in the choices, contributions, and leadership of individuals to form a successful unit. “In group creativity, the process is the essence of the genre, and it must be the central focus” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 6), and the potential success of a small jazz ensemble compositional performance is dependent on improvising musicians pursuing a genuine, idiosyncratic musical moment; the ability as narrators, to portray a story efficiently and effectively, placing oneself in the shoes of the author and his or her characters. More often than not, as is the case with most jazz standards, the composer is not present, and a group of improvising musicians are left to design an inspired performance through collective listening experiences in order to discover the ideal interpretation of a musical work. The template on which ideas are documented for performance could be seen as a map, with directions to a destination, the composer’s intention; yet the discussions which take place en route is demonstrated in the performer’s interpretation, organisation and performance of the score. This “creative development is also expressed” as “physical and metaphysical relationships which take place in music structures, established in the form of a score, a rehearsal or a performance” (Lopes, 2017). Communications take place in organising a performance, unfolding at various levels: “co-existing dualities of internal/external processes contribute to musical style through the collaboration of individuals; resulting in the sharing of knowledge and experiences as jazz community”, along with the “physical world of information in the form of music fundamentals and theory, and exploration into metaphysical dimensions of imagination and creative potential” (Lopes, 2017).
Small jazz ensemble composition and/or performance is also a social experiment of sorts; presenting the challenge of “collective coherent thinking” and a “social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result” (Evans, 1959). Some composer/leaders have an autocratic approach, and others may be more democratic, with varying degrees of freedom and input for musicians or a certain improviser to contribute to the performance. Its success depends on the synergy between the composer/player/leader and his or her performing/improvising musicians, and their ambition to discover a favourable, effortless, creative moment. “Sociocultural…interactional processes of group creativity” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 6) in music-making, contribute to “art practice…as…subject matter, method, context and… outcome” (Borgdorff, 2011, p. 46).
By using creative design one can view the potential of a musical performance from various perspectives: participants can devise a method of clarification to the intentions and interpretations of the composition, intuitively and intellectually. Jazz has always been a music of exploration and adventure, ranging from the “discovery and invention of original music spontaneously, while performing it, without preconceived formulation, scoring or context” to the “ability to organize sound, silence and rhythm with the whole of his or her creative intelligence” (Dean, 1989, p. xv–xvi); it is a “simultaneous conception and production of sound in performance” (ibid., p. ix), both for the individual and the collective.
Whether our beliefs are taken as a part of understanding music “as music,” will depend, then, on our answers to the question of what music is: are we trying to understand music as a human expression, as an artifact, as an experience, as a social activity, or perhaps as a cognitive process? As the multitude of research disciplines dedicated to these phenomena attests, our answers will be different depending on how we conceive of the object of understanding (Huovinen, 2011, p. 132).
I’m certainly not against the traditions and contributions made by jazz musicians/composers/leaders, past and present; for without them, our own ideas would have no foundation from which to learn and build upon, particularly from the practice and process of individuals and collectives, and not just the study of artistic outcomes. The ongoing development of practice “entwines with jazz’s artistic tradition”, with “mutual absorption and exchange of ideas”, taking place in a community, leading to “idiosyncratic musical perspectives” (Berliner, 2009, p. 59); and like any other art form, reflects the social conditions of its time, captured in performance as an improvisation and composition and vice versa.
An individual’s participation in music is complicated at times; variable conditions, perceptions, and incidental social events, embedded in historical process, cultural circumstance, systems, and complex mediations of technology and material culture influence artistic output (Clarke, 2011, p. 612).
Musicians such as Brad Mehldau recognise that most of his contemporaries “specialise” and “focus on a few periods and delve more deeply into them”, in regards to learning and developing from the jazz tradition. He compares this process to the study of philosophy, highlighting the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as the “last philosopher who could still give a full account of the whole history of human thought in his writing”; acknowledging that it is “too much information, so people had to stop trying to go for that meta-view” (as cited in Peterson, p. 181) as a consequence. With global, social, and political change throughout the last century, ability to produce ideas and investigate new horizons has remained constant. This opportunity for artistic development and its exploration in the 21st century is identified by Wayne Shorter, who asserts failure as “an illusion” (Shorter, 2009). He continues by commenting on potential complacency in human beings if imagination is not used to further ourselves as a civilisation:
Now is the time for us to reach further than our grasp...our cognitive preservation, our cognitive power is the tip of the iceberg; so if we don’t reach the preservation of that iceberg, if we don’t reach for what is in our grasp, it might melt” (ibid.).
Pat Metheny considers this subject of human endeavor as a potential expansion for jazz tradition, acknowledging that as musicians, composers, and listeners:
We have to get to work on a vision that is more concerned with what this music can become than what it has already been…a kind of jazz that sounds nothing like the jazz of the 20th century…a new kind of animal-but one that is still unmistakably connected to the larger jazz tradition (as cited in Nicholson, 2003).
“Artistic practice is conveyed in and through the creative product as process, progressing to new ideas and understandings in one’s or other’s works” (Lopes, 2017). Varying backgrounds of artists, partnerships, and teamwork in music-making as a community, sharing life together, potentially generate diverse creative output. Therefore, music-making process “invites reflection’, but eludes defined thought regarding content; investigation involves recognising this contradiction; it “enhances… awareness of…pre-reflective nearness of things…our epistemological distance from them”, making research into arts practice an “open undertaking, seeking the deliberate articulation of unfinished thinking in and through art” (Borgdorff, 2011, p. 45). “Consequently, I am confident that further research into ‘jazz as process’ or ‘jazzing’ as a means and not an end, can be an effective tool for investigating artistic practice, contributing to small jazz ensemble composition, rehearsal, arrangement and performance technique” (Lopes, 2017). Thus, I believe a focus on imaginative, inventive and informative methods of jazz as process, as practice, as sharing, has benefits for both the student, teacher and listener of jazz.
References
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Jazzing: Intuition and Intellect
Introduction
Recent developments in jazz have heightened a need for pursuing creative strategy in the study and development of improvisation and composition due to the abundance of information, resource, and styles which now exist in the 21st century. I propose using various illustrations, language in particular, analogies such as ‘creative design’, ‘decomposition’, ‘intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance’, ‘jazz as experiment’, ‘small jazz ensemble composition as a social experiment’, and ‘composition as experiment’ in examining invention, performance and reflection of small jazz ensemble composition. The use of analogy helps one to elucidate process at work in jazz through the intangibles and tangibles occurring in artistic practice, helping inform the jazz musician and composer. These examples at play in music-making help form the hypothesis of intuition and intellect as a strand in framing and contextualizing the analysis of presentation in small jazz ensemble composition; beginning with the musical idea, writing of a work, to its rehearsal and completed performance, thus contributing to understandings of jazz and its process. Which leads me to address the following question as motivation for this paper:
How do various illustrations, using analogies, demonstrate methods involved in the composition, development, absorption, interpretation and transferral of musical material from the score to the performance, thus contributing to artistic practice as a composer/player/leader of a small jazz ensemble, and assist in the comprehension of intuition and intellect as jazz process?
Intuitive and intellectual process is revealed in how composers and improvisers generate diverse content from contrasting perspectives due to their personalities, experience, knowledge, methods, environments and respective instruments. Life memories and information which are stored in a jazz composer and improviser are encapsulated, transformed, transferred and arranged as ideas through an individual’s voice or musical canvas, either in the form of an improvisation or composition. The two occurrences are identical except for the function of time in the manner it is utilised: improvisation is a spontaneous, organized and creative act; composition is a spontaneous, organized, edited, creative act. To emphasize this point, Derek Bailey in Improvisation, its nature and practice in music (Bailey, 1993) describes differences between improvisation and composition in regards to a creative act occurring as a moment in time. Bailey recalls a brief encounter in Rome, 1968 with jazz saxophonist, Steve Lacey:
I took out my pocket tape recorder and asked him to describe in fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation. He answered: ‘In fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds.’ His answer lasted exactly fifteen seconds and is still the best formulation of the question I know (Bailey, p. 141).
As to jazz improvisation or composition as a creative act, it is distinctive, not so much for its style, but for its performance as a verb. In 1938 jazz pianist and composer, Jelly Roll Morton stated in an interview that “without a break you have nothing” in regards to the performance of jazz (as cited in Hill, Richard & Meddings, 2003). He continues by saying that “even if a tune has no break in it, it is always necessary to arrange some kind of a spot to make a break. Because without a break, as I said before, you haven’t gotten jazz . . .” (ibid., 2003). Morton’s comments are relevant in 21st century, indicating that musical material contained within a score by the composer is used to generate a template and space for participating musicians to contribute ideas as individuals and as a collective in the form of improvisation and ‘arrangement’; necessary for jazzing (a suggested term for describing this creative activity). Rather than identifying stylistic considerations in terms of history and theory, I propose the consideration of ‘jazz as process’ as significant in value regarding the music’s specific character. Interactions take place where participants are required to make decisions as to the amount of liberty taken between the composer’s direction, and the improvising musicians’ performance as arrangers of the compositional material. ‘Jazz as process’, put into words, presents an interesting challenge; documenting tangible and unconscious, meta-physical creative process, where musical imagination unfolds intuitively. It is these two dualities I wish to explore further as design, using metaphor as descriptor for contextualising the creative process of the composer/player/leader; as means for understanding and developing artistic practice.
Jazz as process: Using language and metaphor as a descriptor
A considerable amount of literature has been published on jazz. I have decided to include some examples of jazz literature in this paper but I have also drawn on other fields to help scaffold the notion of language and metaphor as a descriptor for intuitive and intellectual process in creativity, in particular, small jazz ensemble composition and its performance. The fundamental music structures of melody, harmony, rhythm and form used in the moment of improvised music and composition are also found in day-to-day conversation: a line of thought is conveyed, drawing upon a vocabulary of words, phrases and statements as a means of dialogue and correspondence. The mapping of ideas can be seen in the example of language and written text in books, much like a composition. There are similarities and differences in the way the vocabulary and language is presented in the two forms of communication, as Larson writes:
No one who accepts Chomsky’s claims about the structure of sentences would assert that spoken language, solely because it is improvised, lacks the underlying structure that can be found in written language. Likewise, no one who accepts Shenker’s claims about underlying structure in phrases of music ought to assert that unnotated jazz, solely because it is improvised, lacks the underlying structure that can be found in composed music. (Larson, 1998, p. 212)
Chomsky highlights distinctive, inventive qualities found in underlying structure of language as a means of human expression. In Language and Mind (Chomsky, 2006) the author refers to the work of German philosopher and poet, Karl Schlegel, who found the word poetical to best describe the “element of creative imagination in any artistic effort” (ibid., p. 90). Furthermore, Schlegel concluded that:
Every mode of artistic expression makes use of a certain medium and that the medium of poetry – language – is unique in that language, as an expression of the human mind rather than a product of nature, is boundless in scope and is constructed on the basis of a recursive principle that permits each creation to serve as the basis for a new creative act. (ibid.)
The recursive principle, exploring possibilities which co-exist in the constructs of music fundamentals as artistic expression and activity is conveyed eloquently by one of the greatest teachers of 20th century composition, Nadia Boulanger. In a documentary, Boulanger describes her aesthetic expectations as well constructed musical statements, noting that: "I only hope that a certain approach to grammar and to the form of language goes beyond personal taste” (as cited in Monsaingeon, 2007).
Creative design
The discovery of possibilities which co-exist, leading to the construction of a creative product as an artistic expression is demonstrated in the method of ‘creative design'. It is a metaphor and descriptor for understanding process and generating solutions. In other words, creative design is a form of ‘problem-solving’ as a composer/player/leader of a small ensemble. The ‘problems’ vary accordingly, particularly in regards to varying circumstances and roles of composer/player/leader as constructor of various outcomes such as the ‘score’, its ‘arrangement in rehearsal’ and its ‘performance’. For the purposes of this paper, creative design is the intersection between the process of composition and improvisation in connection to performance of a small jazz ensemble composition.
In a chapter by P.E. Vernon entitled "The Nature—Nurture Problem in Creativity” (Vernon, 1989) from the "Handbook of Creativity” (Glover, Ronning & Reynolds, Eds.), the author proposed creativity as:
A person’s capacity to produce new or original ideas, insights, restructurings, inventions, or artistic objects, which are excepted by experts as being of scientific, aesthetic, social, or technological value. In addition to novelty as our major criterion, we must incorporate in our definition the acceptability or appropriateness of the creative product, even though this valuation may change with the passage of time. (Vernon, 2013, p. 94)
Vernon’s explanation seeks to emphasise the need for creative outcomes as unique, practical, and of value. This is a pragmatic approach to problem-solving. However, in Guy Claxton’s “Hare brain, tortoise mind: How intelligence increases when you think less” (Claxton, 1998) the author provides a contrasting explanation for creativity and its development:
Creativity develops out of a chance observation or a seed of an idea that is given time to germinate. The ability of the brain to allow activation to spread slowly outwards from one centre of activity, meeting and mingling with others, at intensities that may produce only a dim, diffuse quality of consciousness, seems to be exactly what is required. (Claxton, 1998, p. 148)
Claxton’s approach is very imaginative and free-thinking, allowing the capacity of human potential to develop as gradual process, almost an intuitive approach. In “Lateral Thinking” (de Bono, 1977), the author describes the motivation of design as a backdrop to “generate alternatives”, which survey “beyond the adequate in order to produce something better”, releasing the designer from “domination by cliché patterns” (de Bono, 1977, pp. 255–256). De-Bono’s ‘lateral thinking’ is a very different example again, an approach that seeks to explore ‘alternatives’, to weigh up choices and perspectives, seeking the best option and optimum solution to a problem.
Decomposition
Similarly, in the philosophical science text, The Sciences of the Artificial (Simon, 1996), Herbert Simon added that design is “concerned with how things ought to be, with devising artifacts to attain goals” (Simon, 1988, p. 69). He continues by offering rationale in using decomposition as an example, metaphor and model in the design process for devising and understanding relationships within an elaborate system:
To design such a complex structure, one powerful technique is to discover viable ways of decomposing it into semi-independent components corresponding to its many functional parts. The design of each component can then be carried out with some degree of independence of the design of others, since each will affect the others largely through its function and independently of the details of the mechanisms that accomplish the function. (Simon, 1996, p. 128)
This procedure of exploring semi-independent components serves as an example for investigation and break down of elements that occur in music. Examples of parameters and techniques that may be explored, using the metaphor of decomposition as a model for reducing musical structures to their lowest, common denominators include:
Can deeper perceptions be achieved by examining any one of these components from a contrasting perspective? To illustrate my point, I will utilise time/pulse as an example. Can one use an antonym to exaggerate and study time-keeping in music? What is not time-keeping in music? In this case the opposite for time/pulse is stillness. Consequently, we obtain an understanding of time as a component, necessary for generating a musical space to exist. In other words, the creation of ‘sound’ followed by ‘movement’. Other examples would include: Intervals–separateness, triads–concentrical, melody–cacophony, harmony–disagreement, rhythm–roughness, form–shapelessness, space–continuity. I am certain there are more accurate techniques for describing the dualities present in music-making process and its use of fundamental components, and further investigation may be needed; but the emphasis to this point is perceiving what a component is not and does not do in relation to its function in music. This awareness can also be applied to intangibles which exist in writing, rehearsing, arranging or performing a musical score as an either intentional or interpretative process.
Intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance
According to Borgdorff, “As a rule, artistic research is not hypothesis-led, but discovery-led” (Borgdorff, 2011, p. 56). This type of research enquiry and process is seen in the activities associated with work in laboratories. In a chapter entitled, Thinking About Art After the Media: Research as Practised Culture of Experiment, found in, The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts, it is noted that advancement, examination, trial, disposal and fulfilment of ideas and results, parallel artistic praxis of art and shared with science; however, the distinguishing feature in art and its creative process is the two main threads of intuition and intellect (Zielinski, 2011, p. 299). This idea of intuition and intellect as threads in artistic practice and enquiry is shown in the following example.
The illustration of the creative act, involving instinct, intelligence, discovery and comprehension of musical structures, was conveyed to me in conversation with jazz drummer/composer, Victor Lewis at Sydney’s jazz venue, The Basement. Lewis mentioned that jazz saxophonist/composer, Joe Henderson was “the perfect balance between intuition and intellect” (V. Lewis, personal communication, 18 September 1999). He continued the point, recalling his first encounter with Joe in a recording session with jazz trumpeter, Woody Shaw:
I had written a tune for the recording. All the parts for the instruments were written out, including Bb tenor saxophone. We rehearsed despite the fact that Joe wasn't there. I was concerned and asked Woody, "Joe isn't here. How's he going to go on the recording?” Woody just smiled. When the day arrived, Joe was at the session and I handed him his chart. He thanked me and got out some manuscript. He proceeded to write it all back into concert! Then he wrote some other stuff on another piece of manuscript. Now all this happened whilst his horn sat in the corner. He didn't touch it. Then we recorded. He played it better than I wrote it! (V. Lewis, personal communication, 18 September 1999)
This music experience demonstrates the creative approach at work as a composer, a performer and as a critic. Victor Lewis had spent time putting down on paper his ideas. It was a spontaneous act that then required editing by relying on the musical knowledge stored. Joe Henderson had spent his preparation time absorbing the information. “He created a different pathway of learning and storing the information” (S. Newcomb, personal communication, 12 March 2015). By rewriting the music back into concert key, Henderson investigated the intentions of the musical work, thereby putting himself in the shoes of the composer.
The subject of interactions, occurring in performance between the composer and musician is addressed in Ingrid Monson’s Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation (Monson, 2009). This publication looks at musicians developing ideas with one another, using analogy to communicate intentions not written in the musical score: “the informal, sociable and metaphorical modes of speaking about music favoured by many jazz musicians challenge traditional presumptions about the nature of the musical object and the definition of musical analysis” (Monson, 2009, p. 74). Another excellent example of small jazz ensemble composition, demonstrating principles of intention and interpretation of the score, is found in the classic album, Kind of Blue (Davis, 1959) by jazz composer/player/leader, Miles Davis. In his book, Miles: The Autobiography (Davis & Troupe, 1989), Davis reflects on music created over two recording sessions in an environment of freedom within boundaries. As a composer, Davis brought a set of instructions and frameworks notated on the page to his musicians, “I didn’t write out the music for Kind of Blue, but brought in sketches for what everybody was supposed to play because I wanted a lot of spontaneity in the playing” (Davis, 1989, p. 224). The musicians in the ensemble interpreted the intentions of the composer/leader in an imaginative, collective, improvisatory performance, as noted by Davis himself:
But you write something and then guys play off it and take it someplace else through their creativity and imagination and you just miss where you thought you wanted to go. I was trying to do one thing and ended up doing something else (Davis, 1989, p. 224).
I see music performance in jazz as an opportunity to look at various perspectives without limitations, in the hope of expressing something that contributes positively on all levels to the human experience. One could see the performance of jazz composition, using the framework as platform for exploration in improvisation. Of course this could be reversed with improvisation providing underlying structure and arrangement, supporting and embellishing the musical work whilst remaining true to the composer’s intentions.
Jazz as ‘experiment’
As a composer/player and leader of a small jazz ensemble, I am aware of how past jazz masters have influenced and extended their own music vocabulary and that of their band members. A variety of experiences, stored as memory, a library, and reference for creative outcomes, combined with interaction, communication and collaboration, sharing and learning as community, has a positive effect on generating new musical ideas and perceptions. It is this exchange of vocabulary, built up over a period of time by individuals, trained in either composition or improvisation, which contributes to new styles and permutations being formed. For example, the innovations of bebop, in particular, the new uses of jazz harmony, melody, rhythm, articulation, and phrasing of Charlie Parker, have become generic within jazz tradition and vocabulary, influencing generations of jazz musicians (Meadows, 2003, pp 217–218). Trumpeter, Miles Davis, tenor saxophonist, John Coltrane and alto saxophonist, Ornette Coleman were all influenced by Parker in some way, yet the classic recordings of Kind of Blue (Davis, 1959), Giant Steps (Coltrane, 1959) and The Shape of Jazz to Come (Coleman, 1959) represent an extension and evolution of bebop language, and small jazz ensemble composition and performance.
Kind of Blue revealed modality as foundation for melodic freedom (Boothroyd, 2010), with compositional frameworks creating opportunities for the musicians involved to explore and develop melodic statements in a spacious, musical environment; using influences of chord-scale theory derived from George Russell’s, Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization (Russell, 2001), first published in 1953. Russel recognised that Davis was looking for new ways to relate to chords, and the two of them would discuss the use of scales or modes in jazz composition and improvisation around the late 1940s (Kahn, 2001, p. 69). The influence of using modes as the main component, with a minimal usage of chords in the compositional output of Kind of Blue, resulted in slower tempos, providing soloists a chance to investigate each colour or scale (Kahn, 2001, p. 69); whilst remaining true to the musical form and structure of the composition. Miles Davis describes the creative process occurring within the musical skeleton of the composition as an improviser:
You have some kind of form. You have to start somewhere… you have walls and stuff, but you still come in a room and act kinda free. There’s framework, but it’s just-we don’t want to overdo it, you know. It’s hard to balance. (ibid., p. 185)
The musical frameworks on Giant Steps consist of complex movements, much like an advanced version of bebop, but leaning more toward harmonic rather than melodic concepts. Improvisation on this particular Coltrane composition requires a thorough understanding of the song’s harmonic relationships and key centres; and Keith Waters accurately describes the title track as “specific harmonic progressions that quickly connect keys a major third apart” (Waters, 2010). The compositions of Giant Steps and others such as Countdown, created new challenges for musicians who needed virtuosic ability and technique to master improvisation, melodically and rhythmically, on intricate chordal movements at fast tempos.
Another musical album different for its time was Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come. It redefined what musicians thought jazz was up until that point. This new music “ushered in the free-jazz movement”; introducing Coleman’s harmolodic theory, where harmony, movement of sound and melody are equal contributors to the improvisatory process (Milkowski, 2015). On The Shape of Jazz to Come, Coleman’s group improvise freely and melodically, creating pure sound without necessarily reverting to the diatonic harmony that underpinned the composition. In an interview with French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, Coleman describes the overall contribution of sound in his musical compositions within the ensemble as a “democratic relationship to information” where “sound is renewed every time it’s expressed” (Murphy, 2004, pp. 319–320). This comment demonstrates to me an example of Coleman’s intentions; where complete freedom exists for musicians to interpret and contribute musical sound within the structure and performance of the small jazz ensemble composition. One could also attribute the contribution of sound, in relation to the composer’s intention and the musician’s interpretation, as a metaphor for a political and or hierarchical system. In Isaiah Berlin’s, Two Concepts of Liberty from his publication, Four Essays on Liberty (Berlin, 1969), the author examines political systems and the “question of obedience and coercion” (ibid., p. 121); referring to a famous passage in an essay entitled, On Liberty (Mill, 2003), first published in 1859 by English philosopher, John Stuart Mill:
Unless men are left to live as they wish in the path which merely concerns themselves, civilisation cannot advance; the truth will not, for lack of a free market in ideas, come to light; there will be no scope for spontaneity, originality, genius, for mental energy, for moral courage. Society will be crushed by the weight of collective mediocrity. (as cited in Berlin, 1969, p. 127)
Ideals such as Coleman’s “democratic relationship to information” (Murphy, 2004, pp. 319–320) or Mill’s “free market in ideas”, where “spontaneity” and “originality” (as cited in Berlin, 1969, p. 127) contribute positively to social, cultural and innovative thought; complement and demonstrate the uniqueness of small jazz ensemble compositional performance. Interestingly, the variety of musical output and impact which Kind of Blue, Giant Steps and The Shape of Jazz to Come has generated since 1959, could be attributed to the freedom and license for composer and performer to collaborate, interdependently in performance. All three recordings contain the commonality of improvisation within the boundaries and formal structure of jazz composition. These approaches could be seen as examples and perspectives of experiment in jazz composition.
Composition as experiment
Compositions are considered experiments across a continuum, made up of numerous styles and influences, applied to the genre of jazz improvisation, resulting in various frameworks, implemented by the participating, improvising musicians as an arrangement of the musical performance. A description of this practice is demonstrated in an example offered by jazz pianist, composer, Herbie Hancock who reflects on the experimental process during his time as composer, player and leader of Mwandishi in his book, Possibilities (Hancock & Dickey, 2014):
“I think of Mwandishi as an R&D band-research and development, trying new things. It was all about discovery, uncover, exploration, the unknown, looking for the unseen, listening for the unheard” (ibid., p.133).
In my own practice, musical frameworks or experiments have been created in the form of a music score and set of instructions, given to musicians as platform for improvisation, and recorded as live music performances. Participant observations of band member’s reactions, interpretations and developments to compositions or experiments proposed in rehearsals and music performances add to the overall investigation. Each performance of the score or experiment is listened to, reviewed and used to inform the next stage of the compositions’ development. This is summarised as creative design and documented from two perspectives: internally and externally via solitary and participatory action research, using observations of musical events which occur in the rehearsal, arrangement or performance of a musical work; with additional insights, retrospections, and reflections contributing to the documentation of music-making process. In terms of output there are two creative outcomes: the recorded version of compositional performance as a CD, and an exegesis, documenting artistic practice, framed by relevant literature, using the approach of metaphor as a descriptor for exploring and understanding intangibles/tangibles which exist in the creative process as a composer/player/leader in the small jazz ensemble compositional performance.
Conclusions
This study has set out to determine if various metaphor can help demonstrate technique in composing, developing, absorbing, interpreting and transferring musical material from the score to the performance, thus contributing to artistic practice of the composer/player/leader of a small jazz ensemble, supporting the concept of intuition and intellect as jazz process. Assorted models have been used in this paper in examining invention, performance and reflection of small jazz ensemble composition: ‘language and metaphor as a descriptor’, ‘creative design’, ‘decomposition’, ‘intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance’, ‘jazz as experiment’, ‘small jazz ensemble composition as a social experiment’, and ‘composition as experiment’.
Artistic practice is conveyed in and through the creative product as process, progressing to new ideas and understandings in one’s or other’s works. This creative development is also expressed as metaphor in contextualising and comprehending physical and meta-physical relationships which take place in music structures, established in the form of a score, a rehearsal or a performance. It is the intuitive and intellectual thread of creativity, the intangible and tangible, the information and imagination contained in the act of invention and played out as an action-cycle, contributing to artistic development. This aspect of music-making is also displayed as an internal action – self-reflection and external actions – communication, collaboration, observation and perception. These co-existing dualities of internal/external processes contribute to musical style through the collaboration of individuals; resulting in the sharing of knowledge and experiences as jazz community. With further investigation into the physical world of information in the form of music fundamentals and theory, and exploration into meta-physical dimensions of imagination and creative potential, deeper understandings of these two spheres can be reached. Consequently, I am confident that further research into ‘jazz as process’ or ‘jazzing’ as a means and not an end, can be an effective tool for investigating artistic practice, contributing to small jazz ensemble composition, rehearsal, arrangement and performance technique.
References
Bailey, D. (1993). Improvisation, its nature and practice in music. Boston, MA: Da Capo Press.
Berlin, I. (1969). Four essays on liberty. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Boothroyd, M. (2010). Modal jazz and Miles Davis: George Russell’s influence and the melodic inspiration behind modal jazz. Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology. 3 (1), 47.
Borgdorff, H. (2011). The production of knowledge in artistic research. In Biggs, M. & Karlsson, H. (Eds.), The routledge companion to research in the arts (pp 44–63). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Claxton, G. (1998). Hare brain, tortoise mind: How intelligence increases when you think less. London, UK: Forth Estate Ltd.
Hancock, H. & Dickey, L. (2014). Possibilities. New York, NY: Viking Press.
Davis, M. & Troupe, Q. (1989). Miles: The autobiography. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
De Bono, E. (1977). Lateral Thinking. London, UK: Penguin Books Ltd.
Kahn, A. (2001). Kind of blue: The making of the Miles Davis masterpiece. London: Granta Books.
Meadows, E. (2003). Bebop to cool: Context, ideology, and musical identity. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Milkowski, B. (2015, August). True revolutionary. Downbeat, 82 (8), 8.
Mill, J.S. (2003). On liberty. New York, NY: Dover Publications Inc.
Monsaingeon, B. (2007). Nadia Boulanger – Mademoiselle – A film by Bruno Monsaingeon [DVD]. Available from https://naxosdirect.co.uk/items/nadia-boulanger-mademoiselle-[a-film-by-bruno-monsaingeon-1977]-ntsc-[dvd]-yvonne-courson-igor-markevitch-ortf-philharmonic-orchestra-euroarts-dvd-dvd5dm41-152067
Monson, I. (2009). Saying something: Jazz improvisation and interaction. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press
Murphy, T.S. (2004). The other’s language: Jaques Derrida interviews Ornette Coleman, 23 June 1997. Trans. Timothy S. Murphy. Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture, 37 (2), 319–328.
Russell, G. (2001). Lydian chromatic concept of tonal organization. Brookline, MA: Concept Publishing.
Simon, H. (1996). The sciences of the artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Vernon, P. E. (1989). The nature-nurture problem in creativity. In Glover, J. A., Ronning, R. R., & Reynolds, C. (Eds.). Handbook of creativity (pp. 93-110). Berlin, Germany: Springer Publishing.
Waters, K. (2010). Giant steps and the ic4 legacy. Integral, 24, 135–162.
Zielinski, S. (2011). Thinking about art after the media: Research as practised culture of experiment. In Biggs, M. & Karlsson, H. (Eds.), The routledge companion to research in the arts (pp 293-312). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Discography
Coleman, O. (1959). The shape of jazz to come (CD). New York, NY: Atlantic Records.
Coltrane, J. (1959). Giant steps (CD). New York, NY: Atlantic Records.
Davis, M. (1959). Kind of blue (CD). New York, NY: Columbia Records.
Hancock, H. (1970). Mwandishi (CD). New York, NY: Warner Bros. Records.
Parker, C. (1949). Bird and Diz (CD). Tokyo, Japan: Universal Records.
Recent developments in jazz have heightened a need for pursuing creative strategy in the study and development of improvisation and composition due to the abundance of information, resource, and styles which now exist in the 21st century. I propose using various illustrations, language in particular, analogies such as ‘creative design’, ‘decomposition’, ‘intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance’, ‘jazz as experiment’, ‘small jazz ensemble composition as a social experiment’, and ‘composition as experiment’ in examining invention, performance and reflection of small jazz ensemble composition. The use of analogy helps one to elucidate process at work in jazz through the intangibles and tangibles occurring in artistic practice, helping inform the jazz musician and composer. These examples at play in music-making help form the hypothesis of intuition and intellect as a strand in framing and contextualizing the analysis of presentation in small jazz ensemble composition; beginning with the musical idea, writing of a work, to its rehearsal and completed performance, thus contributing to understandings of jazz and its process. Which leads me to address the following question as motivation for this paper:
How do various illustrations, using analogies, demonstrate methods involved in the composition, development, absorption, interpretation and transferral of musical material from the score to the performance, thus contributing to artistic practice as a composer/player/leader of a small jazz ensemble, and assist in the comprehension of intuition and intellect as jazz process?
Intuitive and intellectual process is revealed in how composers and improvisers generate diverse content from contrasting perspectives due to their personalities, experience, knowledge, methods, environments and respective instruments. Life memories and information which are stored in a jazz composer and improviser are encapsulated, transformed, transferred and arranged as ideas through an individual’s voice or musical canvas, either in the form of an improvisation or composition. The two occurrences are identical except for the function of time in the manner it is utilised: improvisation is a spontaneous, organized and creative act; composition is a spontaneous, organized, edited, creative act. To emphasize this point, Derek Bailey in Improvisation, its nature and practice in music (Bailey, 1993) describes differences between improvisation and composition in regards to a creative act occurring as a moment in time. Bailey recalls a brief encounter in Rome, 1968 with jazz saxophonist, Steve Lacey:
I took out my pocket tape recorder and asked him to describe in fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation. He answered: ‘In fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds.’ His answer lasted exactly fifteen seconds and is still the best formulation of the question I know (Bailey, p. 141).
As to jazz improvisation or composition as a creative act, it is distinctive, not so much for its style, but for its performance as a verb. In 1938 jazz pianist and composer, Jelly Roll Morton stated in an interview that “without a break you have nothing” in regards to the performance of jazz (as cited in Hill, Richard & Meddings, 2003). He continues by saying that “even if a tune has no break in it, it is always necessary to arrange some kind of a spot to make a break. Because without a break, as I said before, you haven’t gotten jazz . . .” (ibid., 2003). Morton’s comments are relevant in 21st century, indicating that musical material contained within a score by the composer is used to generate a template and space for participating musicians to contribute ideas as individuals and as a collective in the form of improvisation and ‘arrangement’; necessary for jazzing (a suggested term for describing this creative activity). Rather than identifying stylistic considerations in terms of history and theory, I propose the consideration of ‘jazz as process’ as significant in value regarding the music’s specific character. Interactions take place where participants are required to make decisions as to the amount of liberty taken between the composer’s direction, and the improvising musicians’ performance as arrangers of the compositional material. ‘Jazz as process’, put into words, presents an interesting challenge; documenting tangible and unconscious, meta-physical creative process, where musical imagination unfolds intuitively. It is these two dualities I wish to explore further as design, using metaphor as descriptor for contextualising the creative process of the composer/player/leader; as means for understanding and developing artistic practice.
Jazz as process: Using language and metaphor as a descriptor
A considerable amount of literature has been published on jazz. I have decided to include some examples of jazz literature in this paper but I have also drawn on other fields to help scaffold the notion of language and metaphor as a descriptor for intuitive and intellectual process in creativity, in particular, small jazz ensemble composition and its performance. The fundamental music structures of melody, harmony, rhythm and form used in the moment of improvised music and composition are also found in day-to-day conversation: a line of thought is conveyed, drawing upon a vocabulary of words, phrases and statements as a means of dialogue and correspondence. The mapping of ideas can be seen in the example of language and written text in books, much like a composition. There are similarities and differences in the way the vocabulary and language is presented in the two forms of communication, as Larson writes:
No one who accepts Chomsky’s claims about the structure of sentences would assert that spoken language, solely because it is improvised, lacks the underlying structure that can be found in written language. Likewise, no one who accepts Shenker’s claims about underlying structure in phrases of music ought to assert that unnotated jazz, solely because it is improvised, lacks the underlying structure that can be found in composed music. (Larson, 1998, p. 212)
Chomsky highlights distinctive, inventive qualities found in underlying structure of language as a means of human expression. In Language and Mind (Chomsky, 2006) the author refers to the work of German philosopher and poet, Karl Schlegel, who found the word poetical to best describe the “element of creative imagination in any artistic effort” (ibid., p. 90). Furthermore, Schlegel concluded that:
Every mode of artistic expression makes use of a certain medium and that the medium of poetry – language – is unique in that language, as an expression of the human mind rather than a product of nature, is boundless in scope and is constructed on the basis of a recursive principle that permits each creation to serve as the basis for a new creative act. (ibid.)
The recursive principle, exploring possibilities which co-exist in the constructs of music fundamentals as artistic expression and activity is conveyed eloquently by one of the greatest teachers of 20th century composition, Nadia Boulanger. In a documentary, Boulanger describes her aesthetic expectations as well constructed musical statements, noting that: "I only hope that a certain approach to grammar and to the form of language goes beyond personal taste” (as cited in Monsaingeon, 2007).
Creative design
The discovery of possibilities which co-exist, leading to the construction of a creative product as an artistic expression is demonstrated in the method of ‘creative design'. It is a metaphor and descriptor for understanding process and generating solutions. In other words, creative design is a form of ‘problem-solving’ as a composer/player/leader of a small ensemble. The ‘problems’ vary accordingly, particularly in regards to varying circumstances and roles of composer/player/leader as constructor of various outcomes such as the ‘score’, its ‘arrangement in rehearsal’ and its ‘performance’. For the purposes of this paper, creative design is the intersection between the process of composition and improvisation in connection to performance of a small jazz ensemble composition.
In a chapter by P.E. Vernon entitled "The Nature—Nurture Problem in Creativity” (Vernon, 1989) from the "Handbook of Creativity” (Glover, Ronning & Reynolds, Eds.), the author proposed creativity as:
A person’s capacity to produce new or original ideas, insights, restructurings, inventions, or artistic objects, which are excepted by experts as being of scientific, aesthetic, social, or technological value. In addition to novelty as our major criterion, we must incorporate in our definition the acceptability or appropriateness of the creative product, even though this valuation may change with the passage of time. (Vernon, 2013, p. 94)
Vernon’s explanation seeks to emphasise the need for creative outcomes as unique, practical, and of value. This is a pragmatic approach to problem-solving. However, in Guy Claxton’s “Hare brain, tortoise mind: How intelligence increases when you think less” (Claxton, 1998) the author provides a contrasting explanation for creativity and its development:
Creativity develops out of a chance observation or a seed of an idea that is given time to germinate. The ability of the brain to allow activation to spread slowly outwards from one centre of activity, meeting and mingling with others, at intensities that may produce only a dim, diffuse quality of consciousness, seems to be exactly what is required. (Claxton, 1998, p. 148)
Claxton’s approach is very imaginative and free-thinking, allowing the capacity of human potential to develop as gradual process, almost an intuitive approach. In “Lateral Thinking” (de Bono, 1977), the author describes the motivation of design as a backdrop to “generate alternatives”, which survey “beyond the adequate in order to produce something better”, releasing the designer from “domination by cliché patterns” (de Bono, 1977, pp. 255–256). De-Bono’s ‘lateral thinking’ is a very different example again, an approach that seeks to explore ‘alternatives’, to weigh up choices and perspectives, seeking the best option and optimum solution to a problem.
Decomposition
Similarly, in the philosophical science text, The Sciences of the Artificial (Simon, 1996), Herbert Simon added that design is “concerned with how things ought to be, with devising artifacts to attain goals” (Simon, 1988, p. 69). He continues by offering rationale in using decomposition as an example, metaphor and model in the design process for devising and understanding relationships within an elaborate system:
To design such a complex structure, one powerful technique is to discover viable ways of decomposing it into semi-independent components corresponding to its many functional parts. The design of each component can then be carried out with some degree of independence of the design of others, since each will affect the others largely through its function and independently of the details of the mechanisms that accomplish the function. (Simon, 1996, p. 128)
This procedure of exploring semi-independent components serves as an example for investigation and break down of elements that occur in music. Examples of parameters and techniques that may be explored, using the metaphor of decomposition as a model for reducing musical structures to their lowest, common denominators include:
- analysis and observations of one’s own musical work in fundamental music structures and sophisticated relationships of melody, harmony, rhythm, arrangement, form, use of space and pulse/tempo;
- environment as a factor in the development and experience of the composer, musician and listener;
- intuition and intellect as threads to learning and development;
- the ability to read and improvise;
- and musical memory and reflection.
Can deeper perceptions be achieved by examining any one of these components from a contrasting perspective? To illustrate my point, I will utilise time/pulse as an example. Can one use an antonym to exaggerate and study time-keeping in music? What is not time-keeping in music? In this case the opposite for time/pulse is stillness. Consequently, we obtain an understanding of time as a component, necessary for generating a musical space to exist. In other words, the creation of ‘sound’ followed by ‘movement’. Other examples would include: Intervals–separateness, triads–concentrical, melody–cacophony, harmony–disagreement, rhythm–roughness, form–shapelessness, space–continuity. I am certain there are more accurate techniques for describing the dualities present in music-making process and its use of fundamental components, and further investigation may be needed; but the emphasis to this point is perceiving what a component is not and does not do in relation to its function in music. This awareness can also be applied to intangibles which exist in writing, rehearsing, arranging or performing a musical score as an either intentional or interpretative process.
Intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance
According to Borgdorff, “As a rule, artistic research is not hypothesis-led, but discovery-led” (Borgdorff, 2011, p. 56). This type of research enquiry and process is seen in the activities associated with work in laboratories. In a chapter entitled, Thinking About Art After the Media: Research as Practised Culture of Experiment, found in, The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts, it is noted that advancement, examination, trial, disposal and fulfilment of ideas and results, parallel artistic praxis of art and shared with science; however, the distinguishing feature in art and its creative process is the two main threads of intuition and intellect (Zielinski, 2011, p. 299). This idea of intuition and intellect as threads in artistic practice and enquiry is shown in the following example.
The illustration of the creative act, involving instinct, intelligence, discovery and comprehension of musical structures, was conveyed to me in conversation with jazz drummer/composer, Victor Lewis at Sydney’s jazz venue, The Basement. Lewis mentioned that jazz saxophonist/composer, Joe Henderson was “the perfect balance between intuition and intellect” (V. Lewis, personal communication, 18 September 1999). He continued the point, recalling his first encounter with Joe in a recording session with jazz trumpeter, Woody Shaw:
I had written a tune for the recording. All the parts for the instruments were written out, including Bb tenor saxophone. We rehearsed despite the fact that Joe wasn't there. I was concerned and asked Woody, "Joe isn't here. How's he going to go on the recording?” Woody just smiled. When the day arrived, Joe was at the session and I handed him his chart. He thanked me and got out some manuscript. He proceeded to write it all back into concert! Then he wrote some other stuff on another piece of manuscript. Now all this happened whilst his horn sat in the corner. He didn't touch it. Then we recorded. He played it better than I wrote it! (V. Lewis, personal communication, 18 September 1999)
This music experience demonstrates the creative approach at work as a composer, a performer and as a critic. Victor Lewis had spent time putting down on paper his ideas. It was a spontaneous act that then required editing by relying on the musical knowledge stored. Joe Henderson had spent his preparation time absorbing the information. “He created a different pathway of learning and storing the information” (S. Newcomb, personal communication, 12 March 2015). By rewriting the music back into concert key, Henderson investigated the intentions of the musical work, thereby putting himself in the shoes of the composer.
The subject of interactions, occurring in performance between the composer and musician is addressed in Ingrid Monson’s Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation (Monson, 2009). This publication looks at musicians developing ideas with one another, using analogy to communicate intentions not written in the musical score: “the informal, sociable and metaphorical modes of speaking about music favoured by many jazz musicians challenge traditional presumptions about the nature of the musical object and the definition of musical analysis” (Monson, 2009, p. 74). Another excellent example of small jazz ensemble composition, demonstrating principles of intention and interpretation of the score, is found in the classic album, Kind of Blue (Davis, 1959) by jazz composer/player/leader, Miles Davis. In his book, Miles: The Autobiography (Davis & Troupe, 1989), Davis reflects on music created over two recording sessions in an environment of freedom within boundaries. As a composer, Davis brought a set of instructions and frameworks notated on the page to his musicians, “I didn’t write out the music for Kind of Blue, but brought in sketches for what everybody was supposed to play because I wanted a lot of spontaneity in the playing” (Davis, 1989, p. 224). The musicians in the ensemble interpreted the intentions of the composer/leader in an imaginative, collective, improvisatory performance, as noted by Davis himself:
But you write something and then guys play off it and take it someplace else through their creativity and imagination and you just miss where you thought you wanted to go. I was trying to do one thing and ended up doing something else (Davis, 1989, p. 224).
I see music performance in jazz as an opportunity to look at various perspectives without limitations, in the hope of expressing something that contributes positively on all levels to the human experience. One could see the performance of jazz composition, using the framework as platform for exploration in improvisation. Of course this could be reversed with improvisation providing underlying structure and arrangement, supporting and embellishing the musical work whilst remaining true to the composer’s intentions.
Jazz as ‘experiment’
As a composer/player and leader of a small jazz ensemble, I am aware of how past jazz masters have influenced and extended their own music vocabulary and that of their band members. A variety of experiences, stored as memory, a library, and reference for creative outcomes, combined with interaction, communication and collaboration, sharing and learning as community, has a positive effect on generating new musical ideas and perceptions. It is this exchange of vocabulary, built up over a period of time by individuals, trained in either composition or improvisation, which contributes to new styles and permutations being formed. For example, the innovations of bebop, in particular, the new uses of jazz harmony, melody, rhythm, articulation, and phrasing of Charlie Parker, have become generic within jazz tradition and vocabulary, influencing generations of jazz musicians (Meadows, 2003, pp 217–218). Trumpeter, Miles Davis, tenor saxophonist, John Coltrane and alto saxophonist, Ornette Coleman were all influenced by Parker in some way, yet the classic recordings of Kind of Blue (Davis, 1959), Giant Steps (Coltrane, 1959) and The Shape of Jazz to Come (Coleman, 1959) represent an extension and evolution of bebop language, and small jazz ensemble composition and performance.
Kind of Blue revealed modality as foundation for melodic freedom (Boothroyd, 2010), with compositional frameworks creating opportunities for the musicians involved to explore and develop melodic statements in a spacious, musical environment; using influences of chord-scale theory derived from George Russell’s, Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization (Russell, 2001), first published in 1953. Russel recognised that Davis was looking for new ways to relate to chords, and the two of them would discuss the use of scales or modes in jazz composition and improvisation around the late 1940s (Kahn, 2001, p. 69). The influence of using modes as the main component, with a minimal usage of chords in the compositional output of Kind of Blue, resulted in slower tempos, providing soloists a chance to investigate each colour or scale (Kahn, 2001, p. 69); whilst remaining true to the musical form and structure of the composition. Miles Davis describes the creative process occurring within the musical skeleton of the composition as an improviser:
You have some kind of form. You have to start somewhere… you have walls and stuff, but you still come in a room and act kinda free. There’s framework, but it’s just-we don’t want to overdo it, you know. It’s hard to balance. (ibid., p. 185)
The musical frameworks on Giant Steps consist of complex movements, much like an advanced version of bebop, but leaning more toward harmonic rather than melodic concepts. Improvisation on this particular Coltrane composition requires a thorough understanding of the song’s harmonic relationships and key centres; and Keith Waters accurately describes the title track as “specific harmonic progressions that quickly connect keys a major third apart” (Waters, 2010). The compositions of Giant Steps and others such as Countdown, created new challenges for musicians who needed virtuosic ability and technique to master improvisation, melodically and rhythmically, on intricate chordal movements at fast tempos.
Another musical album different for its time was Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come. It redefined what musicians thought jazz was up until that point. This new music “ushered in the free-jazz movement”; introducing Coleman’s harmolodic theory, where harmony, movement of sound and melody are equal contributors to the improvisatory process (Milkowski, 2015). On The Shape of Jazz to Come, Coleman’s group improvise freely and melodically, creating pure sound without necessarily reverting to the diatonic harmony that underpinned the composition. In an interview with French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, Coleman describes the overall contribution of sound in his musical compositions within the ensemble as a “democratic relationship to information” where “sound is renewed every time it’s expressed” (Murphy, 2004, pp. 319–320). This comment demonstrates to me an example of Coleman’s intentions; where complete freedom exists for musicians to interpret and contribute musical sound within the structure and performance of the small jazz ensemble composition. One could also attribute the contribution of sound, in relation to the composer’s intention and the musician’s interpretation, as a metaphor for a political and or hierarchical system. In Isaiah Berlin’s, Two Concepts of Liberty from his publication, Four Essays on Liberty (Berlin, 1969), the author examines political systems and the “question of obedience and coercion” (ibid., p. 121); referring to a famous passage in an essay entitled, On Liberty (Mill, 2003), first published in 1859 by English philosopher, John Stuart Mill:
Unless men are left to live as they wish in the path which merely concerns themselves, civilisation cannot advance; the truth will not, for lack of a free market in ideas, come to light; there will be no scope for spontaneity, originality, genius, for mental energy, for moral courage. Society will be crushed by the weight of collective mediocrity. (as cited in Berlin, 1969, p. 127)
Ideals such as Coleman’s “democratic relationship to information” (Murphy, 2004, pp. 319–320) or Mill’s “free market in ideas”, where “spontaneity” and “originality” (as cited in Berlin, 1969, p. 127) contribute positively to social, cultural and innovative thought; complement and demonstrate the uniqueness of small jazz ensemble compositional performance. Interestingly, the variety of musical output and impact which Kind of Blue, Giant Steps and The Shape of Jazz to Come has generated since 1959, could be attributed to the freedom and license for composer and performer to collaborate, interdependently in performance. All three recordings contain the commonality of improvisation within the boundaries and formal structure of jazz composition. These approaches could be seen as examples and perspectives of experiment in jazz composition.
Composition as experiment
Compositions are considered experiments across a continuum, made up of numerous styles and influences, applied to the genre of jazz improvisation, resulting in various frameworks, implemented by the participating, improvising musicians as an arrangement of the musical performance. A description of this practice is demonstrated in an example offered by jazz pianist, composer, Herbie Hancock who reflects on the experimental process during his time as composer, player and leader of Mwandishi in his book, Possibilities (Hancock & Dickey, 2014):
“I think of Mwandishi as an R&D band-research and development, trying new things. It was all about discovery, uncover, exploration, the unknown, looking for the unseen, listening for the unheard” (ibid., p.133).
In my own practice, musical frameworks or experiments have been created in the form of a music score and set of instructions, given to musicians as platform for improvisation, and recorded as live music performances. Participant observations of band member’s reactions, interpretations and developments to compositions or experiments proposed in rehearsals and music performances add to the overall investigation. Each performance of the score or experiment is listened to, reviewed and used to inform the next stage of the compositions’ development. This is summarised as creative design and documented from two perspectives: internally and externally via solitary and participatory action research, using observations of musical events which occur in the rehearsal, arrangement or performance of a musical work; with additional insights, retrospections, and reflections contributing to the documentation of music-making process. In terms of output there are two creative outcomes: the recorded version of compositional performance as a CD, and an exegesis, documenting artistic practice, framed by relevant literature, using the approach of metaphor as a descriptor for exploring and understanding intangibles/tangibles which exist in the creative process as a composer/player/leader in the small jazz ensemble compositional performance.
Conclusions
This study has set out to determine if various metaphor can help demonstrate technique in composing, developing, absorbing, interpreting and transferring musical material from the score to the performance, thus contributing to artistic practice of the composer/player/leader of a small jazz ensemble, supporting the concept of intuition and intellect as jazz process. Assorted models have been used in this paper in examining invention, performance and reflection of small jazz ensemble composition: ‘language and metaphor as a descriptor’, ‘creative design’, ‘decomposition’, ‘intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance’, ‘jazz as experiment’, ‘small jazz ensemble composition as a social experiment’, and ‘composition as experiment’.
Artistic practice is conveyed in and through the creative product as process, progressing to new ideas and understandings in one’s or other’s works. This creative development is also expressed as metaphor in contextualising and comprehending physical and meta-physical relationships which take place in music structures, established in the form of a score, a rehearsal or a performance. It is the intuitive and intellectual thread of creativity, the intangible and tangible, the information and imagination contained in the act of invention and played out as an action-cycle, contributing to artistic development. This aspect of music-making is also displayed as an internal action – self-reflection and external actions – communication, collaboration, observation and perception. These co-existing dualities of internal/external processes contribute to musical style through the collaboration of individuals; resulting in the sharing of knowledge and experiences as jazz community. With further investigation into the physical world of information in the form of music fundamentals and theory, and exploration into meta-physical dimensions of imagination and creative potential, deeper understandings of these two spheres can be reached. Consequently, I am confident that further research into ‘jazz as process’ or ‘jazzing’ as a means and not an end, can be an effective tool for investigating artistic practice, contributing to small jazz ensemble composition, rehearsal, arrangement and performance technique.
References
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Discography
Coleman, O. (1959). The shape of jazz to come (CD). New York, NY: Atlantic Records.
Coltrane, J. (1959). Giant steps (CD). New York, NY: Atlantic Records.
Davis, M. (1959). Kind of blue (CD). New York, NY: Columbia Records.
Hancock, H. (1970). Mwandishi (CD). New York, NY: Warner Bros. Records.
Parker, C. (1949). Bird and Diz (CD). Tokyo, Japan: Universal Records.
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