Why deny the role of improvisation in jazz?

**targuit** · 03-31-2015, 01:47 PM

Interesting topic. Funny, Andre Previn was the first name I thought of as well. But, I think improvisation is just a bit "overrated". And in part as a reference I would use the words preserved in audio recordings of interviews with one of the greatest improvisers in my mind anyway - Bill Evans. One can find a series of interviews of Marianne McPartland with the great jazz pianist on YT. I always find them fascinating.

I'm going on my recall here, though I'll try later to post a link to the interview in question. But Evans was asked how he approaches his solo or group playing, and he always points out that improvisation does not happen in a vacuum. For any jazz song he started with the melody and basic harmony of the tune. He always felt it was important to simplify rather than to create a rococo elaboration of the melody. Certainly he improvises over the harmony and in the harmony lines, but always with reference to the melody.

Another artist who strikes me in that vein was Chet Baker. There is simplicity in his melodic playing which cuts to the bone, so to speak. Perhaps as opposed to a Sonny Rollins or even a Stan Getz.

In terms of guitarists, I do get a bit annoyed with some who just use a melody and harmony of a song as a platform to noodle. My attention just starts to wander immediately (Julian Lange). As opposed to a trio like that of Keith Jarrett, whose improvisations are fabulous but always in the context of the harmony and with reference to the melody at least in terms of the known jazz standards. He just gets deeper into the music - closer to the bone.

Anyway that is my 2 cents. If you really heed the melody and harmony, your improvisation still gives that identity to the melody and harmony of a song that a performance deserves. After all, a great original song is the essence of improvisational creativity. Why defile it?

Jay

**docbop** · 03-31-2015, 02:06 PM

Originally Posted by AlsoRan

Nosoyninga and Reg may be on to something here.

I know people who say they love Jazz, but their idea is a recording from a Jazz great, not a reharmonized, improvisational performance.

This appears to be be yet another division in the Jazz ranks - people who love hearing Jazz recordings and consider themselves "Jazz lovers."

Interesting.

Or like looking through your family photo album so you can remember that you save a point in time. Or recorded playing to go back and learn from it. It's all individual perspective. I know growing up some Jazz albums never made sense to me, then I got to hear the same people play live and things suddenly made sense.

Disclaimer: I'm not a big fan of any large ensemble music be it classical, jazz, whatever. I like small groups even in classical where you really hear the interaction between musicians. I appreciate large ensemble and the composing and arranging, and musical skills to perform, but not my first choice to listen to. So maybe that help understand my viewpoint on Jazz.

**jtizzle** · 03-31-2015, 02:27 PM

I'm going to play a bit of devils advocate and disagree with you, Jeff.
Aren't the exceptions the most interesting things? If everyone was checking out only Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Wayne, wouldn't everyone sound the same?

In fact, weren't the guys mentioned above exceptions? For example, what if Coltrane never felt like exploring music past Blue Train? We wouldn't have Giant Steps, A Love Supreme, Live at the Vanguard, or his late free stuff. That's pretty big into looking at exceptions.

I talk to Steve Coleman quite a bit. One of the things that comes up very often is when people ask him why he sounds so different from his contemporaries. He mentions Kenny Garrett a lot, who is another guy that was in town around the same time he was. He is totally aware of the fact that it's because of who he checked out in contrast to others. Kenny Garrett was checking out the guys I mentioned above, while Steve was probably one of very few people that knew who Von Freeman was, not to mention how close of a relationship they had. He also followed guys like Sonny Stitt and Bunky Green around, whereas no one else was doing that.

This is a problem I personally see in guitarists, is that they're all trying to cop all the Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mike Moreno, or Kreisberg stuff, who are all great guitarists, but there isn't much difference in terms of what they're doing. Younger guys ignore other amazing musicians like Ben Monder, Brad Shepik, Miles Okazaki (all three who are my personal guys that I cop stuff from). In fact, it's gotten so bad with us guitarists, that not a lot of us are even going back onto the lineage. I've only met one guitarist in New York that's around my age (early 20's) that has actually studied the music of Charlie Christian, I don't mean transcribe one solo, I mean learn a lot of it, figure out how he played things, use his fingering to understand how he played things, etc. Even worst, there's a huge group of forgotten guitarists who were also incredible that get absolutely no merit, like Ray Crawford or Tiny Grimes. I consider people that do this kind of study the exception, and most definitely prefer the exception over the norm in this case.

The other thing is that why does improvisation need to have a role? It's absolutely true what you say, improvisation is beautiful, the joy and spirit, but it doesn't mean it needs to have a role. Improvisation can just as well stem from a written composition and use such composition as it's basis, which is the norm in straight ahead jazz, or it can totally come from nothing, being absolutely organic. I enjoy both ways of thinking about it, and employ both ways into my music. There's a difference between assuming such thing has a role in it's own, and a style borrowing of it's use.

**mr. beaumont** · 03-31-2015, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by targuit

In terms of guitarists, I do get a bit annoyed with some who just use a melody and harmony of a song as a platform to noodle. My attention just starts to wander immediately (Julian Lange).

Jay

Wow, this just shows how we all hear differently...I think Julian Lage is one of the best examples of someone who carries a melody through a whole solo.

As for the Basie...I dunno, are you sure that solo wasn't impromptu...it's the weasel quote, and then the rest is just a good melodic solo...could go either way.

And Mark, I know you were kidding about the "listen to it more than once" comment, but I'll just throw out there, I think the beauty of a good jazz recording is that you can hear it again and listen differently...I might hear a great tune and say, "cool, now I wanna just listen to the bass and drums..." or something like that.

**mr. beaumont** · 03-31-2015, 02:34 PM

Originally Posted by jtizzle

I'm going to play a bit of devils advocate and disagree with you, Jeff.
Aren't the exceptions the most interesting things? If everyone was checking out only Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Wayne, wouldn't everyone sound the same?

In fact, weren't the guys mentioned above exceptions? For example, what if Coltrane never felt like exploring music past Blue Train? We wouldn't have Giant Steps, A Love Supreme, Live at the Vanguard, or his late free stuff. That's pretty big into looking at exceptions.

I talk to Steve Coleman quite a bit. One of the things that comes up very often is when people ask him why he sounds so different from his contemporaries. He mentions Kenny Garrett a lot, who is another guy that was in town around the same time he was. He is totally aware of the fact that it's because of who he checked out in contrast to others. Kenny Garrett was checking out the guys I mentioned above, while Steve was probably one of very few people that knew who Von Freeman was, not to mention how close of a relationship they had. He also followed guys like Sonny Stitt and Bunky Green around, whereas no one else was doing that.

This is a problem I personally see in guitarists, is that they're all trying to cop all the Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mike Moreno, or Kreisberg stuff, who are all great guitarists, but there isn't much difference in terms of what they're doing. Younger guys ignore other amazing musicians like Ben Monder, Brad Shepik, Miles Okazaki (all three who are my personal guys that I cop stuff from). In fact, it's gotten so bad with us guitarists, that not a lot of us are even going back onto the lineage. I've only met one guitarist in New York that's around my age (early 20's) that has actually studied the music of Charlie Christian, I don't mean transcribe one solo, I mean learn a lot of it, figure out how he played things, use his fingering to understand how he played things, etc. Even worst, there's a huge group of forgotten guitarists who were also incredible that get absolutely no merit, like Ray Crawford or Tiny Grimes. I consider people that do this kind of study the exception, and most definitely prefer the exception over the norm in this case.

The other thing is that why does improvisation need to have a role? It's absolutely true what you say, improvisation is beautiful, the joy and spirit, but it doesn't mean it needs to have a role. Improvisation can just as well stem from a written composition and use such composition as it's basis, which is the norm in straight ahead jazz, or it can totally come from nothing, being absolutely organic. I enjoy both ways of thinking about it, and employ both ways into my music. There's a difference between assuming such thing has a role in it's own, and a style borrowing of it's use.

Great post. I may need a while to concoct my scathing, multi-quoted, line by line dismantling of it

**jtizzle** · 03-31-2015, 02:36 PM

Haha, no worries, I don't mean it in a bad way, it's mainly me playing devils advocate. Would love to hear your thoughts.

**princeplanet** · 03-31-2015, 02:42 PM

I of course agree that Jazz is improvisation, or at least what I want it to be

But here's an interesting take- I think it was in reference to MJQ where one of the players was asked about why the no improv thing. The response was along the lines of "Well you see the solos were indeed improvised when they were first formulated. I felt I could never improve on that particular improvisation, so I keep playing it the same way. It's like a record, it was improvised once, but every time you play it back it's the same!"

Whatever blows yer hair back...

**mr. beaumont** · 03-31-2015, 02:43 PM

to jtizzle,

Nah, I'm just playing...it is a good post. No need for me to disagree with any of it. But since you asked...

I guess my gut reaction would be just to say that all those exceptions you mention kind of took the tradition and added on to it, personalized it, innovated it...which seems very different to me than looking for exceptions that take something away...

But what do I know? I'm just digging the dialog about something other than friggin' guitars and amps.

**MarkRhodes** · 03-31-2015, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

As for the Basie...I dunno, are you sure that solo wasn't impromptu...it's the weasel quote, and then the rest is just a good melodic solo...could go either way.

And Mark, I know you were kidding about the "listen to it more than once" comment, but I'll just throw out there, I think the beauty of a good jazz recording is that you can hear it again and listen differently...I might hear a great tune and say, "cool, now I wanna just listen to the bass and drums..." or something like that.

I agree Jeff. I have listened to some recordings hundreds of times and still enjoy them. Sometimes I hear things I didn't hear before but other times, I enjoy focusing on the parts I know by heart. Lots of jazz players have learned to 'sing' favored solos, ensemble riffs, turnarounds, what have you. They just love them. Sort of like a little kid wanting to hear the same bedtime story over and over exactly the same way because they love it just that way...

By the way, I've read that Thad Jones got tired of playing that "Pop goes the weasel" bit over and over and over. This track was one of the biggest hits for the Basie band of that era----so people wanted to hear it over and over, including the "one more time" and "one more once" quotes from Basie. That they got tired of doing this over and over shows that they did do it over and over.... And I agree, it's a great melodic solo. I don't mind hearing it over and over. ;o)

**jtizzle** · 03-31-2015, 03:01 PM

Well, yeah, something always comes out of everything. I'm going to go on a bit of a historical stretch, but we wouldn't have jazz without classical music, and we wouldn't have classical music without gregorian chants, and we wouldn't have gregorian chants without early monophonic music. I think everyone takes from a certain tradition and expands onto it, but I don't think there's a rule that says how limited you can look at such tradition. I always love talking about Steve [Coleman] because he looks at things very differently and takes things exponentially farther than others that are even half his age. Steve's take on Bird's music is extremely interesting. Normally, you would go to a school and hear about how "Bird played chord changes by using the arpeggios and approach tones", and that would be the end of it. In fact, check this out, man. THE DOZENS: STEVE COLEMAN ON CHARLIE PARKER ? Jazz.com | Jazz Music? Jazz Artists? Jazz News
This is an essay Steve wrote analyzing various Bird recordings. The article itself is long, but the individual analyses are not. The details he gets into in such small recordings are things that I have never heard a college professor talk about. Rhythmic intricacies, harmonic vocabulary that differs from how we look at things today, improvisational counterpoint, even personality of the musicians.
I don't think there are wrong ways on how to work with a tradition. There are definitely boring ways, such as bebop heads who take Bird for the bible and their idea of jazz is to play in that style, when really what Bird was doing was developing the style, since no one had played like that before him. Basically, innovating. But I think with enough conviction and musicality, you can take any concept and develop on that, making it into your thing. I mean, I can tell you some cheesy ass stuff that actually became a thing, like Brecker's tone and use of EWI. I'll tell you I can't find a lot of things cheesier than his reverby tone, that I think Kenny G took a lot from, or his EWI sounds on that self titled record (the one with Pat on it), but that stuff grows on people, and Brecker was a hell of a player and had enough conviction, creativity, and ideas to make it work, and I totally enjoy that stuff. There was also not really much of a tradition of EWI in jazz before Brecker, considering he was one of the first people to get one. But the whole idea of using more electric instruments was a thing, and I think that developing the idea of an electric wind instrument as opposed to something like an electric guitar, or an electronic keyboard, was a pretty big stretch.

**grahambop** · 03-31-2015, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by targuit

Another artist who strikes me in that vein was Chet Baker. There is simplicity in his melodic playing which cuts to the bone, so to speak. Perhaps as opposed to a Sonny Rollins or even a Stan Getz.

I think Chet Baker is greatly underrated as an improvisor. He never relied on licks and rarely repeated himself. And in later years, his solos became longer and more intricate - he did not stop growing as an improvisor. Check out this solo from 1981. This is so good I am currently transcribing it - there are some wonderfully original lines here:

**targuit** · 03-31-2015, 03:14 PM

Here's that link to the Marian McPartland interview with the maestro Bill Evans. Great stuff.

Jeff, maybe I was a bit too hard on Julian Lage, who is a very excellent player. I just think he gets a little too "precious" sometimes. Not sure if you get what I mean, but he is very good. Maybe I'm feeling more visceral today...

Jay

TH · 03-31-2015, 09:37 PM

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

Who is that french pianist, classically trained who did jazz type trio music? It was all written and bored me to tears. . . .

I hope you aren't thinking of Claude Bolling. And if you are, I'm sorry to put this into your head. Y'know this was ENORMOUSLY popular for years.

David

**fumblefingers** · 03-31-2015, 11:12 PM

I haven't been aware of any such ... undercurrent, so to speak, regarding improv.

On the contrary, it seems to me that:
1. Solos are improvised
2. Comping is a type of improv - it typically isn't written so its up to the accompanist to work something out
3. The head? - What are we told to do with that? "Play around the melody!"

Certainly there are arrangements and arranged sections in some tunes. But for small group jazz? I think one could easily say that improvisation is a first principle.

**MarkRhodes** · 04-01-2015, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by TruthHertz

I hope you aren't thinking of Claude Bolling. And if you are, I'm sorry to put this into your head. Y'know this was ENORMOUSLY popular for years.

David

I enjoyed that. For years, I listened to a radio show called "China's Jazz Thing" from midnight until 5:30, when the station reverted to its normal classical fare. Heard a lot of Bolling there...

TH · 04-01-2015, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by MarkRhodes

I enjoyed that. For years, I listened to a radio show called "China's Jazz Thing" from midnight until 5:30, when the station reverted to its normal classical fare. Heard a lot of Bolling there...

That recording appeared at a time in jazz when the music was going in many directions. Jazz was gaining a broader listening audience. Non jazz literates were buying easily digested recordings of well known serious artists (college radio stations were regularly mixing Dark Side of the Moon with Jarrett's Koln Concert and Kind of Blue) and the genres of New Age and written "jazz" were extremely popular for audiences who wanted something fresh without much work.

Windam Hill and ECM were battling it out and there among it all, crossing all genres was Claude Bolling and his suites with Jean Pierre Rampal, and Yo Yo Ma. They were totally written out arrangements, and you could even buy the scores to be performed note for note. This was where a lot of jazz practitioners objected to the association with the term jazz for these recordings. It's where there was a very defined equating of Jazz=Mellow came into being, as I recall. And smooth was not even concieved yet.

Jazz is a music. Jazz is also a marketing concept. Not the same. Not even when it says so on the label.

Different audiences. Different musics. Yeah those Jazz Suites bring back lots of memories.
David

**Jonah** · 04-01-2015, 11:18 AM

IMHO

I'll put in a bity less sophisticated way...

jazz musical image is mostly already formed and established and in many cases takent as 'music of the past' that leads to a point that people 'want to learn to play jazz' meaninig they want to play the tunes in certain style, they do not think they will have to improvize (they do not look from inside)... I never denied the role of improvization but I remember that I long ago I came to jazz through the general musical impression of this music (I did not think of improvization)

and then it leads to another point: beginners (late-, or ever- beginners) often try to find authoritive background for unwillingness (sometimes unconcious) to work over something ... and when they deal first with arrangements excercises etc. and feel improvement and then suddenly come to the point that they have to improvize it discourages a bit maybe.. they feel like how far they are actually from the goal...

In old days they would have shared these concepts with their parents or wives... now interent forum space and anonimity gives a posssibility to spread out and find positive feedback from wide audience for the most weird concepts.. so this makes the concept in their mind more and more serious and established being supported by other people mostly like them

It is the same way as with topics: ,sight-reading is not needed', 'should I learn all three chords or two will be enough?','Should I learn harmony that I already began to learn but now try to find serious reason to quit 'etc.

And another point - sometimes people just wanna talk.. (like me now)

**MarkRhodes** · 04-01-2015, 02:52 PM

It's interesting to look in the opposite direction. Dixieland is not only pre-bop, it's pre-swing. It's based on improvisation, yet many people hearing a Dixieland band play today, well, look down their noses at it.

A few examples from New Orleans. (Deliberately not famous players.)

**Jonah** · 04-01-2015, 04:07 PM

I wil add... I think recording killed jazz.. yes it gave possibility to bring to us many beautiful records... but the idea of recording was against its nature...

It changed both the concept of listening and concept of playing... it took years of course...

The player and listener who consider it 'now and here' who after perfrmance have only general personal impression.... approach in a different way than players or listners who know that there is possibility to re-play this record again... the players (maybe often unconciously) try to secure quality (the best way is to be sure of you will play)... the listner bigins to feel himself an expert better than anyone else.. he can find every flaw now ubder microscope... though all he can do is buying disks often.. in early days real listners went to the other city for performance and could often play like pros themselves.. now they can only reach out for cd-player buttons and compare technical quality of recording...

besides listner has demands now.. he wants it to be played as he heard on records and he considers that demand legitamate...

I think with time players learnt to deal with that - to 'ignore' a bit - players at least - that made post-bop possible probably... but not for long... there maybe a new generation of course who could involve recording as equal part of musical process (in classical music Glenn Gould did so - he combined cuts from different takes saying if I record why cannot I make final result better with the means I use? Why shoudl imitate that I do not record?)

Byt the way in classics it effected too.. but not that crucial as jazz

**Cunamara** · 04-01-2015, 05:14 PM

Originally Posted by Jonah

jazz musical image is mostly already formed and established and in many cases takent as 'music of the past' that leads to a point that people 'want to learn to play jazz' meaninig they want to play the tunes in certain style, they do not think they will have to improvize (they do not look from inside)... I never denied the role of improvization but I remember that I long ago I came to jazz through the general musical impression of this music (I did not think of improvization)

I have to ask- how could anyone listen to jazz- especially after bebop began- and not understand that improvisation is a central pillar of the music?

Originally Posted by Jonah

and then it leads to another point: beginners (late-, or ever- beginners) often try to find authoritive background for unwillingness (sometimes unconcious) to work over something ... and when they deal first with arrangements excercises etc. and feel improvement and then suddenly come to the point that they have to improvize it discourages a bit maybe.. they feel like how far they are actually from the goal...

In old days they would have shared these concepts with their parents or wives... now interent forum space and anonimity gives a posssibility to spread out and find positive feedback from wide audience for the most weird concepts.. so this makes the concept in their mind more and more serious and established being supported by other people mostly like them

It is the same way as with topics: ,sight-reading is not needed', 'should I learn all three chords or two will be enough?','Should I learn harmony that I already began to learn but now try to find serious reason to quit 'etc.

Sure. It's called "self-serving bias." We all have it to some degree about one thing or another (or a lot of things).

Jazz is hard. Sometimes it doesn't seem hard, even though it still is, and sometimes it seems really hard or even impossible. Persistence is really the only way through it- listening a lot so that we get the sounds in our ears and then learning how to make those sounds on our axes. And sometimes we have have to limit the stimulus and focus on the things that we can reasonably understand.

I can play some jazz that sounds pretty good to most people but when I hear real jazz musicians playing real jazz I can hear that I am, in fact, just a hack.

Originally Posted by Jonah

And another point - sometimes people just wanna talk.. (like me now)

Me, too. It's what the Internet is for.

**pamosmusic** · 04-01-2015, 06:57 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

See, but I don't see a long solo as just a showcase for someone's ego...that's the beauty of jazz, the WHOLE group is improvising...you can hear the soloist reacting, the rhythm section challenging...

I agree with your sentiment in this entire thread but I think you're missing a point or two. The first is that ... Improvising should not be a showcase for someone's chops but the problem that I think the post you responded to was addressing is that sometimes it still is! Too often in fact. There's a very interesting post on Ethan Iversons blog about drumming where he talks about jazz as employing "devotional" improvisation. I don't think there are as manny modern artists who hold themselves to that standard. Yes improvisation is integral but instead of being frustrated w people who ignore that fact it might be instructive to think about why they might've reached that conclusion

**henryrobinett** · 04-01-2015, 07:46 PM

I think insisting that solos be about chops or not be about chops is short sighted and missing the point. Sometimes solos are about chops and breaking new ground. Coltrane certainly did break new ground with technique and yes, sometimes his sheets of sound solos were about chops. Chops is merely a single expression or tool in the chest. Why should anyone get their panties in a bunch about someone having chops?

I LOVE getting inspired by technical ability whether it's a great athlete, musician, painter, novelist, scientist, sculptor, architect, gardener, housekeeper, veterinarian, homicide detective, chef or whatever. Excellence is inspiring to me.

Taste is perhaps a better index. If someone is displaying speed tastelessly that's different. Anything tastelessly done is bad. But chops? They're just chops. When someone has issues with chops alone to me it's an indication that the person is intimidated for one reason or another. My opinion of course.

**pamosmusic** · 04-01-2015, 08:21 PM

Sure. I'm just saying that time spent frustrated that people are disenfranchised with improvisation is time wasted. Then again ... Thinking about WHY that may have happened might be instructive and point to some trends in mainstream jazz that are alienating listeners. Not saying I agree or disagree w anyone but rather pointing to a train of thought that might be productive.

**henryrobinett** · 04-01-2015, 09:56 PM

Hm. Well I believe that pandering to what a public wants or doesn't want might lessen the integrity of the art. Jazz is not a popular music. It's not pop music. It's esoteric as much as many of us inveigh against that and struggle with that. We could go the Broadcast Architecture, smooth jazz formula route and eliminate solos altogether and make it all sound like dentist music. But that's not jazz, perhaps to its detriment. But I prefer it that way. Call me stupid.

**henryrobinett** · 04-01-2015, 10:06 PM

Btw I don't care whether some people feel disenfranchised by improvisation. They don't understand the music. That's fine. I'm not upset that some people don't like poetry or Bach or hand gliding or sushi. Yes jazz happens to be my livelihood but if Johnny doesn't like it, Johnny doesn't like it. He prefers Cheese Wiz. I don't care. That's not going to change what I do. I don't necessarily think Johnny's an idiot. I just think Johnny has different values and opinions and I think that's great. The only thing I can do is to keep my viewpoint out there. Represent.