I think improvisation is overrated

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

I mean … okay?

I guess the first thing is that I’m not sure why those get the label of pure improvisation as opposed to any others.

But there’s also a point at which our standard for what we call “improvisation” becomes so narrow that I’m not really sure what the point of the word is.

Improv theater groups still call it improv even though they aren’t spontaneously generating new languages on the fly.

More to the point, I don’t really see what this has to do with anything. You think improvisation is overrated. You think you’re not good at improvising. You think improvisation is incredibly rare?

I can listen to a genius improviser a lot longer than someone who isn't.

I'll put it to you that way. It's all about what one finds entertaining. Not everyone is the same.

I listened to joe Pass, once, in a concert, and he complained about how audiences want him to play fast.

He said what he really loves is to play a slow ballad. I was in total agreement, because he's a master of that fine art.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

I'm glad you came back OP.

So if pure improvisation is dismissing all the vocabulary and phrases, you're basically like having a text exchange with a monkey smashing the keyboard. That's called Free Jazz and most people, those without a head injury, don't like it.

I think you backed yourself into a corner with mental gymnastics. That's not how it works. The Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker had arrangements and solo parts. The arrangement of Blues Rondo A La Turk, that's a purposeful change from 9/8 to 4/4 and a solo full of blues language. These things were worked out. Compare the two versions of Rondo.

Sorry, these things just aren't as magical as you think.

The first is the common one we all know. the second one I've never heard but there are videos of them playing it live, and these are other takes, all different.

I'm not saying songs aren't arranged, and clearly Blue Rondo is a 'piece' but the solo part, they are improvised. Of course the changes are blues changes, but I'm not talking about free style jazz, that isn't the point. I think the first one, the one that is the common recording that is famous, is an amazing solo performance, given lyrical melodicism. Brubeck's solo,. the same.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

I love Giant Steps. And free jazz!

I do not like Giant Steps. I think I might get through Have You Met Miss Jones (one of the next tunes I'd like to tackle) without it.

But I like some free stuff from time to time, especially when there is a good conversation going on between the musicians.

[Christian Miller]

Was The Modern Jazz Quartet a bit like that? I was surprised to hear that (if true) because the players were obviously capable of improvising their asses off.

Wouldn’t surprise me. Quite a few big names tended to play the same or similar solos every night.

[supersoul]

Once, after performing a new original composition for the first time, I was surprised when someone approached and said, "I can't believe you played my favorite song, I've never heard anyone else play it!"

No way I was going to break that beautiful spell with an "honest" clarification.

I'd want to know the name of their favorite tune, so I could check if I had subconsciously ripped it off and thought of it as my own. (Which can be a thing when you write music: "this is great, I really like this, I can't believe I wrote it, it must be something already")

[pamosmusic]

I can listen to a genius improviser a lot longer than someone who isn't.

I'll put it to you that way. It's all about what one finds entertaining. Not everyone is the same.

I listened to joe Pass, once, in a concert, and he complained about how audiences want him to play fast.

He said what he really loves is to play a slow ballad. I was in total agreement, because he's a master of that fine art.

Lol. I, like most people, prefer listening to goober college freshman noodle on Blue Bossa.

I think maybe you’re just saying that you like good improvising and not bad improvising. Which feels uncontroversial.

[joelf]

I'd want to know the name of their favorite tune, so I could check if I had subconsciously ripped it off and thought of it as my own. (Which can be a thing when you write music: "this is great, I really like this, I can't believe I wrote it, it must be something already")

From Sax on the Web, about Benny Golson:

He told of being asleep and dreaming the greatest melody he had come up with yet and he rushed downstairs to pencil and paper and wrote it out. But when he got up in the morning, he found that had written the melody to the verse of Stardust.

[joelf]

I do not like Giant Steps. I think I might get through Have You Met Miss Jones (one of the next tunes I'd like to tackle) without it.

But I like some free stuff from time to time, especially when there is a good conversation going on between the musicians.

I like it too, when there's no screaming or squawking. Once on a recording partly with 'Ray Mac' (Macchiarolla, and he's a great, swinging thumb player people don't know enough about) I said 'let's make something up, no set anything. He was game, and this is the result. I think it's pretty good, and want to do more:

[AllanAllen]

I'm back. Look, I started in on guitar in 1967. You'd think by now I'd have tried lots of things, including the aforementioned.

No, I know improvisation isn't something I want to put an audience through, other than some nice notes I've arranged beforehand for 16 or 32 bars, and leave it at that and get the vocalist back to the tune.

Yeah, and I bet a lot of the listeners loved your tastefulness. Watching a duo where the guitar player takes 6 rounds of noodling while the vocalists sits and waits can get tiring.

[AllanAllen]

The first is the common one we all know. the second one I've never heard but there are videos of them playing it live, and these are other takes, all different.

I'm not saying songs aren't arranged, and clearly Blue Rondo is a 'piece' but the solo part, they are improvised. Of course the changes are blues changes, but I'm not talking about free style jazz, that isn't the point. I think the first one, the one that is the common recording that is famous, is an amazing solo performance, given lyrical melodicism. Brubeck's solo,. the same.

I misunderstood and thought you meant the band heard Desmond play something bluesy and changed the entire tune to a blues to match his solo.

[Reg]

Personally there are jazz players and players who perform jazz tunes. There's nothing wrong with either...
But there is a big difference between the two.

[John A.]

i think overprovisation is
inderated ….

but i am fairly drunk

And drunkly fair.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

Yeah, and I bet a lot of the listeners loved your tastefulness. Watching a duo where the guitar player takes 6 rounds of noodling while the vocalists sits and waits can get tiring.

Exactly.

[PatrickJazzGuitar]

Personally there are jazz players and players who perform jazz tunes. There's nothing wrong with either...
But there is a big difference between the two.

And there are tunes that jazz players play often, which were never meant to be jazz (such as 'Over The Rainbow'), and there are tunes which are written by jazz players, meant to be jazz (such as 'So What').

I prefer the former, though with some notable exceptions, such as 'Round Midnight', and a few others.

[RLetson]

Not quite (I hope) a thread diverter, but I ran across this while trawling through versions of ATTYA. The last anecdote about Kern's composing process reminds me of the stories about Monk's.

Also interesting is Sondheim's report of Milton Babbit's take on internalizing particular technical compositional moves to the point of deploying them without really thinking about them, like driving a stick shift--you just do it. I suspect that the machineries that drive good improvisation are similar, rooted in thoroughly-absorbed practice. In other words, the woodshed. (Or a lot of on-stage experience.)

[joelf]

Not quite (I hope) a thread diverter, but I ran across this while trawling through versions of ATTYA. The last anecdote about Kern's composing process reminds me of the stories about Monk's.

Also interesting is Sondheim's report of Milton Babbit's take on internalizing particular technical compositional moves to the point of deploying them without really thinking about them, like driving a stick shift--you just do it. I suspect that the machineries that drive good improvisation are similar, rooted in thoroughly-absorbed practice. In other words, the woodshed. (Or a lot of on-stage experience.)

Sondheim was brilliant, but his words on music must be heeded rather selectively. He's uber-critical and a world-class overthinker.

When i started writing more lyrics I aimed to study the craft and the masters. I got his book Finishing The Hat. It's mostly a collection of his lyrics with his commentary, but there are also long stretches where he, at times brutally, critiques his peers and even his mentor Oscar Hammerstein, Jr. The biggest cudgel targets were Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, Alan Jay Lerner and Noel Coward---especially Hart. (To be fair, he saves his worst savagery for himself).

But I took his anal 'rules' to heart, and began to sabotage myself. If I wrote a near-rhyme or and 'identity' (a word that rhymes with and repeats itself, like 'one' in Imagine) it was 'what would Sondheim say?'

I finally came to my senses and realized that my goals were totally different. He was a theater writer, and there are definite do's and don'ts in that realm. Like Paul Simon got his ass kicked with Capeman b/c he didn't play by Broadway rules.

With any teacher you have to be careful and separate the wheat from the chaff. I've heard lectures and interviews with Sondheim that were amazing in their insights and serious food for thought. Just tread lightly, though...

[Reg]

And there are tunes that jazz players play often, which were never meant to be jazz (such as 'Over The Rainbow'), and there are tunes which are written by jazz players, meant to be jazz (such as 'So What').

I prefer the former, though with some notable exceptions, such as 'Round Midnight', and a few others.

I totally disagree with your points. Who decides what tunes are sacred and not meant to be played in a jazz style. That's almost ....

I play a lot of gigs with different audiences...and different skill levels of players. Most players love not playing somewhat pretty vanilla tunes in a vanilla non jazzy style... many have some difficulty pulling if off. But enjoy the ride. And 99% of the audiences love it. They can have a connection or reference to see where the tunes can go with jazz players... I'm a jazz player, have been for decades. I can read well and play vanilla as well as most... but those are not jazz skills. Most audiences don't like to hear the melody ... over and over. They can listen to it at home or in their ride all they want. They come to see us play... like live and in the moment, on the edge etc...

Again no right or wrong... but different contexts... the gigs and usually also the players.

I also don't usually play background music at restaurants etc... I play jazz gigs... audiences are there to hear and see where the music is going to go. Most jazz players... just don't rehearse.... the gigs are the rehearsal. We improvise in real time. Sure we reuse material... but at what point is the cut off. After I've played all 12 notes etc...

It's again all good... I played a gig a few weeks ago... and a vocalist sat in and sang a couple beatles tunes...
Can't Buy Me Love and Norwegian Wood... Did... Can't buy... in a swing Bluesy style and Norwegian in 12/8 a 2/3 samba feel. Audience and the vocalist loved it... and we as jazz players could improv etc...

Why are you on a Jazz Guitar Forum?

[Reg]

This was the style of Norwegian Wood... old Sergio Mendes.

[joelf]

I totally disagree with your points. Who decides what tunes are sacred and not meant to be played in a jazz style. That's almost ....

I play a lot of gigs with different audiences...and different skill levels of players. Most players love not playing somewhat pretty vanilla tunes in a vanilla non jazzy style... many have some difficulty pulling if off. But enjoy the ride. And 99% of the audiences love it. They can have a connection or reference to see where the tunes can go with jazz players... I'm a jazz player, have been for decades. I can read well and play vanilla as well as most... but those are not jazz skills. Most audiences don't like to hear the melody ... over and over. They can listen to it at home or in their ride all they want. They come to see us play... like live and in the moment, on the edge etc...

Again no right or wrong... but different contexts... the gigs and usually also the players.

I also don't usually play background music at restaurants etc... I play jazz gigs... audiences are there to hear and see where the music is going to go. Most jazz players... just don't rehearse.... the gigs are the rehearsal. We improvise in real time. Sure we reuse material... but at what point is the cut off. After I've played all 12 notes etc...

It's again all good... I played a gig a few weeks ago... and a vocalist sat in and sang a couple beatles tunes...
Can't Buy Me Love and Norwegian Wood... Did... Can't buy... in a swing Bluesy style and Norwegian in 12/8 a 2/3 samba feel. Audience and the vocalist loved it... and we as jazz players could improv etc...

Why are you on a Jazz Guitar Forum?

So you think audiences don't want the melody? I guess you're lucky. On my gigs, maybe b/c I've been inculcated that way to sort of entertain and please and want to reach people with what they know, I have to sneak the jazz in. Once I get through the tunes they know, which I enjoy BTW or I wouldn't play them, I play more for myself.

Vanilla? Never touch the stuff myself. There was this guy back in Brooklyn, a very good musician and successful in club dates. He was an egotist and thought he'd mastered jazz, which was ridiculous. He used to say about what audiences could hear 'You gotta put a little vanilla on it'. To me that's malarky. People can hear more than musicians give them credit for, and they know if you're fakin' it.

So I just play a few to get 'em on my side, then do my thing, Haven't been fired yet. And I do a sing-a-long thing in my building, for seniors. They know some standards and some come from places like Portugal. I have to learn some new things, and fine by me.

But I draw the line at My Way...

[SwingSwangSwung]

Try improvising at a VERY slow tempo over some chord changes you really like. Improvisation doesn't have to be fast to be improvisation. Doing this may open up some new possibilities.

[Reg]

Hey Joel.. thanks for response... and yea I dig your playing and comments... not just about Music.

But I didn't mean to imply audiences don't want the Melody... just not over and over. And again it depends on the audience. Years ago... I mean like the 60's, 70's and 80's I worked with different bands, old dudes and vocalist and then the players more my age... for much less $ and later in the evening and the after hours etc...

I'm talking about gigs, not studios, shows etc..

Anyway I learned about the differences in audiences.... which isn't anything new... most musicians know from playing etc..

Sounds like you still enjoy playing and creating music... and I'm no one to argue with that.

I just don't agree that improvisation... in all it's forms is overrated. Depending on players... I love expanding interludes , extended tags that develop into new tunes... change of feels and style.

But I also don't see anything wrong with playing as Patrick said... in his 1st post. I just see that as overrated LOL.

[mr. beaumont]

Its kind of ridiculous to think anybody is creating out of thin air. I mean, once you've played a song a few times...hell, even just heard it, you got an idea in your head of where you want to go...doesn't have to be the same place every time.

[woyvel]

Don't sell yourself so short. I'm sure that you're better versed in improv than the majority. Keep these two principles in mind:

1) 90% of your audience would rather hear your improvisations over those of, say, Ornette Coleman, because I'm sure your improv is more accessible.

2) 100% of the time you improvise using your skill set better than anyone else because they're not you, and its improvisation.

Appreciate your skills. You've learned them and earned them.

[joelf]

Hey Joel.. thanks for response... and yea I dig your playing and comments... not just about Music.

But I didn't mean to imply audiences don't want the Melody... just not over and over. And again it depends on the audience. Years ago... I mean like the 60's, 70's and 80's I worked with different bands, old dudes and vocalist and then the players more my age... for much less $ and later in the evening and the after hours etc...

I'm talking about gigs, not studios, shows etc..

Anyway I learned about the differences in audiences.... which isn't anything new... most musicians know from playing etc..

Sounds like you still enjoy playing and creating music... and I'm no one to argue with that.

I just don't agree that improvisation... in all it's forms is overrated. Depending on players... I love expanding interludes , extended tags that develop into new tunes... change of feels and style.

But I also don't see anything wrong with playing as Patrick said... in his 1st post. I just see that as overrated LOL.

It's. All. Good.

A cliche, I know, but it's better to think that way---less agita (;

I started gigging at 14, in 1968 (It was a $7 gig at Temple Share Emeth in splendiferous Canarsie, Brooklyn, and I was resplendent in my gold paisley Nehru jacket. Remember those? Not unless you're an old fart like myself or have seen pics. They got pics of everything on the Websky, and free, too. I'm sure I thought I was the shit, despite not being able to play shit----kids, you know).

So I went through H.S. My Canarsie guitar-slinging buddies and I were into rock, but also blues---1st the British white boys, which led us to the black innovators. We also dug Buzz(y) Feiten a lot, and I still do. But things changed for me at around 17-18, having been in integrated Canarsie HS for 2 years. The black and white kids started hangin', and music was the bond. (From them I was turned on to Stevie Wonder, though I probably stumbled on Bird and Charlie Christian on my own. Needless to say all 3 were life-changing.) Once I even got up to play in the cafeteria there and smoothed out a potential riot, or at least a scene---square business. It wasn't me, it was something coursing through me. I still couldn't play shit, especially my time. But I learned a very important lesson about the uniting and healing power of music. This had hit home even more powerfully when I went to Woodstock a few years earlier. My standard one-liner: 'It was all they say it was. Hell, I almost got laid'.

OK, so gigs: Around '78 i was playing Brooklyn Mafia joints (including the infamous Gemini Lounge, and don't even ask). I was just the guitarist in the (godawful) group, so no one 'connected' tried to get his hooks into me. But 5 hours/night, 10 PM-3 AM for $30. What did I learn? Either go into another line of work or be 'kept'---and I ain't that good-looking.

Audiences? Believe it or not, the mob guys were big music lovers. So we did our lame covers of Sinatra, Anka (who I still loathe, ptui), Tony Bennett---plus the disco stuff, which wasn't at all bad. Dunno if the 'boys' or the regulars wanted melodies 'over and over' but we didn't know that many tunes anyway so we probably did that unasked.

I broke into the NYC jazz scene ca 1982, after playing guitar duos (with guys like Jim Silberstein, Al Jaffe, Sam Brown and the super-badass Tim Breen, who even scared his hero George Benson when George heard him. I mean he was something!) in guys' apartments and the odd gig at joints like Barbara's in the W. Village. Started hangin' and sitting in at the West End Cafe, opposite Columbia U. Percy France, a great tenor man and human, got in my corner and hooked me up there with George Kelly and the Jazz Sultans, a hell of an octet which included Benny Powell, Norris Turney, Virgil Jones and George. Rhythm was Richard Wyands, Peck Morrison, Ronnie Coles and my still-raw nervous ass. (There are a few recordings still in either Phil Schaap's personal or WKCR FM's archives of airshots I was on with people like Ram Ramirez, George, Percy and others. I'm sure I'd cringe hearing myself, but I'm on them anyway.)

Then to Barry Harris and the Jazz Cultural Theater, where, like Henry Hill in Goodfellas, I 'met the world'. That was where I really cut my teeth, learning from and sometimes gigging with the elders of the tribe. We played in the 'kid band' for jam sessions: Kim Clarke, Rodney Kendrick, Roy Haynes's son Craig and me. Barry paid us out of his pocket, same as he did the headliners there like C. Sharpe, Junior Cook and Bill Hardman, Chris Anderson and the rest of his peers that he believed in. Barry was key in that he created a community, a viable house of jazz where the young and old could mix together and the young could learn. There were Clifford Jordan, Victor Sproles, my 2 running buddies Clarence 'C' Sharpe and Tommy Turrentine, Vernel Fournier, Pat Patrick, Junior Cook, Woody Shaw, Richard 'Notes' Williams, Frank Foster, Jack Wilson. And I did get to play and once in a while work with some of the aforementioned (played with Woody, made a rehearsal of Jack's charts with Clifford, gigged with C, John Webber, Ray 'Mac' Macchiarolla and Vernell, with a singer who'd christened himself Haze Laser.) Like junior partners was how they treated me and the other younguns. Jaco Pastorius came to a jam session once, crazed and asking for a pick to play with. Everyone walked the other way. Junior razzed him from the audience after Rodney said 'Jaco's in the house'. 'What do he DO?'

When I somehow got into Jaki Byard's Apollo Stompers it really dawned on me how serious, what a commitment this thing is. These guys---black rebels considered weird losers, scary and dispensable by the greater society, played each time as if their lives depended on it---and they probably did. Pure and generous spirits who passed on the lore, no holding back, to anyone interested in learning jazz (and the jazz life), let alone with a spark of talent. It's really a venerated African tradition, the elders passing it on to the young.

So now, these many years later, I have a lot of experience reading and performing for people, and playing with all kinds of players and singers. I don't have any philosophy or wisdom to impart and I couldn't tell you how important improvisation or melody is, or what's 'real' improvising. Still a work in progress trying to figure it all out. I do want to reach people, and won't apologize for it. You don't 'compromise' doing that, that's a bunch of BS. You don't play down to people, but to them. One thing that continually turns people off to jazz is some players just being in their own worlds. I just get up there and try use those things, swing and do like those elders did, only my own way...

[Reg]

Joel...As I said... I love your stories. And respect all you've done and still do. I'm also old and have the same musical philosophy about reaching the audience... still do.

But I also have always enjoyed... raising the level of performance for the respect of the Music.

I'm pretty sure you have a ton of musical understandings etc... I don't think it's that complicated to understand what improvisation with respect to Jazz is. The being in their own world thing is tricky.... Is it because you lose the connection with the audience... from not having the skills... to walk and chew gum etc... or is just the audience just wants a simple path etc... anyway

That's why I've always tried to push, (on this forum) ...guitarist to get their technical skills together, at least you can cover the walk and chew gum part...LOL.