Can Jazz ever be truly improvised?
Introduction
As an aspiring jazz pianist, a lot of my focus when looking to develop as a musician revolves around the idea of improvisation. Improvisation has been a staple in the identity of jazz music from its creation in the early 20th century and presents a musician with the opportunity to fully express themselves and react to other musician’s ideas with their own ideas in musical form. Jazz has hugely developed over the decades since bursting onto the scene in New Orleans in the form of Dixieland jazz, as artists have cultivated it to suit their own interpretation and stylistic preference. The development of jazz has also been affected by the evolution of larger ideas and external influences which I will try to look at throughout this essay.
What is Improvisation in Jazz?
‘Jazz as we tend to look at it is a style, but I feel that Jazz is not so much a style as a process of making music. It’s the process of making one minute’s music in one minute’s time whereas when you compose you can make one minutes of music and take three months’ (Bill Evans,1966)
I took this quote from an interview between Harry Evans and Bill Evans from a short documentary called the Universal Mind of Bill Evans. Evans here is explaining the concept of spontaneous music creation and how this relates to the style of jazz. Jazz is largely used as an umbrella term for so many sub genres as the musicians categorised range from Duke Ellington to Herbie Hancock. When comparing ‘Take the A train’ by Duke Ellington with ‘Rockit’ by Herbie Hancock, the contrast in the instrumentation and use of technology creates a massive contrast in sound, however they both field the same approach artistically which is one of improvisation. This statement by Bill Evans is therefore very important in understanding Jazz because when one approaches the creation of Jazz music they should feel free to explore any avenues instead of feeling the need to condition themselves in order to fit into a Jazz style. In fact, it is often the artists who have pushed the boundaries of Jazz that make it into the history books. As Theodore Levitt said, ‘creativity is thinking up new things, innovation is doing new things’ (YouTube, accessed 2019). Therefore, Bill Evans is advocating that as Jazz musicians we should be pushing the boundaries of music and shouldn’t be scared to try out new ideas by creating and innovating new Jazz styles through improvisation.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (accessed 15th January 2019), improvisation can be explained in two ways. Firstly, to ‘create and perform (music, drama, or verse) spontaneously or without preparation’ and secondly, to ‘produce or make (something) from whatever is available’. Looking at the first definition, it says that improvisation is a spontaneous event without being influenced by preparation, in the pure sense this would surely mean that any theoretical knowledge is a betrayal to true improvisation, however it could be argued that true improvisation is then completely impossible as everyone has either inherited instincts or knowledge from a prior point in their life.
Alternatively, the second quote is more forgiving in that it pins improvisation down to creating something with the resources that we have. The way we improvise is therefore hugely impacted by our knowledge of music, influences and the equipment we have available.
Theory
Improvisation is widely regarded as being an essential cog in the jazz machine, however, is improvisation the result of a large knowledge of theory or is it completely spontaneous? In the introduction of the Mark Levine (1995) jazz theory book, it says that ‘a great Jazz solo consists of 1% magic and 99% stuff that is explainable, analyzable, categorizable and doable’. Further, within the jazz Theory book are a range of examples behind the licks and chord progressions that artists have used and how they may have come to this conclusion. Understanding music theory is incredibly useful and can be utilised in many different ways, by studying and analysing different jazz standards as well as musicians you can begin to work out the trends in different jazz movements such as harmonic structure and arrangements. Arrangements have a huge part to play in the expression of a jazz musician as they can either allow a musician to flourish or limit their expression. For example, an arrangement for an Ella Fitzgerald would probably be much stricter than an arrangement for an Ornette Coleman song in terms of structure meaning that the artists true moment or expression or improvisation is much more limited when placed in a stricter structure. On the other hand, many artists would struggle when confronted with a free structure as structures are so common place within all genres of music. I have often tried to pluck an improvised idea out of the air either when playing both on my own or with other musicians. Sometimes it works, however most of the time a lack of confidence or imagination hinders that idea. One might say that structures create a safety net and a base for expressive ideas, however it could be argued that they restrict true freedom and expression.
A Musicians Attitude to Music Theory
A musician’s attitude to music theory completely depends on their education and background in listening to music. Many of the renowned musicians in jazz didn’t have a formal music education and instead developed their music vocabulary through listening to and collaborating with other musicians. Comparatively many jazz musicians do attend musical institutions or come from a classical background in music, for example Miles Davis studied at the Julliard in New York. As Davis (1989) said, ‘I would go to the library and borrow scores by all those great composers like Stravinsky, Alanberg, Prokofiev. I wanted to see what was going on in all music. Knowledge is ignorance, and ignorance is slavery’. this compares to a statement in Chet Bakers biography that reads, ‘It struck him as a waste of time to memorize dots and curly lines on staff paper;why bother when he could pick up a song by hearing it once or twice?’ (James Gavin ,2002).There is no right way or wrong way to learn music theory, however studying a range of musicians allowed Miles Davis to continually develop his style and gain the reputation as one of the greatest Jazz musicians of all time in addition to the best-selling jazz album, Kind of Blue (at the time of writing).
The Feeling in Jazz
Although theory can explain the technical aspects of a jazz song, having an incredible theoretical knowledge of jazz music does not necessarily mean that you will articulate yourself well on your chosen instrument. A huge part of an artist’s sound comes from their tone and feeling when playing an instrument. As Wayne shorter said, ‘Your humanity is your instrument’ (quotetab, accessed 2019) and this rings true when analysing jazz and music in general. You can often tell when an artist is sincere in their performance by their tone and articulation. These are areas of a musician’s technique that people spend years refining as the appeal of playing a piece of music with pure feeling, means that you are much more relatable to the listener as you have more flexibility and can use this convey truer emotions.
Practice
Practicing techniques in music doesn’t only strengthen and progress our technique but also helps us to discover new pathways and approach situations in different ways. Herbie Hancock said in a lecture at Harvard University that, ‘practice creates an inner transformation of our character that helps us highlight our humanity and modify the state of our being’, (Herbie Hancock,2014) This is a fascinating quote from Hancock and a great way to define the idea of practice. Practice allows us to push forward and develop our technique which in turn opens our eyes to new perspectives within music. By practicing and learning music theory we are better rehearsed to react to the situations presented to us as well as being more confident in developing these ideas further. Referring back to the quote by Miles and his study of classical music, our study of different musical ideas allows us to develop a large vocabulary of music which brings a unique purpose and outlook to our expression in music. For example, you could rearrange a swing melody to fit a Latin style, if you had the knowledge to undertake this.
The Language of Music
Music is often referred to by many musicians as being very similar to a language. When looking at the basic structures that a language comprises of, we can see theoretical knowledge, listening skills and practical skills being at the very heart of that, exactly like they are in music. Many Jazz musicians live and express themselves fully throughout their instruments as we can see from the quote, ‘I don’t need words. It’s all in the phrasing.’ – Louis Armstrong (Jazz Quotes, accessed 2019). Phrasing is a huge part of how successful a melody or solo is in that the use of space can enhance the meaning and feeling behind the notes being played as can be seen in the quote, ‘The absence of an instrument changed a song’s sound as drastically as – if not more than – simply changing what an instrument was playing ‘ – (Herbie Hancock, 2014). Public speakers often pause in speeches to allow the listener to reflect on the words that they have just heard and it is no different in music. By playing short phrases and ideas with the correct phrasing, a musician can create any emotion they want.
Conclusion
Overall, I believe that improvisation consists of ideas in their truest form. Improvisation in speech is when you say something instinctively and don’t think about it beforehand, therefore improvisation is your initial reaction to your surroundings or situation. The way we approach improvisation is heavily influenced by external factors and the experiences we have had in our life, your level of musicianship effects your confidence and knowledge and therefore how comfortable you feel when improvising. In conclusion, I believe that jazz can be improvised, however your level of musicianship and how well you understand the external factors I talked about in this essay dictates the truth in your improvisation.
This was important for me to research in this project as it has boosted my confidence and reassurance in the way that I approach studying and performing jazz. By analyzing some of my jazz heroes, I have found that they started studying jazz in a similar way to myself and I now have a clearer understanding in how to continue developing this in my final project and beyond.
References
Southern, E. (1997). The music of black Americans. New York: Norton.
The Universal Mind of Bill Evans. (1966). [film] Directed by L. Cavrell. USA.
Levine, M. (1995). The jazz theory book. Petaluma, CA (P.O. Box 445, Petaluma, 94953): Sher Music.
Davis, M. and Troupe, Q. (1990). Miles, the autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks.
Gavin, J. (2002). Deep in a dream – the long night of chet baker. Chicago.
Hancock, H. and Dickey, L. (2014). Herbie Hancock : possibilities. New York: Viking.
YouTube. (2019). Herbie Hancock: Buddhism and Creativity | Mahindra Humanities Center. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSFMkJQKigk [Accessed 24 Jan. 2019].
Jazz Quotes. (2019). Louis Armstrong. [online] Available at: http://jazz-quotes.com/artist/louis-armstrong/ [Accessed 24 Jan. 2019].
QuoteTab. (2019). Wayne Shorter Quotations at QuoteTab. [online] Available at: https://www.quotetab.com/quotes/by-wayne-shorter#ICLKegQjrsK72RGq.97 [Accessed 24 Jan. 2019].
Anon, (2019). [online] Available at: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Rifugium/best-selling-jazz-albums-of-all-time-riaa-or-theres-no-money-in-jazz/ [Accessed 24 Jan. 2019].
2019. Oxford Dictionaries | English. [Online]. [24 January 2019]. Available from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/improvise