Blog Post 5: Jazz and Improvisation: Modern Juilliard

Blog Post #5

Jazz and Improvisation: Modern Juilliard

            The director of my high school jazz band always told me that improvisation was the essence of jazz.  At the time, I partially understood what he meant, but largely dismissed this observation for a number of reasons.  For one, I assumed that this observation was made almost solely to garner enthusiasm for solos in our performances, which many members of the group, myself included, often performed somewhat reluctantly or with trepidation.  However, perhaps one of the main reasons that I did not see jazz as improvisational was that, outside of the band’s performances, which followed written scores with some predesignated solo sections, I had only heard recordings of jazz.  Based on these recordings alone, which preserve a single performance played in a single style, I did not see jazz as an improvisational music, but viewed it as a more standard type of music that still focuses on the typical song structure (melody, harmony, rhythms, etc).  I acknowledged that the portions of jazz songs that I could recognize as “soloes” were typically the most interesting part of jazz songs, especially in bebop songs, so I somewhat agreed with the director on those terms; however, I still viewed the music as less spontaneous and more arranged and calculated.

            However, the content of this class has shown me the significance of improvisation in jazz.  In particular, the work of Miles Davis highlights just how important improvisation can be for jazz.  Having only been exposed to jazz in fixed performances or arranged scores, and being of such a frame of mind that I often had to write out my own solos in order to have a chance at performing well, I would have assumed that the method of producing jazz was less spontaneous and more scripted.  However, the work of Miles Davis is a strong antithesis to this thought, as his music often changed in form and style, both from day to day – Miles claimed that a musician will play differently “any time the weather changes” (300), and across the years as Miles constantly changed his style.  I was especially shocked to discover that Davis often did not write out songs before recording them, as was the case with Kind of Blue (234) ; this particular discovery was also somewhat ironic, as Kind of Blue was among the few jazz CDs I listened to, along with other recordings made mostly by bebop artists, who were also focused on improvisation.

            My misbelief as to the importance of improvisation in jazz seems, to me, to strike an odd parallel with a discussion in lecture about how classical music was originally improvisational.  Although the music was originally composed in spontaneity, when it is studied at places like Juilliard or performed it is treated with such rigid reverence that the thought of the music being spontaneous feels almost absurd.  It is, in part, this sterile treatment of music that drove Miles away from Juilliard to the streets, where true, spontaneous music was happening.  However, as a minor in the modern era, it was difficult to find live, authentic jazz – recordings cannot truly capture the improvisational nature of jazz since the performance that is recorded is fixed, and any live jazz bands I could find were either bands that exclusively covered the standards with little innovation or bands that played exclusively at adults-only clubs – so as a fan of jazz, I had no alternative to the modern Juilliard that is the 21^st century, and by this Juilliard I was grossly misinformed.

Commented on Hawken Ritter’s blog