About Jazz 3

About Jazz
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A special series on jazz as part of the
journey of personal transformation.
Copyright Ó 2021, Barry A. Lehman

About Jazz
# 1
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Eight weeks on jazz. Ah, where to begin?
-Me
I could start with a dictionary definition, but that would be almost
antithetical to the whole idea of jazz. I could find a quote from some
famous jazz musician and place it at the top of this page as an
introduction. I could find a video of someone explaining the basics of
jazz. But jazz is much more than any of those and far beyond any
ability to explain it easily, quickly, or purposefully.
So instead, I will do what jazz might encourage. I will riff on the
theme. I will answer my own question: What do I want to say about
jazz? Here goes:
1. It moves me- just like many forms of music. It moves me
internally- I feel good when it hits me. It moves me externally-
I physically cannot sit still when listening to jazz. My family
will tell you that I direct music when listening to it. Jazz
inhabits me and makes me move like no other music.
2. It is a dialogue in sound that occurs through the interaction of
different instruments- just like many forms of music. I’m not
even talking about improvising at this point. Just the sonic mix
of instruments does it. Again, all music requires some sense of
interaction in sound, but jazz has taken it and made it into a
musical art and craft.
3. It is alive. Even when it is a studio recording there is a sense of
a living form that most other types of music may only get
through a live concert performance. This is where improvised
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solos play an important part, but because the music of jazz has
grown out of live experiences, it seems to capture that in ways
other genres do not.
4. It is almost infinitely adaptable. That is another aspect of jazz
being “alive.” Jazz - combo or big band - can play an
arrangement of Jim Croce or Lennon-McCartney as easily as it
can play the music of the Great American Songbook or the
classic music of jazz and Dixieland. On top of that, composers
can write music that is new and exciting and it will be jazz.
5. It can stand up with other genres and styles as well as
anything. There is Preservation Hall Jazz Band recording with
Bluegrass icon, Del McCoury. You can hear Wynton Marsalis
in concert with Eric Clapton or Willie Nelson.
6. It is our American music. It is part of the very roots of our
American heritage. It describes so much of who we are and the
potential of who we can be.
I have been enthralled by jazz for almost 60 years. Jazz has been
involved in all of my adult life, moving me, challenging me, inspiring
me. It started with Al Hirt’s Java. Herbie Mann’s Memphis
Underground kicked me up the side of the head. Les McCann and
Eddie Harris with Compared to What gave me more insights. Doc
Severinsen, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson, and, above all, Louis
Armstrong all contributed even before I graduated from college! I want
to share what this has done and why.
Above all else, I think jazz is the best musical paradigm for how to
live day in and day out. Life is an improvisational exercise. Life is
finding the rhythms, harmonies, dialogues, hopes, fears, and emotions
to make it through another day. All of that is what jazz does in ways
that no other single genre of music can- at least for me.
Sadly, it has been reported in the past five years that, as far as
music sales go, jazz has become one of the least popular musical
styles. (Really? Still? In 2021?) That is a long way down from the
heights of the big band era when some would argue that Glenn Miller’s
In the Mood helped us win World War II. It is a sad departure from the
incredible all-time best-selling Miles Davis and Kind of Blue. There are
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no doubt many cultural factors involved in that, but it still is depressing
to think that this rich musical heritage is an endangered species.
So, what I will do in the next eight installments of this series is talk
about jazz as I see it. I will explore how it has enlivened me, what it
can teach us, and how it can give us all a sense of movement and unity.
It can be the music of personal transformation.
Let me close this by suggesting a video. It is a You Tube video of
what many consider the greatest jazz solo Louis Armstrong ever made.
Way back in the mists of jazz history, Satchmo and His Hot Five
recorded West End Blues. No one had ever heard anything like this. It
set the standard on which just about everything else is built.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPCBieSESI
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# 2
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Jazz does not belong to one race or culture,
but is a gift that America has given the world.
-Ahmad Alaadeen
I remember a discussion I had with a teenager in my church youth
group some 30+ years ago. We had been listening to some live rock
song that had a great guitar solo. We started talking about different
styles of music and came up with a question.
What makes jazz jazz? Why isn’t it rock or vice versa?
Neither of us had an answer, although we did, in general, agree that
we knew it when we heard it. Here, then, decades later, I am going to
attempt to answer that question from my experiences. As I said in the
previous post, I have been enthralled by jazz in all its forms for over 50
years. I’m not out to give an in-depth analysis of jazz and what makes
it what it is. There are countless books that do that. Some are history
like Ted Gioia’s History of Jazz, a remarkable story of how jazz got to
be what it is. Some are on video, like Ken Burns’ mini-series
documentary, Jazz, from PBS. Barry Kernfeld’s What to Listen For in
Jazz has informed this particular post. All three of these are 20-25
years old, but capture the story that has become jazz.
Since one of my goals is to relate the music and the experience of
jazz to my life and experience, musicology is not my goal. Living jazz
is. So, I found in Kernfeld’s book seven things that are essential
ingredients to understand about jazz. These, I think, give a little more
to work with than just saying “I know it when I hear it.” While all of
them can be found in most other musical genres, how they apply to this
genre begins to answer the greater question of what makes this music
what it is.
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First comes rhythm. This should come as no surprise. Jazz started
as music for movement. It was street music, dance music, walking and
marching music. The power of the “beat” is unmistakable. It is almost
impossible to call it “jazz” if it doesn’t have rhythm. It must constantly
be supported and carried by the rhythm section- drums or bass, piano
or guitar. I know that sometimes that rhythm is pretty hard to find,
especially in more free-form jazz, but if you ask the musicians, they
will say there is something there. It will go nowhere without a living,
breathing pulse.
All music breathes. The rise and fall of dynamics, crescendo and
decrescendo, are the active elements that make it something more than
a one-level sound. In jazz, that breath becomes a rhythm. Some of this
is what is called articulation. When you emphasize what note, how you
flow from one section to another. But it is always alive, always
moving.
When jazz musicians say the music is “in the groove” this is part
of what they mean. It is alive and moving. The two most common
rhythms can be described as
• Swing and
• Duple.
Swing is a movement of triplets enhanced or bounded by
accentuations. Duple is doubles, also enhanced and defined by
accentuations. While recognizing that there are numerous variations
and exceptions, we can take Dixieland and “big band” traditional jazz
as the best examples of “swing.” Duple is more straightforward and
can be seen in Latin jazz. I will talk more about rhythm, especially
swing, in the next post.
The connection of rhythm and breathing with living is obvious.
Drumming has been one of those human endeavors most likely since
the first time an ancient relative hit a hollow log with a stick. In so
doing they were mimicking the action at the center of our lives- the
heartbeat. Rhythm is more than primitive in its origins. It is primal. It
is basic, essential. A heart arrhythmia can be fatal- it is out of rhythm.
Second is form. With tens of thousands of possible songs to play, a
jazz group and its musicians would be hard pressed to memorize
everything out there. That would clearly limit their repertoire and
challenge the skill of even the greatest among them. What has
developed to make this job relatively easy is the form of jazz music.
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The most common of these was adapted from the basic “song” formthe
music of the Great American Songbook. Very simply this form is
the beginning theme, the “head”, the first description of which is
usually done twice, the chorus in the middle and then closing with the
theme. This often referred to as the AABA form.
There can be many variations on how long these individual
sections can be. The song form would, in general, be 32 bars, 8 in each
section. Other variations can have a repeating pattern of measures and
chord changes such as the 12-bar blues which can be adapted to 8- or
16-bars. Chord changes are often sort of standardized with the 12-bar
blues being the grandaddy of them all and the progression of the
chords of I’ve Got Rhythm (referred to as “rhythm changes”) being
another.
One other form is the march and ragtime form. These are usually
16-bar phrases with two, three, or four themes as the song progresses.
Now, in general, a jazz musician can pick up a book of songs and
all it might have are the head, chord changes, and the closing. When
you understand the basic form of these songs, you have the greater
possibility of playing more music and not being completely lost.
Third is arrangement. This is the first of three elements of jazz that
are about “writing” the music. Arrangement is taking something that
already exists and adapting it. Arrangers can do it note-for-note adding
embellishments with their group playing as close to the original as
possible. They can also take the original and add embellishments to it
to change the patterns around the original. The third is to orchestrate
the song differently. Having a saxophone-based combo play a song will
give a very different experience from a piano-based one. For example,
taking a Lennon-McCartney song and arranging it for a big band would
take all these into account. What instruments do you want to play
when? How close to the original will it be? Will you divide it into
sections that build on or riff on the theme?
Fourth is composition. Simply put this is basically writing new
music. You are composing a new song. It can be based on the chord
progressions from another song, such as the many on the changes of
I’ve Got Rhythm or the 12-bar blues. It will be a new melody, a new
song.
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Fifth is improvisation. Improvisation is so essential to what call
jazz in all its forms, I will take at least two posts to deal with that.
Suffice it to say here, that being able to improvise is what can help all
of us succeed in the ups and downs of life. It is not simply flying by the
seat of one’s pants. It is the ability to call on our knowledge,
experiences, hard work, and creativity to solve problems and enhance
our lives. Kernfeld called improvisation the “most fascinating and
mysterious” element of jazz. It is featured prominently in all that we do
in jazz.
Sixth is sound. This is where orchestration comes in. Different
instruments sound different. Different combinations sound different.
How you put them together can make a huge difference in what you
hear- or don’t hear. It is also the tuning of the notes and how they fit
together. Miles Davis famously said that “there are no wrong notes in
jazz: only notes in the wrong places.” Thelonius Monk added to that
sentiment. “There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than
others.”
The ultimate in the jazz sound is what has been called the “blue
note.” The “blue note” is a note that is played or sung a half-step off
from what would be expected. Blue notes add a sense of tension,
surprise, or worry to the sound. It comes from its use in the blues
progression. The “sound” of jazz is what has led many to say they may
not know what jazz is, but they know when they hear it.
Finally, the seventh element of jazz is style. Jazz is not one style of
music- it is a genre made up of these elements and then flowing into
numerous styles. Kernfeld, in What to Listen for in Jazz, leaves the
idea of style to an epilogue. That way he could look at the elements
that can be found in one way or another in different styles. Here are
some of the styles that have developed in jazz, and are still breathing
life into the genre:
New Orleans Jazz
Big Band
Bebop
Hard Bop
Fusion
Free Jazz
Latin Jazz
Acid Jazz
Jazz Rock
Kansas City Jazz
Modal Jazz
West Coast Jazz
And Wikipedia goes on to list another 30 sub-genres.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_jazz_genres )
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Talk about diversity. Talk about having an abundance of
opportunities. Talk about a perfect music to have developed in a little
more than only 100 years in the United States.
That’s jazz. That’s all there is to it. In 2000 words or less.
The details are in the hands of the musicians- and of you and me as
listeners. That’s where we will go in the rest of these posts, seeing how
these are good metaphors for life and how, when we learn jazz, we are
also learning how to live.
Jazz is the type of music
that can absorb so many things
and still be jazz.
-Sonny Rollins
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# 3
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It Don’t Mean a Thing
(If It Ain’t Got That Swing)
-Duke Ellington
You may remember the old joke about the comedian who asks,
“What’s the secret of a good joke?” and then answers the question
without a moment’s break. “Timing.”
Until Einstein, “time” was seen as a constant. It was always the
same. Then relativity came along and suddenly time was a
“changeable” dimension. (Don’t ask me to explain THAT!) Time
became, to put it way too simply, relative. As we get older, we can
agree with that idea. Time sure moves faster when you have more time
behind you. (Where did this year go? It’s the end of July already!)
Another way of describing this is to say that “time” is how we
perceive it. If we are bored, it hardly moves; if we are having a great
time, it ends too soon. Music depends on time- and timing. Music is
guided by a “time signature.” In jazz, the idea of “time” can take on
another dimension. Time becomes the movement of the notes in a
unique and special way. From there that movement is what musicians
often call “the groove” or the interaction of musicians, time and
melody into something everyone can feel.
When you are in that groove with the movement leading you,
holding you and the music together-
That’s Swing!
Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_music) starts the
definition of swing this way:
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In jazz and related musical styles, the term swing is used to
describe the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or "groove"
created by the musical interaction between the performers,
especially when the music creates a "visceral response" such as
feet-tapping or head-nodding.
Got it? It sounds simple.
1. There’s the movement (propulsive rhythm).
2. That movement is created by the interaction the performers
themselves are feeling.
3. There is a “visceral response,” perhaps because of that
interaction, responses like tapping your foot or nodding your
head.
If that’s all it takes, I have seen many performers “swinging” in
some of the dullest ways possible. In some ways it sounds like a small
group of people doing their thing in a way that moves them.
Wikipedia continues:
While some jazz musicians have called the concept of "swing"
a subjective and elusive notion, they acknowledge that the
concept is well-understood by experienced jazz musicians at a
practical, intuitive level. Jazz players refer to "swing" as the
sense that a jam session or live performance is really
"cooking" or "in the pocket." If a jazz musician states that an
ensemble performance is "really swinging," this suggests that
the performers are playing with a special degree of rhythmic
coherence and "feel."
In other words, if you don’t understand it, that’s because you aren’t
an experienced jazz musician. It takes a “practical” and “intuitive”
understanding to know when it’s “cooking.” That just adds a bit of
snobbery to the first part of the discussion. You have to be with the “in
crowd” to really know what swing is or even how to make it happen.
How about that attempt at paradox- practical AND intuitive.
Do you get the idea they can’t describe it any better than anyone
else? It’s just a fancy way to say that they know it when it happens.
When it’s not happening, well, it “just ain’t swingin’ man.”
The crazy thing is that this is as good as it gets trying to nail it
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down without some time listening to the music. Like Jello to a tree. We
have all had an experience of the essence of “swing” whether it is in
jazz, or any other kind of music. It may have been the Sunday the
organist at church nailed a Bach prelude or the praise band’s hallelujah
touched the depth of your soul. It might have been at the rock concert
when your favorite band never sounded better and every note was right
where they (and you) wanted it to be. Those are the same as “swing,”
just in different musical genres. They are peak experiences when music
and time come together and meld into Einstein’s four-dimensional
universe.
Okay, enough of this. We can wax and wane poetic, prosaic, or
scientific night and day and never quite get to that kernel of truth about
swing. As listeners, we know swing because it moves us. As audience
members, we know swing because something in us responds to it. As
musicians, we know we are “in the groove” when we come to the end
and realize we were simply carried along.
In jazz, we call it swing. Swing always is an interaction in time and
musical movement. On a very simple technical level swing is that
dotted-eighth/sixteenth combination of notes. But Latin jazz doesn’t do
that, yet it can swing as hard as any other jazz.
That’s where the idea of time really comes into play. Wynton
Marsalis describes it this way in his book, Moving to Higher Ground:
Jazz is the art of timing. It teaches you when. When to start,
when to wait, when to step it up, and when to take your timeindispensable
tools for making someone else happy….
Actual time is a constant. Your time is a perception. Swing
time is a collective action. Everyone in jazz is trying to create a
more flexible alternative to actual time.
And again, back to our perception of time, and again that
perception is grounded in a collective sense of time in the interaction
of the musicians, the rhythm, and the music.
in:
Wynton Marsalis applies all this to our daily lives. Swing helps us
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1. Adjusting to changes without losing your
equilibrium;
2. Mastering moments of crisis with clear thinking;
3. Living in the moment and accepting reality instead
of trying to force everyone to do things your way;
4. Concentrating on a collective goal even when your
conception of the collective doesn’t dominate.
Change happens. It is a constant. Sometimes it is expected and not
jarring. It is in time. Sometimes it knocks us off our balance. That is
when the understanding of swing, staying in the groove, going with the
flow comes in handy. The moments of crisis, times of change, when we
can lose our ability to make healthy decisions is when we move back to
the basics. The forms of life that keep us moving.
Remember that jazz is made up of forms and when you have an
understanding of the forms you can adapt. If you know the forms of
your life, you can begin to trust your Self 2 instinct as discussed in the
Inner Game of Music. It’s the muscle and mental default mode that
keeps us standing when it would be easier to fall.
From there we accept what is- staying in the moment- accepting
the things we cannot change, changing what we can, and knowing
which is which.
Another way to describe swing is that it’s how you accent the
music, what you emphasize, what you want people to hear. Any jazz
musician knows the forms for accents, for what to emphasize and what
not to. That can change from performance to performance, within the
basic forms of course. Tonight, the musician may want to emphasize
the upbeat feel of a chorus; tomorrow, after a difficult day, the
emphasis may take more of a bluesy style.
What you accent in life can become your song or story. How you
do that can change the rhythm of your life. That’s your perspective.
We all know the analogies of looking at the doughnut or the hole; the
cage of horse manure with the optimist seeing the possibility of a horse
amid all that. Even the old is the glass half-empty or half-full can add a
new dimension- the glass is refillable.
Accentuate the positive. Assume positive intent. It’s your choice.
But you are not alone. With few exceptions jazz is a truly
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collective music. We have to listen to each other, not fight each other in
a jazz performance. It is a cooperative action of attempting to make
more than any one of us can make on their own. If I accent the upbeat
and you slur through them it might sound unique, but will it sound
appropriate? Will it sound like one of us is trying to one-up the other?
The music will often suffer as a result. It can easily descend into chaos.
Some might call that “free-form” but it takes amazing concentration of
collective action to produce good “free-form” jazz.
In the end, Wynton Marsalis says, swing demands three things:
1. Extreme coordination- it is a dance with others
inventing steps as they go;
2. Intelligent decision making- what’s good for group
3. Good intentions- trust you and others want great
music.
Swing is worth the effort. We grow in relationships- and we learn how
to develop relationships. We learn how to listen to others and, in the
end, ourselves. That will lead us into the next two weeks’ posts on
what may be the heart and soul of jazz- improvisation, the ultimate in
going with the flow.
Until then, keep swinging.
I don't care if a dude is purple with
green breath as long as he can swing.
-Miles Davis
Note: All Wynton Marsalis quotes are from the book:
• Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life
by Wynton Marsalis and Geoffrey Ward. 2008, Random
House.
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# 4
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There's a way of playing safe and then there's where you
create something you haven't created before.
-Dave Brubeck
Many have called it “mysterious.” Some will say there’s magic in it.
Others might criticize it for being “too far out” or “odd.” No matter
what is said about it, it is undeniably the center point around which
jazz congregates.
Improvisation.
I had been listening to jazz for a number of years before I realized that
so much of what I was listening to only existed once in the studio or
venue where it was performed. In that moment jazz went from being a
great form of music that I loved to something far more profound. It
was alive in a way that no other music could claim in my awareness.
Sure there have been many great improvised solos in other genres;
even the classical greats like Bach were known to be excellent
improvisers. But no other music called forth improvising; no other
music seemed to breathe the life of the music in the moment.
I was in awe.
About 20 years ago, I had my first jazz camp experience. I knew very
little music theory and couldn’t have played in many of the keys if my
life depended on it. But the time came to improvise. As I sat down that
evening I wrote in my journal:
My first solo. Just the basics of course, but an improv solo on
the simple concert B-flat scale.
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"Play a melody. Write a song with it, Barry."
And I did.
It fit, too. It made some sense. You have to try to listen to
what is going on around you. Hear the rhythm, devise the
melody, watch the harmony. It wasn't polished. It was kind of
stiff and boring, but no one started out as a virtuoso.
The instructors this morning emphasized that. The scales are to the
instrumentalist what the gym is to Michael Jordan.
The same could have been said about my solo at last summer’s Big
Band Camp. It wasn’t polished; it was kind of stiff and boring. One of
my problems is that I get stuck on “bad” notes. A “bad note” is one that
could be a great “blue note,” a note moving from one place to another.
But it turns into dissonance and discord because I stop for too long. No
movement, more like a crash into a brick wall. My mind blanks, I
forget what I’m thinking and nothing of interest comes from the
instrument. It made some sense for a little bit, a few measures, but
that’s about it.
What a challenge then in this past year when, following the Big Band
Camp and then Trumpet Camp in 2015, I decided I was going to do an
improv solo this year. And not get stuck! It was one of several goals I
set for myself, and the one that looked most challenging. Wikipedia’s
entry on improvisation in jazz points out some of the problems.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_improvisation)
Basically, improvisation is composing on the spot, in which a
singer or instrumentalist invents solo melodies and lines over
top of a chord progression played by rhythm section
instruments (piano, electric guitar double bass, etc.) and also
accompanied by drum kit. While blues, rock and other genres
also use improvisation, the improvisation in these non-jazz
genres typically is done over relatively simple chord
progressions which often stay in one key (or closely related
keys.) …Jazz improvisation is distinguished from other genres
use of this approach by the high level of chordal complexity…
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Problem #1: Composing on the fly.
Saxophonist and composer Steve Lacy once said,
In composition you have all the time you want to decide what
to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.
It takes time to learn how to do that. A lot more than a year. It
takes a certain amount of courage to do it in public. It takes a certain
amount of insanity to even want to do it in the first place.
Problem #2: Chordal complexity
Most of us want to sound professional when we do our
improvising. That means the complexity of chords and chord changes.
We don’t want to sound like some newbie just playing the blues scale
over the changes. It may fit, but that’s baby stuff. To think that one can
get to that point in one year would be the height of grandiosity- or
blindness.
Problem #3: Learning the language
This is all about a language and developing an understanding of
its meanings. It is no different than having a conversation with a
friend- except we have all learned how to use words in conversations
one little bit at a time. We didn’t do that in any great way until we
developed a vocabulary, the experience of talking with others, and the
experiences of our lives to have something to talk about. If you have
15 seconds to say something, you better have the language ready to be
accessed at the right time and place.
A daunting task, to be sure. But I did have a few things in my favor.
I have a rudimentary understanding of the language. I have a decent ear
for jazz, jazz forms, and jazz licks. I have been an intense jazz listener
for 50+ years. It’s kind of like being somewhat able to understand, say
Spanish, when it is spoken, even though my brain trips over itself when
I try to speak it.
I am also a decent musician. I understand a lot more about music from
simply playing it than I realized. That means I have a basic
understanding of chord progressions and the blues scale.
And, I now have the time, in my semi-retirement, to spend time
learning.
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While I didn’t have a set plan for learning jazz, I first spent a lot of
time really getting to know my musical skills- the basics, just the
basics. Day in and day out there were those long notes and chromatics.
Then there was Arban (always good old Arban!) and Concone and
others. Finally, I decided I would learn the 12 major keys. Yes, after
50+ years I was doing one of those basic things.
The result was I got to Big Band Camp and I was ready. No getting
stuck this year. Let it happen!
It did! No, it wasn’t a great solo, but it didn’t get stuck, it didn’t suck,
and it wasn’t stiff. I even think there might have been some swing it it.
At least I was swinging. Since then, I have done some more
improvising with the one big band I play in. Nothing fancy. But I now
have the courage to at least try. I have done it and I know I can do it
again.
What then does all this mean?
#1. It takes time and effort. Just a year of work doesn’t do it. But it’s a
start.
#2. Appreciate jazz when other people do it. Listen. Then listen some
more. Finally, listen again.
#3. Have courage. Take the opportunity to improvise. In the privacy of
your practice room and in public.
#4. Be good to yourself and appreciate what you have done and what
you can do.
#5. Push yourself. Don’t stop where you’ve been. Look at where you
still want to go.
Now that I have more of the basics down, it is time to move into the
advanced beginning stage. (Trying to keep that trumpet ego in check!)
That means more of the 5 things above. It means enjoying the practice
and challenge. And it means seeing how improvisation has already
made and can make a difference in my life.
That will be next.
The genius of our country is improvisation,
and jazz reflects that.
It's our great contribution to the arts.
-Ken Burns
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# 5
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Life is a lot like jazz.
It’s best when you improvise.
-George Gershwin
I’m going to start today with some thoughts from the book,
Improvisation for the Spirit: Live a More Creative, Spontaneous, and
Courageous Life Using the Tools of Improv Comedy by Katie
Goodman. (Sourcebooks, Inc. 2008.) It is NOT about jazz, but rather a
book on living a spontaneous life based on improv comedy. But, hey,
improvisation is improvisation. So here are her suggestions for skills
needed in living a spontaneous life.
1. Be Present and Aware
2. Be Open and Flexible
3. Take Risks
4. Trust
5. Surrender and Non-Attachment
6. Gag Your Inner Critic
7. Get Creative
8. Effortlessness
9. Desire and Discovering What You Want
10. Authenticity
11. Allowing Imperfection and Practice, Practice, Practice
As I look at these, I see a number of the themes that I have covered in
the past.
• The “be present and aware” touches easily on the mindfulness
we have talked about.
• “Gag your inner critic” is certainly a variation of the
discussions of Self 1 and Self 2 in the Inner Game of Music
posts.
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• “Desire and discovering what you want” and “authenticity” tie
in with finding your story and song.
It takes work and determination to do it. It takes hours of practice. One
cannot want instant gratification - or instant expertise in improvisation
or in life as a whole. As I look at those 11 suggestions, I want to
simplify it. I want to make it sound easier than it is, live in my fantasy
world that it is easy, or just throw my hands up in surrender. Which is
NOT what surrender and non-attachment above mean. So maybe there
is more to be learned in that skill than I am giving it credit for.
Surrender and non-attachment, as Goodman defines it on page 92 is
about
…learning to let go of your attachments to expectations, goals,
and perfectionism. … to cultivate a sense of humor, and to
lighten up. [We] surrender the controls and allow life to unfold
in a more joyful, free-flowing, and perhaps, unexpected way.
This does not mean giving up and going home. I have heard several
times in the past few weeks that the #1 rule for improv comedy is the
“Yes, and…” rule. That means you affirm what has come before you,
the line or theme that has preceded the hand-off to you. Never negate
it- that brings everything to a stop. Instead, accept it as an important bit
of information or an unfinished sentence. What do you have to add to
it? How can you give added value to the “musical conversation”? In
order to do that use those skills of mindfulness, creativity, and giving
Self Two the direction to go ahead and play.
Now, in order to do that you have to believe you have something to
say. At first, all it may be in your improvisation is to hit the note of the
chord with a certain rhythm. Remember, jazz is about rhythm. Then
you might want to think about the structure of the song, blues, classic
standard, funk. Keep those same chord notes and rhythm but give them
a little something extra here and there. Don’t be shy. That doesn’t mean
play loud when the song is a nice quiet ballad. Remember, you are
adding to the conversation, not stopping it or hijacking it. There are
then moving or staccato passages, slurs or march styles. How do they
fit together?
Don’t expect to go onstage in a public performance and know how to
do this. Improv comedy troupes practice. Then they practice some
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About Jazz
more. Improv does not mean off-the-cuff with no thought or training. It
means learning the words and sounds of jazz and making conversation
with other musicians. I wish I was able to do this as easily as I write
about it. But I am a slow-learner. I still have an inner critic that freezes
when he hears that “sour” note. I still have the perfectionist that says
he has to do it right or not do it at all. I still have the ADD dude who
gets distracted by a lot more than squirrels and then loses mindfulness,
flow, rhythm and creativity.
So, I go back to the practice room. I pull out the scales or find a song
on iReal Pro and try to get the feel for it. I listen to Miles Davis’ solo
on “So What” and feel the movement of an easy-flowing
improvisation. I take a walk and refocus my mindfulness skills. I do
some breathing meditation that gets me back in touch with me. Then I
work on it some more. It is a much slower process than I want it to be.
I can tend to get too busy. I have too many things to write or too many
concerts or gigs to prepare for. The hard stuff, like learning to talk jazz
with my trumpet is set aside.
You see, I am writing these posts as much for me as for you. I am
working on my Inner Game. I am reminding myself that I have a story
and a song. It is mine and I have been writing it for many years. Back
at that very first jazz camp I went to in the 90s one thing did become
clear to me. I improvise all the time in my daily life. Things happen
that I have to react to. As a preacher, I would regularly “ad lib” in the
middle of a sermon. All that was just improvising. I pulled in all my
knowledge and experiences, all the sermons I had written and
preached, all the people I had talked to, all the books I had read. Then
came the inspiration and I shared it when it happened. I can still do
that. I do it in lectures; I do it when giving training presentations. It is
almost as easy as falling off a bike for me. I couldn’t do that when I
started, of course. I wrote down every word of every sermon. I still
work from a manuscript (the score of the music?) and take off when
and where appropriate.
That’s all I need to learn to do with my trumpet. It is getting better. I
am learning. I don’t believe I will ever be done. Kind of like life!
You have to practice improvisation,
Let no one kid you about it.
-Art Tatum
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About Jazz
# 6
------------------------
Why can't jazz musicians just leave a melody alone?
-Peter Capaldi
The previous two posts have dealt with improvising, what could be
considered the mainstay of jazz. From small combos to big bands the
music is wide open for the possibility of composing on the fly. How
that improvised solo fits into the whole form of the particular song
varies with styles, size of the ensemble, abilities of different members
of the group. In some groups, for example, the first trumpet may not
have as many improvisation skills so they tend to play the written parts
while the second trumpet takes the improvised solos. In songs from the
Great American Songbook of standards, the well-known melody of the
song is shared around the different sections with one or two sections
devoted to the improvised solo.
In most instances, though, this is built on the originally composed
song. The song may be just the main theme (the head) and a closing
coda of the theme. In-between the soloists go off on their own
understandings of the song’s feel. The rhythm section often “comps”
under the solo. (Think Dave Brubeck’s amazingly steady piano in
“Take Five” under Paul Desmond’s wondrous solo.) In the beginning,
then, all of the music is someone’s composition. The original song or
theme or melody. Add to that the chord changes, tempo, mood,
rhythmic structure, and written accompaniment and you have the song
which will most likely change every time the group plays it.
That is jazz. But it requires that original song. It requires composing
something on which to build. It is why jazz musicians do not leave the
melody alone. They hear more than just the melody- they hear a whole
composition starting with the original melody. This is not something
new. Bach was known as a superb improvisor. For some of Mozart’s
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About Jazz
piano compositions, the solos are at times just a bare bones skeleton of
the piece. No one knows what Mozart played when he performed those
pieces. The full score never existed.
How does all this happen? How does any one of us move into
composition- either written scores or improvised solos? I have been
experimenting on and off with that in the past year. I have a bluegrass
medley that I would like to have our brass quintet play. I have been
working on an improvisation on the folk song made famous by the
Beach Boys and Kingston Trio- Sloop John B. I have some other
melodies that I have heard in my imagination and would someday like
to turn into a written composition, whether for jazz or brass quintet. I
figured this was a good place in this jazz series to talk about that and
see how it has fit together with so much else of what music is all about.
Here are the essentials as I have been discovering them:
• Listening
“What jazz are you listening to? How often are you listening?”
These are two important questions to ask yourself on a regular basis. In
order to begin to grasp what jazz music can be you have to listen. On
recordings; on the Internet; in person. Finding live, improvised jazz
can be difficult in some places, but it is worth the effort. Get in there,
watch the musicians, their interactions, their reactions. Listen to the
phrases and get into the groove. Don’t use it as background music. It’s
alive.
• Learning the language
The reason to listen is simple. Jazz music, like all music has its
own unique language. I’ve talked about this before- and I will again.
The learning for many of us is that initial listening. You may not
understand what it’s saying at first, but as you surround yourself with
the music the phrases and low of the music will begin to make sense.
• Listening
So, you listen some more.
• Singing your music
For me singing along was a great start to working on
composition. Sing the melody, sing a counter melody, sing a walking
bass line, sing the chord changes of a 12-bar blues, sing nonsense
syllables (scat singing), let the rhythm sing from within you.
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About Jazz
• Experimenting
Then pick up your horn and play over some songs you like. Get
an app like iReal Pro. Find web sites that have accompaniment tracks
available. Work with the Jamie Aebersold books and CDs. Some of
these will work better for you than others. For some reason I am still
struggling with the Aebersold resources but iReal Pro helps me. One of
my goals in the next few months is to double down on the Aebersold
and see if I can move past that barrier. Your experimenting will help
you get the feel of the language and you will be surprised (I have)
when something happens that you never thought you would be able to
do. Riff off the melody; play chord progressions; make the mistakes in
your practice room and figure out how not to make the same mistakes
more than once.
• Listening
Did I make it clear about the listening? By this time, it may even
be an idea on some of these to record and listen to yourself and your
solos. But don’t stop listening to others. The language skills grow from
the hearing, the imitating, the experimenting.
• Learn solos by ear- transcribe them
This is the most difficult for me. This is just like ear-training in
any language learning. It is just as essential in learning jazz. Even if we
never plan on doing much improvisation, to learn the solos, to improve
our ear for the language, will help make us better musicians overall and
will help the written scores become more identifiable and musical.
• Repeat
Go back to the top and start over.
As we do these things we are composing. We are making our own
music. I know that none of this is all that earth-shattering. I used to
think and hope that if I bought the right book, read the right
information, watched the right YouTube video that this would all fall
into place. It won’t. Aebersold books could line my shelves, but if I
don’t take the steps into the new and different, I won’t improve.
What this does is get me in touch with me- my music, my songs, my
soul. As I express that music, I am composing a whole new story to
add to the greater story around me. That is important. This is what we
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About Jazz
do every day in our daily lives- we compose something new out of
what has been around us. That something new can only come from us.
I can’t leave life alone in the same old rut. Jazz teaches me how to take
the risks to tell my story in a new language.
Last year jazz musician John Raymond, assistant professor of music in
jazz studies–trumpet at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music,
had this to say after he had spent some time focusing on composing.
At the end of the day, so much of composing (to me at least) is
about trusting who you are, what you love and about trusting
the music that YOU hear. Just like improvising, it's an
incredibly personal process and your goal is ultimately to be as
honest as you can be. (John Raymond, email, September 2016)
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# 7
------------------------
The bandstand is a sacred place.
--Wynton Marsalis
Big Band- a musical group of 16 - 20 musicians
• Built in many ways on the unique soulful sound of
saxophones.
• Set solidly on the bass foundation of the trombone
• Trumpets soaring over the top taking the group to new heights
• Held together by the rhythm section of piano, bass, guitar and
drums.
Behind it all were those genius composers and arrangers. Bassist
Marcus Miller commented once on his Miller Time show on Sirius XM
that the arranger is the mastermind. They took simple leads or complex
melodies and put them into a form that the Big Bands could use. Big
band history is the story of great arrangers- Billy Strayhorn, Sammy
Nestico, Neal Hefti, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, Joe Garland,
Jerry Gray, Gil Evans. Without these gifted arrangers, big band music
would probably never have made it.
By the late 1930s and into World War II, Big Band jazz was THE
popular music. Live radio broadcasts, local, regional and national,
brought the music into people’s homes like none before had quite
experienced. At the beginning of the war, the late Len Weinstock says
there were at least fifty nationally famous big dance bands in the US
and hundreds of others with local reputation. Weinstock says that big
band music “was such a positive morale booster that it is arguable
whether we could have won the war without it!” Glenn Miller’s “In the
Mood” as I have said, has often be called the “song that won World
War II.”
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About Jazz
Big Band music went into hiding after the war. It lost its widespread
popularity as radio and then television began to showcase rock and roll
and country to wider and wider audiences. Jazz became more of a
combo music. It was more and more expensive to maintain a working
national big band. Even the great ones struggled and found themselves
having to scrape. A revival did occur in the 1990s but it has never
reached the level of popularity of the original movement. As that was
happening, Weinstock wrote
Millions await its return. Believe me, we need it badly!
It is amazing that the popular music of an era has lost its popularity. As
a musician in a couple big bands, I have had the joy of seeing people
energized by the music. We play many gigs at senior housing and
nursing home facilities. This was the music of their generation- and
they are fading away. To see the late 80- and 90-year-olds swaying to
the music, or even getting up and dancing is one of my thrills. We start
playing “In the Mood” and a happy response comes back at us. The
drummer kicks off “Sing, Sing, Sing” and eyes light up. Even more
recent pop songs from the 60s and 70s get positive responses, partly
from the power of the big band style.
Fortunately, many schools do have jazz bands that are helping to keep
the music alive. There are dance venues that will have the “swing”
bands do live music dances. Many of the people on the floor when we
play these are not the older generation. Music moves people, and for
those who like to dance, swing is as much a dancing art as any other.
One of my memories from the 60s, when the big band era was not
doing well, was Lionel Hampton. I guess many groups were struggling
and it was not unusual to have someone of Hampton’s stature to play in
small venues- like high school gyms in rural north-central
Pennsylvania. I don’t remember the specifics of the dance, but I didn’t
go to dance, I went to hear Hampton and his band. It is now a
subliminal memory, perhaps having influenced me in my own love for
big band jazz.
For jazz musicians, big band can be quite a challenge. Some might say
that is even more of a challenge than combo work- or at least as
important. Again, bassist Marcus Miller had a whole 2-hour episode of
his Miller Time program on Sirius XM’s Real Jazz devoted to big band
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About Jazz
music. He referred to the classic and the new. He didn’t like the word
“old” applied to the music. He commented that every jazz musician
should spend time playing in a big band. There, he said, you learn a
great deal.
• You learn to blend your sound with the sound of the group.
• You have to be more aware of the dynamics because it isn’t
helpful to have one part stand out from the others.
• You have to be conscious of being in-tune. In a small combo
you can get away with it. In a big band, Miller said, you have
“twenty other cats looking at you” wondering when you’re
going to get it and tune up. [Now that IS life!]
Even more than that, he added, you begin to absorb the music itself.
You become a different musician. It changes you and how you
approach music. When I joined my first big band, I realized how
underwhelming I was. I knew and loved jazz, but not as a jazz
musician. I was a listener- an educated listener, but a listener
nonetheless. Big band jazz speaks the language of jazz and I was a
more “classical/concert band” trumpet player. I was comfortable
because that language had become ingrained. Jazz was new, even
down on that fourth part. The sound and rhythm, the two essentials of
great music, were different from what I was used to playing. I knew
them when I heard them but I didn’t know how to play them.
That was over twelve years ago now. I still play fourth. But now I
know the language. The music isn’t as strange to play as it was. I hear
the changes, feel the rhythm, listen to the others in the group and can
actually even adjust my sound. And I solo.
One other thing about big band music- it is essential to the ability to
speak the jazz language. Classic music of the 30s to the 50s is part of
who we are as musicians and as people. If I want to be able to be a jazz
musician- or even a jazz fan- in the 21st Century, I cannot, must not,
forget the roots of this amazing music. Yes, it is more than big band
and I will talk about that next week. But to understand why be bop and
hard bop became what they did, you have to know where they came
from. To understand Miles’ and Coltrane’s place in music history and
how they changed history, you have to know what they built on, and
that was the big band sound.
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It was swing at its most basic and most exciting.
Jazz is such a powerful cultural statement that
it's almost as if it's intertwined with society.
-Tom Harrell
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# 8
------------------------
I merely took the energy it takes to pout
and wrote some blues.
-Duke Ellington
I said toward the end of the previous post on big band music that
jazz musicians need to know the roots of jazz. We are the heirs of an
incredible tradition:
• Dixieland and ragtime
• Big band and be bop
• Hard bop and fusion
• Latin and free jazz
But there’s one more- perhaps the underlying roots of much
American-based music.
The Blues.
I’m not sure we can understand jazz without at least knowing
something about the blues. It is often the first type of music a jazz
musician is encouraged to learn. The chord progressions are simple and
repetitive. Yet it informs, shapes, colors, and even defines Louis
Armstrong and George Gershwin, Robert Johnson, Willie Nelson, and
Stevie Ray Vaughan. It is a music of life as it is experienced every day.
Wynton Marsalis called it “everyone’s music” and said this about it in
his book, Higher Ground:
The blues trains you for life’s hurdles with a heavy dose of
realism. John Philip Sousa’s music is stirring. It’s national
music of great significance. But Sousa’s is a vision of
transcendent American greatness: We are the good guys from
sea to shining sea. The blues says that we are not always good.
Or bad. We just are. (P. 52)
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Its roots can be traced to the late 1800s in a melding of African-
American work songs and European-American folk music.
Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts,
chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form,
ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is
characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale
and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues
is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually
thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also an important part of
the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trancelike
rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues)
Robert Johnson is perhaps the paradigm for blues musicians. Only
in a bargain with the devil himself could music of such power and
emotion develop. The Faustian story of such bargains is as old as
human mythology, but is reserved only for the most incredible and
impressive accomplishments. Johnson’s artistry in a short lifetime was
powered by the incredible and impressive sound of the blues.
Its simplicity is what makes it so infinitely malleable. That basic
three-chord, twelve-bar progression can be the basis of every emotion.
It can express the depths of sadness to the heights of ecstasy. They can
underlie Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess or the “Alleluia” in a worship
service. B. B. King can bend them into dozens of melodies or W. C.
Handy folds them into the St. Louis Blues. When you have finished
listening to a blues, you know you have been touched by that which is
greater than any of us. (Greatest Blues Songs list at Digital Dream
Door- http://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_bluesong.html)
The Blues contain so much joy and
sadness at the same time.
-Bill Charlap
In that way, the blues can be our own personal guide into ourselves.
An essential element to any of us who want to play music- blues, jazz,
rock or classical is to be some kind of self-aware. It may only be within
our own experiences of emotion that we can put that into our music. Or
maybe the music itself digs into our psyche and finds those emotions
and blends them into itself. I have no doubt that music is THAT alive
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About Jazz
and THAT powerful. In the blues is the foundation of what that means.
Marsalis says it begins in “pain” but it will always have that element of
“things will be better” someday. Even in the blues there is a sense of
hope. That, I believe is the hope that lies within us, the view that we
can get through this. Sometimes it’s hard to find, but it is there.
This is where the music and life intersect with the blues. It can be very
difficult for any of us to live in the midst of pain and uncertainty.
Somehow or another I believe we have to find outlets for our feelings,
ways of expressing our common humanity. The alternative to that is
dangerous to our health and happiness. We stuff it; we put on a “happy
face;” we deny our concerns, our fears and our needs. The more we do
that the unhealthier we become. Blues becomes a way to let that out
either though listening, singing, or playing. Part of that comes from the
very repetitive nature of the blues form. We can fall into the rhythm
and the groove to be carried along to new places in life and soul.
One other piece of the blues (as well as jazz, in general) is its place in
the American story. It may be easy to overlook the fact that this music
is a gift to our national spirit and soul from an oppressed people. It is
very much American music. It’s an expression of soul in spite of pain,
hope in spite of fear, grace in spite of hate. Wynton’s thought that it is
“everyone’s music” is beyond argument. Perhaps in these days of fear,
pain, and hate, the blues can lead us into some new ways of sharing
with each other. Perhaps we can hear the pain and be willing to do
something about it. Maybe we can see the hate and refuse to allow it to
conquer. In the end we can allow the American soul which includes all
of us of myriad ancestries, faith expressions, racial identities, or sexual
understandings. In that we will hopefully discover the power of the
blues.
The Blues are the true facts of life expressed in
words and song, inspiration, feeling, and understanding.
-Willie Dixon
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About Jazz
# 9
------------------------
There are two kinds of music.
Good music, and the other kind.
-Duke Ellington
Back in the first jazz post I wondered where to begin with this
series on jazz. I am still wondering and asking that question. Eight
weeks is nothing in the great flow of this music. In its past century,
jazz has transformed American life and been transformed by it. Yet its
power has never diminished. Hearing a Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll
Morton, or Buddy Bolden recording today is just as transformative as
ever. The music lives! I could explore all the ideas and sidelights of
jazz for the rest of my life and probably only scratch the surface.
I turned to Wynton Marsalis for some insight, then, as I came to
this incomplete ending to the series. I have mentioned his book, written
with Geoffrey Ward, Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can
Change Your Life (2008, Random House). It is a good introduction to
jazz on a popular level. In his opening chapter he describes his
experience in learning and experiencing jazz:
This is some of what I found:
The most prized possession in this music is your own
unique sound. Through sound, jazz leads you to the core of
yourself and says “Express that.” Through jazz, we learn that
people are never all one way. Each musician has strengths and
weaknesses.
Jazz also reminds you that you can work things out with
other people. It’s hard, but it can be done. … Jazz urges you to
accept the decisions of others. Sometimes you lead, sometimes
you follow- but you can’t give up, no matter what….
On a basic level, this music led me to a deeper respect for
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About Jazz
myself. In order to improvise something meaningful, I had to
find and express whatever I had inside me worth sharing with
other people. But at the same time, it led me to a new
awareness of others, because my freedom of expression was
directly linked to the freedom of others on the bandstand.
—pp. 11-12.
Marsalis clearly understands the inner power of music to make
each of us who play it more than we are without it. Each of those
paragraphs speaks to us as musicians. First, he talks about us finding
our “sound.” On one level this means he skills and development of our
technique. Because it is “jazz” we find a freedom to develop and
express that. While there may be variations, it is very difficult for a
musician to express those sounds in a “classical” piece.
Second, Marsalis sees the interpersonal musical interactions in
jazz as a great paradigm for getting along with others. You can’t take
your horn and go home in the middle of a gig because you didn’t like
the way the tenor player took the theme. Instead, you have to pay
attention to the tenor’s message and expressions and see where it fits
into your experience. Maybe that will mean developing a contrasting
style or building the theme on a different chord. But you can’t deny the
tenor player the right to his freedom of expression. It could start an
interesting dialogue- musically on the bandstand, afterward while
relaxing, or as a metaphor for how you can learn to interact with others
day in and day out.
Third, Marsalis makes the obvious- and essential connection. In order
for these first two to happen, we have to dig into ourselves. And we
must respect ourselves. We must believe that in our solos, duets, or
even just section work, we have something worth sharing. Maybe my
section work as a fourth trumpet doesn’t get out into the crowd like the
solos do. But how can I make that chord sound out when I have the
one “blue note” in the section? How do I play that note so it enhances
the sound of the section and the band? Do I believe I have a right to
make that simple statement in that single note? Next it leads me to pay
attention to the rest of the section and the group and give them the
same freedom I want for myself and the same respect I would hope to
get from them.
Wynton then adds:
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The value of jazz is the same for listeners and players alike
because the music, in its connection to feelings, personal
uniqueness, and improvising together, provides solutions to
basic problems of living. -p. 13
Couldn’t say it any better! So, I won’t.
One more thought comes out of Marsalis’s reflections. First, though, a
quote, again, from Duke Ellington:
Put it this way: Jazz is a good barometer of freedom…
In its beginnings, the United States of America spawned certain
ideals of freedom
and independence through which, eventually, jazz was evolved,
and the music is so free that many people say it is the only
unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom
yet produced in this country.
-Duke Ellington
Here’s where Marsalis takes the same thought. He puts jazz into the
flow of American life, not just in the past 115 years, but representative
of the flow of our overall evolution as a nation:
Knowing jazz music adds another dimension to your historical
perspective…. Jazz music is America’s past and its potential,
summed up and sanctified and accessible to anybody who
learns to listen to, feel, and understand it. The music can
connect us to our earlier selves and to our better selves to
come. It can remind us of where we fit on the time line of
human achievement, an ultimate value of art.
-p.13
The melding of musical styles, melodies, and history may be nowhere
clearer than in jazz’s development. European folk styles from the
colonies and songs from Africa laid foundations of rhythm and
emotion. The Black Church added the preaching style of call and
response. Ethnic roots of Irish music and New Orleans parades gave
movement to the musicians. Listen closely to jazz and these will echo
from the past and into our collective subconscious imagination. Feel it
move YOU.
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About Jazz
But even more to the point may be the role jazz itself played in the 20 th
Century in creating a revolution in racial acceptance. When the music
began, and for decades after that, it was impossible for white and black
musicians to play together. Even when they could it was impossible for
the black musicians to stay in the hotels where white musicians did.
Movies were edited so they could edit OUT for southern audiences of
the black musicians’ scenes showed them playing with their white
colleagues. Jazz music’s influence on the civil rights movement is an
essential part of its long-term success. Miles Davis saw this when he
said:
Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it
around.
We have covered a lot of ground very superficially in these eight posts.
Any one of them could be the start of a series on its own connecting
music as a whole and jazz in particular, musicians and listeners, and
finally, music and life. Jazz plays an important part in my life and will
continue to do so. I keep learning and experimenting. It is a neverending
joy and experience.
It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.
-Dizzy Gillespie
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