Thinking in Jazz

by Berliner, Paul F.

  Performing with renowned bands, newcomers hone their skills and expand their initial store of information about jazz. Generations of jazz musicians have described their training in bands by using metaphors of formal education. Just as Zutty Singleton likened his early engagements in New Orleans riverboat bands to conservatory training,9 for Lonnie Hillyer, “working with Charles Mingus on and off for those twelve years was like school.” George Duvivier describes Coleman Hawkins’s band as “the University,” and Red Rodney compares his experience in Charlie Parker’s band to being in graduate school. What band members learned from one another “depended on what they wanted to know,” Duvivier explains. “Sometimes, it was a simple thing like ‘How do you play this figure?’ or ‘What was the chord that this was based on?’ Whatever it was, they always ended up learning more than they asked because the fellows were so enthusiastic about helping people.” Miles Davis recalls his professional affiliation, when he was fifteen, with Eddie Randle’s band in which older members of the trumpet section constantly monitored his efforts, correcting even the subtle problems that arose in his breathing technique and warning him about the potential physical harm in performing with air pockets in his cheeks.10

  In similar spirit, experts guide younger members in applying their technical knowledge by constantly rehearsing and performing with them, thereby transmitting their deep sense of responsibility for the music. When Kenny Washington joined Betty Carter’s band, she informed him that “all” she could do was to teach him what she knew and let him go. Carter could “be hard” on young musicians because “she really cared about the tradition and wanted people to carry it on. ‘I won’t be here forever,’ she used to say.”

  With time and experience, newcomers gradually accept greater responsibilities within bands, not only serving as soloists, but contributing original ideas for repertory and musical arrangements. As they become more confident, many form bands of their own. Over the course of such developments, changes in the ways others regard emerging musicians reinforce their growing confidence in their own abilities. It can be a dramatic turning point for the musicians when younger aspirants approach them with questions, placing them, for the first time, in the position of adviser. Subsequently, whether visiting their home-towns or touring from site to site, they routinely share their expertise through the very institutions that contributed to their own early growth. They hang out with peers and youngsters who come to hear them at nightclubs, form loose bonds of apprenticeship with especially promising students, and sit in with various bands during formal engagements and at jam sessions.

  As a consequence of the interaction of musicians, information acquired in any part of the country concerning the latest jazz compositions, innovative improvisation methods, alternative techniques of instrument performance, and outstanding new talent spreads quickly through the jazz community’s national network. In San Francisco, a local trumpeter learns special technical exercises from his counterpart in a visiting band from Boston, exercise that the musician, in turn, had learned from a player who had received them from his trumpet teacher in Rochester. In Chicago, young musicians listen spellbound as an instrument repairer regales them with stories about the touring artists from New York who visit his shop—John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy—chronicling their aesthetic preferences for saxophone reeds and recounting the lightning speed with which they traded improvised phrases back and forth while testing their instruments.11

  Affectionate, often colorful, personal accounts from the jazz scene frequently accompany the exchange of technical information among players. Some of the more revered of these accounts—a veritable repertory of cautionary tales and exempla—concern the sharing of hard-earned professional wisdom among jazz greats. For instance, advice that Miles Davis gave to John Coltrane and other band members in various backstage incidents, recounted frequently among acquaintances, guides many improvisers facing artistic dilemmas comparable to those of their renowned counterparts.

  Paying Dues as Learners

  Although the jazz community’s largely supportive atmosphere is a prominent theme in personal narratives by improvisers, this is not the complete story. Students face enormous challenges in mastering both their respective instruments and the complex musical language for which, until recently, there have been few written aids. Moreover, the driving passion of the experts, even those who assume the role of teacher, is, of course, their own music. None assume exclusive control over the training of their students, nor do they typically provide a program of instruction comprehensive enough to form the complete basis for the education of students. Even the young musician in a lengthy apprenticeship with a master artist-teacher supplements this training with various other learning opportunities. The jazz community’s traditional educational system places its emphasis on learning rather than on teaching, shifting to students the responsibility for determining what they need to learn, how they will go about learning, and from whom.12 Consequently, aspiring jazz musicians whose educational background has fostered a fundamental dependence on teachers must adopt new approaches to learning. Veterans describe the trials and tribulations that accompany the learner’s efforts to absorb and sort out musical knowledge as examples of “paying dues.”

  Amid the jazz community’s kaleidoscopic array of information, students glimpse varied elements as they appear and reappear in different settings and are interpreted by the performers whom the students encounter. Learners synthesize disparate facts in an effort to understand the larger tradition. Gary Bartz “basically learned one thing” from each of the musicians who assisted him—”saxophone technique” from one, “dynamics and articulation” from another, “chords” from a third. Similarly, an aspiring pianist learned the general principles of jazz theory from Barry Harris, discovered “how to achieve the independence of both hands and how to create effective left hand bass lines” under pianist Jaki Byard’s tutelage, and expanded his repertory with someone else. Greg Langdon “worked on a lot of things all at the same time” by playing in different bands, attending jam sessions, and taking private saxophone and solfeggio lessons. He would “get a snatch of information from a workshop,” and he would later play duets with a musician he met in the practice studios “who’d turn me on to something else. Things I learned in one situation would be amplified in another.”

  If certain encounters with artists deepen the insights of learners, other encounters may seem to contradict their impressions, temporarily baffling and discouraging them. In one setting they are urged to adopt practices or to conceptualize the music in ways that in another are criticized sharply. Furthermore, the willingness of experts to share their knowledge can itself depend on youngsters proving themselves to be “sincere, capable,” and generally “worthy of attention because there are so many people trying to play jazz” (TT; FH). Some veterans favor rather aggressive methods of testing the mettle of newcomers that, however disconcerting initially, ultimately serve as competitive bonding routines that establish close ties of friendship.13

  Students may also find their learning programs hampered by competitive aspects of professional life that arise from the insecurity and self-interest of those whom they encounter. One singer gives an insightful appraisal of such situations:

  Competitiveness, jealousy, and resentment are inherent in the jazz world. The economic success that any jazz performer can have is limited by the fact that they play jazz, so like any minority group, jazz musicians sometimes turn on their own members. Sometimes, this is manifested when you meet people for the second time; there is this little drama of “I don’t know you; have I met you before?” Or people will come into a club and act as if you’re not there. It hurts, you know. Also, a lot of musicians could have been a lot more helpful and supportive. You hire musicians when you have a gig, but when you’re out of work and they’re working, they don’t hire you. Sometimes they have contacts with record companies and won’t put in a good word for you. Or they won’t share information about their contacts
for tours or festivals.

  In the face of hostility or indifference, young musicians may require of themselves considerable gumption to make their talents known to band leaders. Charles Mingus “used to push” Ronald Shannon Jackson “rudely out of his way” whenever he asked to be considered for the group. Jackson eventually forced the issue strategically by sitting in at the Village Gate with Toshiko Akiyoshi when she performed as “the opening act” before Mingus’s band. At one point, says Jackson, “I heard this loud clapping right behind me. ‘Yeah, I like your playing,’ “ Mingus declared. It was then that Mingus invited Jackson to perform with his band.

  Once within renowned bands, new members must sometimes establish credibility before gaining full acceptance from fellow players. Booker Little and Art Davis became good friends eventually, but in the beginning Davis thought that Little seemed not to accept him.

  I had to prove myself. It was like paying your dues. Who was I to be coming into the band at that time? I hadn’t worked with anybody else of note before joining Max Roach’s band. Anyway, we were living in the same hotel, and after practicing with the band, Booker and George Coleman and myself would stay behind and practice together. After Coleman left, it would just be me and Booker. He had incredible endurance as a trumpet player and always wanted to keep rehearsing after everyone else had quit. At the same time, he continued to be standoffish. But one day, after we finished playing, he asked me if I wanted to go to dinner with him. I knew then that I had been accepted.

  The practice of paying dues also enters into the dynamics of jam sessions.14 In New York City in 1957, “many well-known musicians were cold and critical,” and when a newcomer approached the bandstand, they would play “some very difficult song or take a fast tempo that they thought you would sound bad on, so that they could laugh at you or show you up” (HO). Similarly, the house band at a nightclub in San Francisco developed a reputation for capriciously changing the key of a piece during performances; whenever a soloist failed to follow them, they would stop playing and leave the stage in contempt.

  Such behavior set the general tone for the interaction of the other participants. One evening a newcomer, attempting to establish rapport with a saxophonist and elicit his sympathy, described his difficulty mastering a Charlie Parker composition replete with awkward fingerings. The performer listened patiently until he finished speaking, then said, “Well, brother, I guess that some of us have it and others just don’t.” In another instance, a young player who had mustered his courage to sit in with the house band politely inquired of another musician in the audience about the piece’s harmony. “Use your ear!” the veteran snapped. The novice quickly retook his seat, both to recover from this slight and to listen more closely before proceeding to the bandstand. The young player’s solo, insecure from its outset, faltered to the progression’s close, at which point the soloist up next placed a foot on the small of his back and sent him sliding into the wings.

  In the heat of embarrassment, a rebuff seems to indicate sentiment little more noble than meanness; of course, in some cases, there may be no more to it than that. In other cases, such slights simply reflect the tradition’s high performance standards, revealing the prevailing view that students learn best when they figure out things for themselves. Indeed, there is little inclination to coddle beginners, for they must be discouraged from taking a passive stance in their education. “If you got in there and started goofing like a lot of cats do,” Lou Donaldson explains, “they’d say, ‘You go in the woodshed a little bit.’ You’d hear what they were playing and say, ‘Well, man, if I don’t know that song, I’d better go check it out.’“

  By testing the resilience of emerging musicians, veterans also determine those who warrant direct assistance. Barry Harris and his peers “could be pretty hard on musicians in those days by chasing them away from sessions, but we never refused them when they came back and wanted to try again.” Correspondingly, students attempting to regain the respect of the performers who challenged them eventually learn to turn failure and humiliation into the resolve to overcome weaknesses in their musicianship.

  Maturity comes with experience, however, and the dues exacted from young musicians in the meantime cause confusion and pain to those trying to gain realistic appraisal of their own abilities. “In New York, I’d sit in with some great players I had known from records, and the music would sound bad and feel bad,” a pianist remembers. “I’d think they didn’t like my playing and I’d blame myself. Sometimes, the heavy players themselves would mess up because they weren’t as capable of playing as their reputations had it, and they’d blame their problems on you. Or they would deliberately mess with you, and you’d go home and cry or feel like you couldn’t play. It was only later that I realized that the problem wasn’t me; it was somebody else. You have to learn everything the hard way.”

  Acceptance in the jazz community depends not only on how well, newcomers weather their encounters with established performers, but on how aggressively they pursue them. Harold Ousely was “sort of timid” when he first moved to New York from Chicago. “I didn’t feel relaxed enough to approach musicians I didn’t already know.” Formerly, in Chicago, most of Ousley’s “music time” had been spent practicing, with other musicians who “were all trying to get their craft together,” but in New York, most of his “music time” was spent actually performing. In retrospect, Ousely considers this to have been his mistake. If he had gone to the homes of the musicians “where the cats were practicing and hanging out,” then he “could have gotten into what was happening downtown in New York. You could get to know players like Coltrane and get a certain camaraderie going, practicing and performing together.”

  The experiences of learners also reflect the distinctive atmospheres that characterize particular communities and regions over time. When Jimmy Robinson came to New York City from Los Angeles, the scene seemed “strange” to him. He had become used to the “closeness among musicians in Los Angeles, but everybody in New York was doing their own thing. Everybody was a star here.” From Curtis Fuller’s perspective, the camaraderie among performers in New York was itself “much deeper” in the early sixties than in the eighties because everyone “likes to play it safe now. People don’t want you to know that they don’t know this or that. They get uptight and don’t want to expose themselves to criticism, so they won’t get together. You’ve got a lot of individualism today.”

  Finally, the ordeals of students are all unique, depending on personality, ethnicity, age, gender, and myriad other factors that affect the chemistry of relationships between students and teachers. Of equal importance is the predisposition of experts. Some, like Barry Harris, are dedicated teachers with boundless generosity.15 This is not always the case, however. Doc Cheatham recalls that Freddie Keppard “performed the trumpet with a handkerchief over his right hand and another player performed with his back to the audience,” each preventing onlookers from learning his finger patterns. In his youth, Cheatham approached renowned performers cautiously “because you never knew who was willing to show you something and who was not.”

  Formal Educatioual Institutions

  Besides the jazz community’s own institutions for learning, improvisers have benefited in varying degrees from colleges, universities, and conservatories. Formerly, the role of such institutions was indirect. They extended the rudimentary music education that students received in public schools by providing intermediate or advanced training in the interpretation of Western classical music literature, instrument performance, and, occasionally, theory and composition. From the earliest days of jazz, influential artists have studied classical music at private conservatories or acquired technical performance skills from teachers with conservatory and academic backgrounds. In New Orleans, Jelly Roll Morton and other musicians frequently attended concerts at the French Opera House and immersed themselves in compositions by Verdi, Massenet, Donizetti, and other masters. Ultimately, associations between jazz artists trained by
ear in African American music and those with additional academic training blend differing worlds of musical knowledge, thus contributing to a mutual artistic exchange that continually enriches jazz tradition.16

  Musicians have also benefited—increasingly since the fifties—from jazz training at formal educational institutions. Some, patterned upon the conservatory model, have roots in the pedagogical efforts of William Handy, James Reese Europe, and Len Bowden in the late teens and early twenties.17 The concern with formalizing jazz education initially arose as a response to the Eurocentric values of the American academic music establishment, ill equipped and indisposed to teach jazz at the time. In later years, the commercial dominance of rock provided additional impetus, threatening the economic base of the jazz community’s own educational system. Pioneering programs establishing jazz education on an equal footing with classical music education include Schillinger House in Boston in 1945 (later the Berklee School of Music) founded by Lawrence Berk, and the Lenox School of Jazz in Massachusetts in 1957, with summer clinics directed by pianist John Lewis.18 The intention in establishing these programs and institutions was to ensure the continuing transmission of jazz and, in a sense, legitimize its study.

  The American civil rights movement of the 1960s helped draw attention to the important cultural components of the African American community nationwide, dramatizing the timeliness of the programs mentioned above and galvanizing support for similar ventures elsewhere in the public and private sector. In 1968, the formation of the National Jazz Educators Association, an affiliate of the Music Educators National Conference, reflected a growing awareness of the role that secondary schools might play in supporting the jazz tradition. The civil rights movement also served as a spearhead for change within the nation’s institutions of higher education, prompting the design of new courses on African American culture. Several conservatories, colleges, and universities hired jazz performers to assist in developing relevant music curricula, this within a larger trend to establish departments of African American studies. African American music courses and specialized jazz programs multiplied across the country by the mid-eighties.