Completing the rhythm section’s circle of interaction are exchanges between bass players and drummers (exx. 13.9a-c). “When I’m listening to the other musicians and thinking about the form of a piece,” Chuck Israels explains,
there are little things that arise which I have to negotiate. Suppose I’m coming to a bar in the piece in which I would normally play four notes. The chord progression at that point dictates to me that, in order to keep the four-beat quarter-note rhythm going, I can play either four roots of the chords or I could play two roots and passing notes in between them. But suppose, just before I get to that bar, the drummer plays a pattern that suggests a quarter-note triplet feeling and I would like to latch onto that rhythmic feeling and play the pattern with him. That creates an instant problem, because I had intended to play four notes to the measure and now I need six notes for the two triplets. Where do you find them? Sometimes, you can find them chromatically between the main chord tones or in a chromatic approach from either below or above the chord tones. Sometimes, you find them in an extra secondary dominant chord or in a pattern of thirds. Those are the tricky little problems that arise when you play with other musicians.
While carrying on their discourse, the members of the rhythm section ultimately provide support for the soloist, whose entrance increases the demands upon their attention and musical sensitivity. Rhythm section players commonly require a period of time for their own internal adjustment as a prelude to the discourse. “Years ago you let the rhythm section start playing by themselves at the beginning of the evening,” Jimmy Robinson observes. “If they were having any trouble, you just let them play to get the kinks out. After they’d got the feeling for one another and got themselves together, then the horns joined them:” When experienced improvisers perform together, such adjustments can occur almost instantly. Just as often, however, musicians need a few pieces or even the better part of a set to lock into meaningful conversation and invite soloists into their lively interplay.
Soloists and Rhythm Section Players
Although soloists join the performance as featured speakers and temporary leaders of the group’s journey, they typically rely upon the rhythm section to provide signposts for the performance’s direction. Many horn players listen specifically to the drummer’s constant hi-hat cymbal for the beat. Others focus upon the swinging ride cymbal pattern, which enhances their improvisations by providing, as Curtis Fuller puts it, a “smooth carpet” for them to “walk on,” or in Paul Wertico’s words, a rhythmic “drone to ride on.” Representing another approach, veterans in Chicago taught Doc Cheatham “to listen to the bass” because it carries “the time and the harmony.” As long as he focuses his attention on the bass during his solos, Cheatham admits, “I can’t make too many mistakes:” To gain his own bearings, Lou Donaldson also listens to the bass “for the harmonic pivot points” in chord sequences, which, he explains, help him “keep track of the changing tonal centers of pieces.” If a piece is “highly rhythmic, I will play mostly off the bass rhythm.”
The rhythm section commonly provides more than structural markers amid its multilayered backdrop of musical counterpoint. At times, rhythm section players interject punctuations and unique melodic figurations between the soloist’s phrases in brief antiphonal response to them. As often, players offer simultaneous commentary; their comping patterns overlap or interlock with the soloist’s figures, or anticipate their elements precisely, contributing cohesion to the performance. New lines of interpretation can occur to them in ongoing inspiration, as soloists hear and feel features of their ideas reinforced by their counterparts. Moreover, within the reciprocal relationships between soloists and supporting players, interesting ideas that originate in any part can influence others, leading to various kinds of imitative interplay. Lonnie Hillyer “plays well” with Leroy Williams because he can “draw from him.” Hearing Williams play a tasteful rhythmic pattern in his drum accompaniment, Hillyer might “play it back to him.” Conversely, Williams might hear Hillyer “play a certain rhythm and play it back.” Art Farmer notices that to initiate a longer chain of events, a soloist sometimes performs “strong rhythmic patterns just to wake up the drummer” and then “tries to respond to whatever” the partner “does in reaction to that.”
Describing this relationship from the drum chair, Williams explains that his role is “to keep the music swinging while embellishing what goes on around me. I’m constantly playing, feeding, and helping everyone, making each soloist sound as good as I can.” Ronald Shannon Jackson elaborates from the same perspective:
The role of the drum in Betty Carter’s group was not just a time-keeping device. It was to accent what she was singing. She scatted and phrased the words of the songs with such finesse and style, with such rhythmic pull, that it was like the drum and her voice were one thing. Betty was very rhythmic, and she loved to play with the drummer with her voice. She used scat syllables to sing the same type of things I could play with my left hand on the drums. She’d sing along with what I was playing or improvise on top of it, and that would be like magic for the audience. We were still calling her “Betty Bebop” at that time, because she could sing the same rudiments with her voice that you could play on the drums.
Michael Carvin once displayed the skillful drummer’s ability to play the improvised lines of soloists along with them at a New York performance. Phrasing together with Walter Bishop Jr., Carvin invented drum patterns that not only began and ended with the pianist’s melodies but also anticipated their accents.7 Within these phrases, Carvin sometimes duplicated Bishop’s precise rhythmic figures and at other times provided them with a rhythmic counterpoint. For further variation, he would switch to a steady swing pattern, periodically filling the rests between the soloist’s phrases with a press roll.
Paul Wertico starting honing such aspects of interaction early, already sensitive, as a drum student, to the harmonic and melodic aspects of music, especially the changing “directions” and patterns of tension and release in a composed melody or in a soloist’s improvisation. Wertico learned the essential lesson of responding to such changes by listening to figures played by drummers like Roy Haynes, studying their precise effects on the surrounding parts. There was a difference, for example, between “suddenly striking” the cymbal and bass drum together, which weighs the music down, and striking an open cymbal alone, which creates “a feeling of expanding space.” With increasing sophistication in such matters, Wertico would guide his accompaniment by assessing drum set patterns for their likely musical and “emotional effects” on the performance. Accordingly, changes in the musical expression of the other group members also influence the drummer’s choice of figures and their orchestration (exx. 13.10a-c).8
The soloist’s relationship with pianists is equally important. “The piano player might just independently do something as part of the rhythm section that is attention-getting, something he is just directing at me,” Lee Konitz points out. “If I hear the piano player play a figure, I’ll stop for a moment and then react to that. I’ll do something as a result of what he did. Or maybe the piano player does something that is a reaction to something I’ve just played. That’s a surefire way of getting my attention.”
Melodic invention is one aspect of this type of exchange. When John Lewis accompanies Milt Jackson’s solos, Lewis does what Tommy Turrentine calls “sub-soloing. Instead of just saying ching, ching, ching, ching, he’ll do that for a while and then play a little melody in octaves.” Although such figures can stand simply as a counterpoint to the soloist’s part, at times soloists incorporate them into their performances. Lonnie Hillyer was once performing with pianist Walter Davis when Davis played a pattern behind him that was “really wild, really outside” harmonically—“some Godforsaken interval”—that Hillyer immediately “reached out and grabbed” for his solo. “I like that kind of spontaneity,” Hillyer declares. The reverse can be equally exciting. Greg Langdon describes an early band whose phenomenal pianist could
“pick up whatever the soloist played, either duplicating it or doing something like it instantly.” This was a “great experience” for Langdon, who had “never experienced anything like it before” (exx. 13.11a-d). Once learners have absorbed such conventions for sympathetic interaction, they soon begin to imagine responses of rhythm section players to their own improvisations, even when practicing alone (LH).
The pianist’s accompanying figures can also provide a general rhythmic impetus or precise rhythmic ideas. Patti Bown strives to provide a “foundation” for soloists by inventing “some kind of rhythmic pattern that would make it interesting for them to play and to work in and out of:” Soloists express admiration for pianists who “have a way of comping that has a strong rhythmic feel. They will anticipate the beat a little, putting a little rhythmic push into it, adding life to the music” (AF). Vea Williams agrees. “I love pianists who enhance or let me feed off what they’re doing. Good accompanists like Norman Simmons or Albert Dailey know how to let a singer sing,” she explains. “They’ll play things that will give you ideas on how to expand a phrase or how to string out a word in a spontaneous and unique way.” This requires versatility as well as sensitivity in musical interaction. Freddie Green praises Count Basie, who, as an accompanist, “always seems to know the right thing to play ... making the rhythm smooth ... [and] contribut[ing] the missing things” (exx. 13.12a-c).9
In addition to setting forth melodic and rhythmic options, pianists stimulate soloists through selected chord voicings. Ultimately, both soloists and pianists need to grasp each other’s interpretation of harmony, one through chord voicings and the other through the melodic line. “When you change the harmony a little in your solo and pianists hear it;” John McNeil explains, “then they should echo you a bit or play a chord voicing in such a way that it will complement what you’ve just played and spur you on to something else. Joanne Brackeen is one of my favorite pianists to play with;” he asserts. “She doesn’t use a lot of space, but she really listens well. She always plays things that go with the things that you play. When I play with her, I’m rarely conscious that she’s there, except that everything sounds real good. We’re just into the flow of it together:”
In Art Farmer’s view,
pianists can be the best musicians in the group. Sometimes, they know far more than anybody else in the band, and they can play things in many different ways. Fred Hersch is a good example. He’s very well trained and knows a lot of things. If I say, “Well, this piece calls for this, Fred;” then he can do it. He gives each piece the respect it should have. The thing that really makes the music sound good is the way the pianists voice their chords. Some people leave you space and give you some freedom at the same time they’re leading you in a certain way. I’ll listen to how the pianist voices a chord, and I’ll get an idea of what note would go well with it. I’ll get an idea of what starting note to use for my solo.
Curtis Fuller adds that when Bill Evans plays “real pretty chords;” their leading tones can be very suggestive, “opening up the soloist’s ears:” Wynton Marsalis comments along similar lines. Pianists “don’t have to put every note in the chord,” he suggests. “To find the best possible choice is the thing; four notes can sound like a thousand if they’re the right ones:”
Finally, there are the mutual reactions of soloists and bass players. The bass player’s contributions can be as critical as the pianist’s in determining the harmonic complexion of the music. “If Harold Land and Bobby Hutcherson were playing a chord like a major seventh chord, they would voice it in fourths;” Rufus Reid recalls. “The harmony was more open that way. If I changed the bass note I was playing, all of a sudden the sound of the whole chord would be different.” In equally dramatic terms, a bass player who temporarily switches to a repeating pedal point, suspending a detailed representation of the progression for “a more general articulation of tonality”—perhaps the tonic or dominant of the piece’s key—offers “the pianist and soloist considerable harmonic latitude.”10 Similarly, when a bass player “takes the chord progression in a different way” than Tommy Turrentine expects, it can change his thinking and influence the course of his solo (exx. 13.13a-f).
Besides praising bassists’ imaginative harmonic concepts, musicians praise their time-feel or swing-feel, their sound, and the shapes of their lines. Kenny Barron describes the experience of performing with inventive bass players like Ron Carter, whose “rhythmic concept is different and ... choice of notes sometimes can be very unusual.... When the chord sequence itself isn’t chromatic, he may find a chromatic line that will work and I’ll say, ‘Oh, yeah?,’” Correspondingly, the exchange of melodic-rhythmic elements is common between the bass and solo parts. Patti Bown likes “to have a bass player feed me some energetic ideas to playoff of.” Conversely, Lonnie Hillyer remembers Charles Mingus imitating things that the soloists played in his band, making “for a conversation” (exx. 13. 14a-b). In addition to imitative interplay, soloist and bass player interact through regulating contrapuntal features of their parts. Chuck Israels generally appreciates a bassist’s “contrary or oblique motion” in relation to a solo line, but acknowledges musical situations in which “sudden parallel motion becomes the very best thing to do.”
Tommy Flanagan and Red Mitchell revealed perfect rapport between solo pianist and bass player in their duo at a New York performance. Their patterns seemed to melt into one another, with only the acoustical peculiarities of their instruments causing their performances to separate periodically, like streams diverging. When Flanagan introduced a radically different rhythmic figure at the opening of a chorus, a look of surprise and good-natured fun spread across Mitchell’s face. Seizing a portion of the new figure as a template for his own improvisations, he laid discrete bass patterns onto the piano’s evolving melodic-harmonic texture as if matching pieces of a mosaic in progress. In acknowledgment of the successful fit, the musicians exchanged warm smiles of admiration before turning their concentration inward.
Such rewarding interplay depends in the first place upon the improviser’s keen aural skills and ability to grasp instantly the other’s musical ideas. In a sense, these talents represent the culmination of years of rigorous training begun in students’ initial efforts to acquire a jazz vocabulary. In this effort, serious attention goes into copying recorded solos by diverse instrumentalists and practicing translating to their own instrument’s idiomatic language, patterns performed outside its range or obscured by alien timbres and techniques. Ultimately, students must learn to exercise these sensibilities proficiently in performance, as they concentrate simultaneously on their own parts. It requires, in effect, “divid[ing] your senses.” That is the “real difficulty.”11
Akira Tana elaborates, “The goal is to mesh your sound with all the other instruments and to create a balanced group sound. I don’t just mean this in terms of volume. I’m talking about balancing the figures you play with all the things that you hear coming from other instruments. As a drummer, I’m listening to the rhythm section in relation to what the soloist is doing. I’m still learning to hear the whole group and all the individual instruments in relation to my own:” Saxophonist Lee Konitz also “wants to relate to the bass player and the piano player and the drummer, so that I know at any given moment what they are all doing. The goal is always to relate as fully as possible to every sound that everyone is making.” Konitz reflects on the task and exclaims, “But whew! It’s very difficult for me to achieve. At different points, I will listen to any particular member of the group and relate to them as directly as possible in my solo.”
Although hearing everything over a musical journey represents the ideal, listening is typically a dynamic activity and performers continually adopt different perspectives on the surrounding patterns. Their constantly fluctuating powers of concentration, the extraordinary volume of detail requiring them to absorb material selectively, and developments in their own parts that periodically demand full attention together create
the kaleidophonic essence of each artist’s perception of the collective performance. Moreover, as suggested above, improvisers sometimes deliberately shift focus within the music’s dazzling texture to derive stimulation from different players. Walter Bishop Jr. can “zero in on the bass player or the drummer, either one by himself or both together. Or, if the band’s a quartet, I can listen in quadruplicate:”
Amid the rigorous operations of listening and responding, the overlapping perceptions of all the players potentially compensate for any individual’s difficulties or divergent viewpoints and contribute cohesion to the larger performance. The piano player might hear something in what the soloist is playing that the drummer does not hear at the time, but if the drummer hears the pianist’s response to the soloist and complements the pianist’s idea, then what the drummer plays will also complement “the whole musical thought of the soloist” (LW). Discerning audience members, as well as players, share in the exciting moments of instantaneous conversation across all the parts as performance interaction intensifies, producing such varied effects as a fleeting ripple of accents from player to player or the collective development of motives over an entire chorus (exx. 13.15a-c).
Interpreting Ideas
Exercising their skills of immediate apprehension, improvisers engage in effective musical discourse by interpreting the various preferences of other players for interaction and conveying their own personal preferences. Sometimes they are familiar with their cohorts on the bandstand, and sometimes they play with artists of whom they know practically nothing. By reputation, some horn players like to “converse rhythmically when they solo; different things played behind them give them ideas. Others don’t like any of that. They just want straight time played behind them” (AT). Tommy Flanagan makes similar distinctions. “Sonny Rollins doesn’t need very much in the way of you chording for him, because he covers the whole thing in his solos; he plays the chords and the rhythmic part. Miles plays with a lot of spaces, so that leaves more room for the rhythm section to play fills and to do things as a whole.” Calvin Hill comments similarly on a couple of his colleagues: “George Coleman is a person who plays a lot of notes, a lot of rhythm and everything,” he says,
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