Thinking in Jazz

by Berliner, Paul F.

  As often as not, musicians pursue a middle ground that satisfies their desire for both continuity and change by borrowing material from one another and transforming it.22 This is as true in the interaction between soloists as in their reciprocal exchanges with the rhythm section. Horn players can create new figures by adding their own notes to rhythmic patterns that they derive from the accompanying parts, perhaps by playing off of the drummer’s accents—extracting a simpler pattern from the larger drum phrase—or by seizing a complex rhythmic fragment from the phrase for a template. “You can never know in advance of the situation what you will do at the time,” says Leroy Williams when discussing these practices from the rhythm section’s side.

  Maybe the soloist will play a phrase, and you will feel like grabbing the phrase and taking it someplace else, doing something else with it. What makes creativity is playing half of this and half of that, interjecting your own thing into it. Or you might let the soloist’s phrase go by completely because it would seem too obvious to play it. The unexpected is as cool as the expected, at times. Like Dizzy said, “It’s not always what you play that’s important. It’s what you don’t play.” Silences can be just as important.

  Rufus Reid describes the multiple interpretations that improvisers can put upon one another’s statements and the physical aspects of ideas that can affect their discussion within the group. Many times players “will play a certain rhythmic pattern, or melodic motive;” he says, “and then I could play a portion of that motive intertwined in my bass line.” In a live performance, the listener may not initially hear that “as a separate entity”; it is part of the continuous flow of the music. But if the performance is recorded, a listener who studies the album may “say, ‘Wow, did you hear that?’” Reid might have used the pattern in his own playing four bars after it was introduced by the horn player, either imitating it “verbatim” or taking the rhythm of the phrase and adding something different “harmonically.” Reid finds it more interesting to take something from someone else and add a little bit to it. Sometimes this is a necessity. For example, a saxophone player might play things Reid never had “thought of playing” because of the different techniques of their instruments. If the entire phrase is too difficult to execute with the bass, Reid typically plays “a portion” of the saxophone player’s phrase and develops it in his own way.

  Beyond sharing precise melodic and rhythmic material, musicians initiate and respond to change by regulating such general features of their improvisations as range and voicing (exx. 13.19a-b).23 Contour is also an ongoing feature of interplay, as players anticipate and respond to the nuances within each other’s evolving shapes, the distinctive “hills and valleys” of their creations. In contrapuntal schemes with endless possibilities, they formulate lines that, for example, run parallel to one another, or create contrary motion (ex. 13.19c), or provide other kinds of contrast. Dynamic changes also come into play. If the soloist performs something dramatic that goes from soft to loud, Reid explains, it might inspire the rhythm section to do the same thing a few bars later, going from soft to loud and following the soloist’s lead. “And then, in turn, the soloist could turn around and play it loud to soft,” he adds. Drummers sometimes follow a soloist even more closely. “If I’m playing very loud at a certain point in my solo—really hollering—and then I suddenly come off it and get soft, they will also back off with me,” John McNeil remarks.

  You can build and build, and then back off, and then come up again together. I like to do things like that because it’s interesting for me to listen to. It’s good when drummers stay under me, as opposed to over me, in terms of volume. And yet at some point, they can play right up to my level and just a little beyond to take me a little further. But if he does that and I don’t take him up on it by playing any louder, then he should know enough not to push it too far. It’s a give-and-take situation that way. I like a drummer to really roar in the back of me sometimes, and it gives me a lot of support; but there has to be a balance.

  To avoid excessive imitation, players can respond to the fact of change in another part simply by producing a prominent change with an appropriate original contrasting idea in their own part.

  Equally influential for the design of a solo are the relative rhythmic complexity and density of its accompaniment. These features allow the music to breathe and diversify. “Some piano players will let a few bars at a time go by without playing,” Lonnie Hillyer explains. “That gives horn players room to establish their ideas.” Similarly, Patti Bown “tries to leave space” within the framework of her comping patterns. “It’s important to learn to play less,” she cautions, “because it’s possible to fill up every hole.”

  As implied earlier, the composition’s formal structure dictates, in part, the regulation of rhythmic activity and other interactive features. General collective goals, such as “accenting the endings of harmonic units,” assist artists in anticipating and complementing the details in each others’ parts.24 So do shared expectations for events that typically occur at particular “location[s] within the time cycle.”25 Typically, while the soloist extends phrases over principal harmonic section boundaries or highlights them by resting, rhythm section players define structural cadences through various combined operations in the last two bars of sections. They may, for example, increase their parts’ rhythmic and harmonic density and tension, or expand their parts’ range, then reverse such operations, returning to the tonic on the new section downbeat or just after it. Such events are made all the more dramatic when, at their onset, the pianist drops out of the performance, but rejoins to assist in creating a climactic peak (exx. 13.20a-c). On the other hand, comparable aspects of group interplay can transcend formal units, occurring instead as sympathetic responses to evolving ideas in the various parts, creating unique designs in the process.

  Rhythm section members sometimes steadily increase the intensity of their own activity over the course of the solo. “Working with Art Blakey taught me about how to build a solo,” Gary Bartz recalls. “Art will build it for you, so you have to go along with him. He starts off nice and soft the first chorus, and he builds the second chorus a little, and by the time you get to the third chorus, he’s bashing behind you. You have to build your solo on him, so you learn how to build a solo like that. It isn’t necessarily that he plays louder each chorus,” Bartz says, “but his playing becomes more intense each chorus, so you learn how to build the intensity of your solo each chorus.” Art Farmer also acknowledges the give-and-take between the soloist and the supporting players. “If I would play with Horace Silver, I would learn something about drive,” Farmer declares,

  because Horace was so strong on the piano. If I would play with Blakey, I would also have to play something interesting, something with life in it. If you played something dull, then it was just like you were in their way. Horace and Art were supposed to be playing background for you, but at the same time, they were really driving you and pushing you. And if you didn’t respond, you might as well stop playing and let them go ahead without you. They didn’t let you coast. You had to get into it.

  Speaking from the drummer’s viewpoint, Akira Tana observes that shaping a solo commonly includes a combination of strategies, “playing straight time, starting with a little interaction, and building from there. You can develop a very nice tension sometimes when you have rhythmic figures going against each other;” Tana explains. “You can keep up the tension over eight or sixteen bars and resolve it at the bridge of the piece. Or you can keep it going over the tune’s form for a whole chorus, or even beyond that, depending on how much freedom you have in developing your idea. You have to be very conscious of time and the form of the piece when you do this. It has to be in reason.”

  At one concert in which saxophonist Frank Foster subjected a melodic phrase to motivic variations of increasing rhythmic complexity and volume, drummer Billy Hart increased his part’s volume and cross-rhythmic activity accordingly, culminating in a thrash
ing crescendo just as Foster restated the solo’s motive in the saxophone’s highest register and brought the performance to a climax. Immediately afterward, Hart created a huge swell of sound with a press roll, leading with a rapid decrescendo to a soft time-keeping pattern that prepared the next soloist’s entrance.

  Rhythm section players can also vary their instrumentation to effect changes in the overall texture and dynamics of their accompaniment. When violinist Michael Urbaniak began a ballad during a New York club date, Roy Haynes initially restricted his part to cymbals, which he stroked with brushes so lightly that they were as much felt as heard. As the solo developed, however, Haynes began punctuating Urbaniak’s lines with bursts of snare drum and bass drum, eventually switching to drumsticks to produce a uniformly hard-driving rhythmic accompaniment.

  Later, at the opening of Buster Williams’s bass solo, Roy Haynes dropped out of the performance and Kenny Barron lowered the piano’s volume. Caressing the keys, Barron embraced the principal pitches of the bass’s warm, lyrical phrases with lush chord voicings. As Williams moved in and out of the ballad’s metered time, Barron accordingly alternated the percussive articulation of block chords with free-rhythmic arpeggios. At the peak of the duo’s momentum, Haynes rejoined the others by playing a surging swing pattern that drew their performances into a strict rhythmic groove and drove the music with increasing volume and intensity to its conclusion.

  This ballad rendition exemplifies what Walter Bishop Jr. means when, speaking from the soloist’s perspective, he suggests, “Sometimes, the drummer should layout altogether and let me build my own intensity in my solo before coming back in.” Correspondingly, as an accompanist, Bishop “will often lay out on piano for a couple of choruses when the soloist is playing and let him build his own momentum with the bass and drums. Then I’ll come in, and it just adds more intensity to the music.” Soloist and rhythm section members often work together to accommodate major changes of mood, musical concept, or time-feeling in each other’s parts (ex. 13.21).

  When soloists create several climaxes over their performance’s course, accompanists sometimes choose simply “to hold down the beat,” stabilizing the music’s foundation in relation to dramatic changes in the soloist’s part. This was illustrated at a New York club in which soloist Walter Bishop Jr. suddenly switched from streams of even eighth notes to a repeated asymmetrical pattern, whose accents fell in progressively different places in relation to Michael Carvin’s accompanying swing figure, creating varied schemes of rhythmic counterpoint. Instantly aware of the pressure between the two parts, both performers smiled as they sought to steady their components in the face of their growing tension, not knowing when they would find alignment. When after eight measures the patterns finally coincided, the two musicians laughed with enjoyment, and assuredly repeated the same sequence of events before Bishop abandoned the asymmetrical figure and returned to his former groove.26

  Pursuing yet another course, the rhythm section can follow soloists in structuring diverse musical episodes. At one New York performance, drummer At Foster phrased together with saxophonist Bob Berg, who was formulating his solo around a clear succession of motives. With the introduction of each motive, Foster reduced the rhythmic complexity and volume of his drum part, then steadily increased them, underscoring with a loud cymbal crash the climax of each thematic section, before dropping to his lowest dynamic level in anticipation of Berg’s next motive. Throughout, the soloist’s lead and the drummer’s response formed an integral part of their successful journey.

  Surprises in Group Interaction

  Within the normal compass of their activities, improvisers must respond creatively to surprises that constantly arise during performances. Unexpected turns of events occur everywhere: in the ever-changing details of each part and in the periodic large-scale changes in repertory programs and formal structures that guide improvisations. The latter occur typically when the natural flow of ideas conceived in performance leads a particular improviser outside the group’s agreed-upon formats and other players follow along. Ultimately, the flexibility with which musicians treat repertory and musical arrangements, whether subtly ornamenting or substantially altering their features, enhances the improvisatory spirit of performances. “Sonny Rollins might play from one tune to the next,” Don Pate remembers,

  without saying anything to the band, and whether the whole band played with him on that particular number depended on who knew the tune and whether or not they could hang [on].27

  Other band leaders have signals for little interludes they have in the music where different pairs of musicians might solo together, like a saxophone-drum duet. Other times, there are no signals given, and what you play is a matter of having good taste or bad taste and knowing the difference. We played a tune by [one musician/composer], and every time he played the head, there was a discrepancy about where “one” was. He really heard the tune different ways at different times, and you’d sound like you weren’t correct if you just stuck to one way. It meant that you would just have to do it whatever way he did it at the time.

  Additionally, the prescribed lengths of solos can be upset by sudden, unusual brilliance on a player’s part. At one event, a young soloist so impressed listeners with his fire and imagination that the leader approached him at the end of his solo, saying, “Take another?” The soloist smiled gratefully and performed two additional choruses. At times, soloists spontaneously dictate changes in accompaniment. If Rufus Reid wants to stretch out in his solos, he might signal the pianist and the drummer to stop playing, simply by saying, “I got it,” or he might tell the drummer, “I want brushes,” or just mouth “brushes,” In other instances, the accompanist may decide to alter arrangements. Once during saxophonist Clifford Jordan’s solo at a New York club date, Jimmy Robinson turned to Tommy Turrentine and whispered, “Let’s catch him at the bridge.” Turrentine agreed, and Robinson invented a melodic riff, then sang it softly into his friend’s ear until he had learned it. When the performance reached the piece’s bridge, the trumpeters performed the riff together in harmony, adding a pleasing background line to the music that stimulated Jordan’s playing.

  Unexpected occurrences require instant judgment as musicians contemplate alternative courses of musical action. Once when Benny Bailey finished a solo a few measures early at a performance at the Jazz Showcase, pianist Jodie Christian spontaneously filled in the progression with a melodic phrase comprising a series of large, descending intervals, which saxophonist Jackie McLean immediately seized for the opening of his own solo.

  On a blues recording by the Jazz Messengers, Art Blakey closed most solo choruses with a cymbal crash or cadential fills, including his powerful press roll.28 The features coherently outlined the form of the piece and, for each soloist’s final chorus, served as periods to their completed statements. Once, however, when soloist Hank Mobley showed signs of continuing at this point, Blakey made a quick decision to hold off his roll, for fear he might cut off the soloist’s phrase prematurely. He waited for Mobley to complete his performance before playing the emphatic drum figure between the second and third measure of the following chorus. By accommodating Mobley, Blakey’s decision required of the next soloist, Kenny Dorham, the presence of mind to avoid confusion about the displaced rhythmic marker and the skill to begin his own improvisation a few measures into the piece’s structure. Flexible practices such as overlapping solos mitigate the musician’s strict adherence to form and accommodate the unpredictability of improvised ideas—ideas whose logic may compel soloists to complete their performances just before or after a progression’s close.

  Other challenges arise when individuals suddenly drop out of the performance or spontaneously vary their musical roles, inviting change within other parts and causing some players to alter their own improvisational approaches. At an event described earlier, Roy Haynes’s surprising withdrawal from the performance led pianist Kenny Barron to maintain the music’s beat in his accompaniment, normally
the bassist’s or drummer’s province. Walter Bishop Jr. describes the effect of similar changes on his own performance as a soloist. “If nobody is keeping strict time, then I have to keep the time, and it alters the way I think. If someone else is keeping the time, I am much freer to play with the time, floating in and out of time.”

  When pianists layout unexpectedly, the music’s changing harmonic character can also have major consequences. Benny Bailey says that with a piano background he plays fewer “notes” in his solos, but without the piano he plays “more notes” to make himself “hear the chords of the tune.” Art Farmer raises related considerations. “If the piano is not there, then the music is just stripped to its bare bones. What you play has got to sound good by itself. There are certain things that you might play that would only sound good with the piano player, so it is a matter of making an adjustment in your playing.” Likewise, if bass players layout, pianists have the opportunity to pursue different options in their solos. Without having to coordinate their chord patterns with other players, they might take greater liberties within the form of a piece, for example, spontaneously substituting chords of different qualities for one another (DF).

  Should more than one band member refrain from performing, changes become especially dramatic. Elvin Jones laughs in enjoyment as he describes the unusual saxophone-drum duets that periodically occurred in John Coltrane’s quartet, when, without any signals, both bassist Jimmy Garrison and pianist McCoy Tyner would suddenly drop out of the performance. “After a while I began to understand what it was all about and the reasons for it,” Jones says. That “whole vacuum ... could be filled either rhythmically ... or with the expanded harmonics of [Coltrane’s] horn itself, [with] his own expanded range, and without any preconceived pattern of chord progression. So, he was free of that. It was a tremendous leap into the future, I think.”29 Finally, if the entire rhythm section stops playing, soloists have the freedom to improvise without accommodating anyone else, but must rely entirely on their own resourcefulness.