Tactful responses not only mitigate musical errors, but can at times produce unexpected benefits for the entire group. Max Roach observes that “there are chances we all have to take when we’re dealing with improvisational music, and sometimes clashes occur between musicians. That’s why there’s so much skill and sensitivity required to make the music come off well. There are also times when a clash isn’t bad,” he says. “It can create a tension, and something new can come of it. For example, if two players make a mistake and end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, they may be able to break out of it and get into something else they might not have discovered otherwise.”
As Roach indicates, the skills by which performers share ideas during the routine course of improvisation—negotiating the precise details of one another’s contributions and unifying the entire group’s presentation—are put to great test by error. Like exceptional visions that suggest new paths for exploration, problematic turns can ultimately provide dramatic, even welcome, contrast to the prearranged performance features, their effective solutions contributing uniqueness to the musical journeys of improvisers.36 Scores sampling different group improvisations illustrate the widely varied musical environments in which improvisers create their artworks and situate within larger contexts the various features of group interplay discussed above (exx. 13.23. through exx13.26).
The Ongoing Interplay between Collective Improvisation
and Precomposition
In the final analysis, the spontaneous and arranged elements of jazz presentations continually cross-fertilize and revitalize one another. Precomposed background lines or riffs, which add interest to the performance and, as musical landmarks, help soloists keep their bearings over a progression, also provide material that soloists can incorporate into their extemporaneous inventions. Conversely, supporting players, without external direction, can adopt a soloist’s interesting phrase extemporaneously as the basis for a new accompanying riff. As artists absorb and share initially improvised patterns, repeating them as components of increasingly consistent routines, the patterns shift subtly from the realm of improvised ideas to that of arranged or precomposed ideas. These are common occurrences over a single performance. In the renowned interplay within the Creole Jazz Band, Joe Oliver would, at times, introduce a new break figure at the end of one chorus, and Louis Armstrong would instantly absorb it to perform it subsequently in unison with Oliver at the break in the middle of the next chorus. Moreover, Oliver’s cue to his partner was sometimes but a silent miming of an intended idea’s finger pattern. Before the targeted break, Armstrong, translating the patterns instantly into sound, actually composed a second part to the now-anticipated Oliver “lead” in time to “blend” with his.37
From event to event, groups may preserve successful elements of improvisations within an arrangement’s ongoing performance tradition. When playing through a composition together, singer Vea Williams and pianist Franklin Gordon sometimes “get to a place where the chords normally resolve a certain way,” Williams says, and spontaneously “try something different from the way the tune’s written. The other day, we were doing ‘Come Rain or Come Shine,’” she recounts, turning to Gordon for the details of his accompaniment, “and we came to the place where you go from F7 to B7 in the key of F or G minor.” Gordon continues: “Instead of playing the F7, I played Bø going to the B. It’s a beautiful sound.” Williams nods in agreement, adding, “And it’s away from the melody. It gave me this surge, just this tremendous feeling. We talked about it afterward and decided that whenever we did that tune, we’d play it straight the first chorus and add the new chord the second or third time around because that made the music so fresh.”
Larry Gray describes even more radical harmonic alterations during one performance with James Moody at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago. Feeling adventurous that evening, Gray decided to see what would happen if, in between the pivotal “signpost” chords of the blues, he pursued in his bass line harmonic pathways loosely associated with Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” Moody instantly grasped Gray’s intention and improvised his own solo along the same lines. Afterwards, he expressed his appreciation to Gray, and the two decided to adopt this approach during future blues performances.
Chuck Israels gives a similar interpretation of the way in which rhythmic features of a group’s interplay enter arrangements.38 “There are cross-rhythms and other figures that the rhythm section players can catch from each other and find ways of playing together, like the triplet figures which ‘Philly’ Joe Jones, Paul Chambers, and Red Garland play together on Miles Davis recordings. Things like that are worked out. Some people in the band initially play it and somebody else says, ‘Oh, that’s good. Let’s do that again’” (ex. 13.4b). In fact, when Don Friedman once worked with “Philly” Joe Jones in a band with Chet Baker, Jones taught Friedman some of the “complicated rhythmic figures” he had performed with Garland, so that they, too, could play the figures together when he initiated them. Friedman recalls, “I used to hear that band with Miles live, and it was fantastic to hear [Jones and Garland] play together, because they had so many things worked out. They’d do all these great [rhythmic] hits,” he recalls, that “would suddenly come out of nowhere,” breaking up the music’s “constant repetitive beat,” providing “such a lift.” Various features of “Philly” Joe Jones’s interaction with Miles Davis also became classic routines, not only re-created by the artists themselves in performance but adopted by other jazz groups as well.39
Of course, routines like those within Miles Davis’s group can also develop among improvisers without any discussion. “Philly” Joe Jones remembers that, in general, when performing with Davis, “Miles would ask if we knew the tunes, and we did, so we’d play them spontaneously each night. By playing the tunes every night in a certain way, it becomes an arrangement, actually a better arrangement than if it had been written out.”40 A specific case is Roy Haynes’s interaction with Sarah Vaughan during performances of “Shulie-A-Bop,” in which Vaughan departs from her scat improvisation to introduce the other band members. The exchange that became a permanent feature of their rendition had its roots in an event during which, after hearing her acknowledge John Malachi and “Crazy” Joe Benjamin, Haynes decided that he would “set her up” for his own introduction. He anticipated the moment she would announce his name and, just ahead of it, played a loud kick on the drums. Then, hearing Vaughan call, “Roy,” he interjected a few more kicks into the performance between “Roy” and “Haynes.” Following her mention of his surname, he created an explosive drum response, ending, on their recorded version, with triplets that Vaughan immediately picks up to launch her own continuing vocal improvisation.41
Three recorded performances of “Moanin’” by the Jazz Messengers reveal comparable, arranged exchanges. In each performance, Lee Morgan concludes his solos with an identical phrase that Benny Golson adopts for the beginning of his own solos (ex. 13. 17b). Moreover, during the group’s third recording of the piece, pianist Bobby Timmons anticipates the same pattern in Morgan’s solo and plays it in unison with him.42
What happens at one performance can eventually lead to radical revision of a composition that includes the development of new signals for its direction. Kenny Barron describes the transformation of one of his original pieces that “just began as a tune and some changes,” he recalls,
but evolved into a suite. The idea for the piece happened one time in Yusef Lateef’s band when Yusef was soloing. For some reason the rest of the band just stopped, and Yusef continued soloing. Nobody said anything about that. Everybody just felt like stopping at the same time, and nobody started playing again until he had finished his solo. Then we all came in and played the tune again. Then, when it was time for the next soloist, we all stopped and let him have it by himself. It eventually got to the point where everybody got a chance to solo. When soloing by ourselves we would take the music to many different places.
Sometimes, if I was getting into
something on my solo, the bass player would accompany me very briefly on this particular thing. Maybe it was just a mood. Then the drummer might accompany me on another part of my solo when he felt like it, and when we had exhausted that together, he’d drop out, and I’d still have it by myself. Then I’d take it somewhere else, and they would join me for that. That’s the way that piece worked. It was never discussed. It evolved to the point where we had little musical cues worked out to let the band know, “I’m ending my solo now. Everybody can come back in with the tune.”
What I would do to signal the end of my long improvised solo was to start playing the bridge of the tune in time, over and over. Then, when they came in and joined me, we’d go back to the top and play the tune through together. Those were the only things that were the same from performance to performance. We could play the tune for a whole set.
Musical parts conceived through group interaction may even assume independent lives as compositions. Guitarist John McLaughlin and violinist Shankar, of Shakti, would record their informal improvising. After evaluating the taped sessions, they sometimes extracted the most cohesive segments to combine and reassemble into original compositions and arrangements.43 As these representative cases demonstrate, collective interplay can lead players beyond the bounds of their initial plans and even cause them to invent new musical forms that subsequently serve as vehicles for the group’s improvisations. Such practices, reminiscent of the genesis of tunes in solo invention, reveal the perpetual interplay between formerly composed ideas and those conceived in performance. It is this dynamic reciprocity that characterizes improvisation as both an individual and a collective music-making process.
FOURTEEEN
When the Music’s Happening and When It’s Not
Evaluating Group Performances
Going out to hear musicians live is just like going to see some live drama. Either it’s going to hypnotize you and cast a spell on you, or it makes you say, “This is not it. There’s no magic here.” When I go to listen to music, I tend to be antsy. When I run from club to club, I’m looking for those few minutes of magic. There is no constant magic, but I am hungry to witness as much as I can. Every now and then I get hypnotized. I’ll plan to run from club to club to hear several different groups, but I’ll get to one place and enjoy it enough not to leave.—Don Pate.
During collective improvising, the activities of creating, listening, and evaluating become integral parts of the same process. Outside of their performances, to refine their grasp of the abilities upon which improvisation depends, players constantly hone their skills as critics and expert listeners. When studying recordings or attending concerts by other players, they divide their attention among the individuals participating in a group’s varied musical stream, evaluating the cogency and continuity of each part and following their interrelationships. “When I discovered the records Bill Evans made at the Village Vanguard,” Fred Hersch says, “I especially appreciated that chamber music concept of real spontaneous give-and-take—that unity of direction established by a great solo, accompanied well.” Bobby Rogovin articulates the views of many others when he asserts that “you can only really appreciate jazz if you listen to the whole group. The soloist’s part by itself is just one line in a whole painting. In a lot of cases, the most interesting things are what the rhythm section is playing. It’s what those cats are playing that makes the soloists sound as great as they do.”
Early coaching, however subtle, guides the newcomer’s appreciation of these distinctions and helps develop a sense of discrimination and taste. Some youngsters are initially surprised when a friend displays erudition by singing along with the bass player’s or the drummer’s performances on recordings instead of those of the featured soloist (BR). In other instances, veterans listening to records display their delight at high points in the individual performances of rhythm section players through spontaneous outbursts of laughter, or by miming the precise gesture, a pianist’s unusual comping pattern or a drummer’s kicks.
When Rufus Reid was in the air force, stationed in Tokyo, he frequently listened to recordings with an older drummer whose acute hearing and sensitive responses to the music were instructive. The drummer “wouldn’t actually verbalize what was happening, but when something nice happened in the music, he would always say, ‘See that?’ and I would answer, ‘Yes.’ I didn’t exactly know what had happened, but I did know that something special had happened at that particular time between the musicians.” Another performer described a youngster of his acquaintance who had learned from his father, a professional musician, to make appropriate judgments about jazz and display his savvy according to the jazz community’s convention. “It’s really funny watching him listen to records. He shuts his eyes and snaps his fingers on ‘two’ and ‘four,’ and when something really hip happens in the music, he shouts, ‘Yeah!’ He’s only eight years old, but he can already hear the music.”
Youngsters gradually come to understand both the problems improvisers seek to avoid and the values that they wish to realize in performance. Listening to seasoned players animatedly recount stories about their successes and failures that chronicle the technical and experiential features of improvisation reinforces the student’s growing awareness. So, too, does observing the selective processes by which artists choose material from their improvised interplay for arrangements and compositions.
Ascending to the Music’s Heights
Typically, the highest points of improvisation occur when group members strike a groove together, defining and maintaining a solid rhythmic ground for their musical explorations. “When you find a group that is rhythmically attuned to one another, it’s the most beautiful thing that you would ever want to hear in your life” (BH). “Every jazz musician wants to be locked in that groove where you can’t escape the tempo,” Franklin Gordon declares. “You’re locked in so comfortably that there’s no way you can break outside of it, and everyone’s locked in there together. It doesn’t happen to groups every single night, even though they may be swinging on every single tune. But at some point when the band is playing and everyone gets locked in together, it’s special for the musicians and for the aware, conscientious listener. These are the magical moments, the best moments in jazz.”
The qualities of a group’s groove, achieved through the masterful manipulation of musical elements, ultimately transcend the technical features of jazz to provide improvisers with a rich, varied experience, a dimension of which is distinctly joyful and sensual. With the precision of a skillful swimmer who, having synchronized movement with a powerful wave, surges to its crest to be carried effortlessly before its wake, the soloist sizes up the rhythm section’s groove, entering its flow to ride forward on the passage of time. As soon as the artist releases a phrase, it seems to sail off, bobbing buoyantly atop the rhythm section’s pulsating patterns. “When the rhythm section is floating, I’ll float too, and I’ll get a wonderful feeling in my stomach,” Emily Remler says. “If the rhythm section is really swinging, it’s such a great feeling, you just want to laugh.”
Performers also liken their elated encounters to “gliding” across a ballroom in effortless tandem with a dance partner, or to the more intimate, pleasurable experience of lovemaking. “When you strike a groove, partner, it’s delightful,” a drummer says. “The first time I got the feeling of what it was to strike a groove, it was very similar to how your body is left after an orgasm; you really lose control. I remember that I was playing and grooving and it felt so good, I just started grinning and giggling.”
Within the groove, improvisers experience a great sense of relaxation, which increases their powers of expression and imagination. They handle their instruments with athletic finesse, able to respond to every impulse. “The musicians I played with this Thursday hooked up so well, it just gave me a cushion for my own solos,” Harold Ousley reflects. “They made it possible for me to put myself in a state of mind where I didn’t block my ideas and was able to feel tha
t freedom that we all strive for.”
At such times, the facility artists display as individual music thinkers combines with their extraordinary receptiveness to each other. It is the combining of such talents in the formulation of parts that raises these periods of communal creativity to a supreme level. “When you’re really listening to each other and you’re performing together, it’s like everyone is talking to each other through music,” Curtis Fuller says. “When groups like Dave Brubeck’s or Miles Davis’s or Art Blakey’s play, they have good conversations, group conversations.1 When that’s really happening in a band, the cohesiveness is unbelievable. Those are the special, cherished moments. When those special moments occur, to me, it’s like ecstasy. It’s like a beautiful thing. It’s like when things blossom. When it’s happening, it really makes it, man.” For Lee Konitz, “relating fully to every sound that everyone is making not only keeps the improvising spirit going, but makes the experience complete. To hear it all simultaneously is one of the most divine experiences that you can have.” Ronald Shannon Jackson asserts similarly that “this music is really about the relationships between all the players. When the relationship is happening, you don’t hear piano, bass, and drums. . . . You hear the total communication of individuals.”
The exceptional state of communication artists describe sometimes allows them to maximize the skills of musical interpretation discussed earlier and anticipate, phrase by phrase, idea by idea, the progress of another person’s musical thoughts. “It’s like when the soloist improvises a figure. Before he finishes his figure, I can almost telepathically know where he’s going with his next idea,” Keith Copeland explains.
Thinking in Jazz Page 58