Improvisers commonly take the tastes and anticipated responses of audiences into consideration when planning performance strategies. When Lou Donaldson “started out playing,” he had many ideas about the music he wanted to play, and he wanted to present a great variety of things. The experience of working professionally, however, taught him to temper his music to each performance situation.3 “I’ve developed a knack for feeling out a club or an audience over the years,” Donaldson asserts. “For example, recently in Europe, I found out right away that the audience wanted a lot of swing music, and I just played a little touch of bebop. In the early days when Club Bohemia in New York was going, I knew I could stretch out and play ‘Cherokee’ and stuff like that all night. When I played in Harlem, I would stick to the blues and more funky stuff.” Red Rodney has found that “it’s important to develop a repertory of standards to keep audiences happy when you play commercial jobs. Since you’re background and they’re not really listening anyway,” he admits, “you can get away with improvising if you play tunes they know. If you play standards, they will accept whatever you do with them.”
In this regard, the conventional format of jazz arrangements serves the interests of listeners by reminding them of the structures on which artists base their intricate improvisations. Doc Cheatham always plays “the melody of each tune first before I improvise, so that the audience knows what I’m doing.” Likewise, Vea Williams sings “songs straight the first time for the audience. Then I can take off on my own.” By extension, repeating the melody at the close of a band’s rendition encapsulates solos in familiar material, usually of a simpler lyrical nature, temporarily relaxing the demands upon listening and providing the rendition with a satisfying shape overall. Lee Konitz adds that repeated performance of the same pieces over the years allows serious fans to appreciate the uniqueness of the most recent version in relation to the history of past performances. “It sounds like he’s improvising on that song,” audience members observe. “I never heard him quite do it that way before.”
In commercial clubs and at dances, groups also apportion material to accommodate their perception of the audience’s appreciation for and tolerance of solo improvisation in relation to the ensemble’s restatement of a piece’s melody and its varied orchestration. For relatively unsophisticated audiences, bands may restrict soloists to short sporadic solos in order to increase the number of pieces performed over the evening. For more knowledgeable audiences, they increase opportunities for soloists within each piece. Performers also assure familiar melodic material a place within the flow of improvised lines by planning the use of common jazz vocabulary or quotations from popular tunes. For one improviser in Chicago, it became such a matter of musical gamesman-ship to quote a favored song during solos within different pieces that his followers anticipated its clever adaptation in performances with the relish of filmgoers awaiting Alfred Hitchcock’s passing appearances in his movies.
Music Presentation as Drama
Every music performance is a dramatic presentation for listeners and improvisers alike. In a sense, both groups play interactive roles as actors from their respective platforms. Just as the design of the hall, the stage and the lighting frames the band’s activity for the audience’s observation, it also frames the audience’s activity for the band to observe. Performers and listeners form a communication loop in which the actions of each continuously affect the other. Although sound serves as the principal medium binding improvisers to audience, the audience typically responds to the inseparable mixture of the music created by improvisers and their theatrical image or stage presence. “Sometimes, I think that you can’t really understand how important this music is until you go into the clubs and watch the people play it,” Benny Bailey once commented.
A fundamental part of the image of the individual artists is the display of their uniquely personal relationship to the act of music creation. At Bill Evans’s memorial tribute, New York ‘)azz pastor” John Gensel remarked that it was necessary to see Evans arched over the keyboard in performance to appreciate fully the intense concentration of his artistry. “He was so totally absorbed in the music, so totally introspective.” Possessing a markedly different stage presence is Ella Fitzgerald, who “always smiles and exudes a free joy when she’s on stage. She’s always bubbly and she looks happy to be singing”(CL).
Aware that performances are as much seen by audiences as heard, young musicians evaluate theatrical features of their peers and mentors in performance, at times emulating them in their own concerts. Vea Williams “learned early that the psychology of presentation is very important if you’re going to earn your living by performing. Some people look for drama in performers, and you have to have a touch of that when you’re presenting a song.” Carmen Lundy describes how “commanding” a performer’s “aura can be. I have seen singers actually walk out on the stage and, without saying a word, convey to the audience, ‘I’m a great singer and you are about to hear something great!”‘ Lundy adds that she herself has imitated Sarah Vaughan’s “statuesque” stance. “Sarah looks like her back is giving her all this strength when she sings,” Lundy says admiringly.
Improvisers also project images through their dress and demeanor. Although the early conventions associated with vaudeville and minstrelsy required musicians to assume clownish dress and stereotyped racial roles, such practices eventually ceased as the civil rights movement gained momentum and the status of jazz changed from entertainment to art. Subsequently, the stage personas of jazz musicians have reflected diverse personal values and individual tastes.
The choice of suit jackets and ties accords with a particular notion of dignity and professionalism, whereas the adoption of street clothes projects an image of naturalness and, in some instances, a rejection of perceived pretensions of classical music presentations. Alternatively, the adornment of skullcaps and dashikis expresses attachment to African cultural roots, whereas the assumption of a half-lotus position on stage symbolizes Eastern spiritual values. Young musicians commonly find less weighty matters equally compelling. Ronald Shannon Jackson and his peers emulated the “West Coast, sunglasses, cool style of play” embodied by veterans who passed through town. Among their most prized feats was the skill of keeping a steady beat on the drums with one hand while opening a matchbook and lighting a cigarette with the other. In another instance, a young drummer practiced playing with his chin held high, affecting the cool, detached posture that prevented his cigarette’s smoke from irritating his eyes.
Learners also study the subtle dance moves with which artists support improvisations, the gestures imbuing their creations with rhythmic swing and sometimes dramatizing features of performance. Singers may use specific movement to guide their scat singing. Cannen Lundy periodically adopts Betty Carter’s manner of “spelling out,” with her right hand, the rhythmic patterns of her vocal improvisations. Other gestures enhance the delivery of song texts. “You have to use body movement with taste, treating it individually with each song as if it were just part of the flow of the song,” Vea Williams says. “You shouldn’t use body movements that are too abrupt. I received feedback about that from friends and musicians when I was just starting out. They’d say, ‘Stop holding your hands like that,’ and they’d show me how to hold my hands with the palms up when I sang. It looked better and it felt better. Different mannerisms like that are important to help you get your song across.”
Lundy, too, recognizes the importance of body language and appreciates the attention of others in encouraging her awareness, development, and skills in this matter.
Hands can be a great communicative device. People interested in my career pointed out to me how to use my hands when I sang and when not to use them. Hand gestures and every subtle thing you do is noticed on the stage, and you try to be less awkward and more graceful in your movements. The more relaxed I am on stage, the easier it is. When I became aware of how important posture was, I began taking dance. I learned to control my post
ure from ballet, modem dance, and stretch classes.
Also, people would point out when not to overstress the lyrics, like singing with your eyes closed all the time. Sometimes, I still have to remember to do certain facial things, to furrow my eyebrows or to crease my forehead. There is so much concentration involved in a total, great performance.
Instrumentalists, too, may cultivate comparable aspects of performance. During a nightclub engagement, a young pianist threw periodic glances at the mirror across the room as he evaluated the pronounced facial expressions that accompanied changes in his music’s intensity and mood. Other pianists track their explorations of different registers of the keyboard by swaying from side to side like a pendulum, or they lift their hands dramatically off the keys to highlight the ending of a long phrase. horn players may crouch slightly or raise a foot off the floor when reaching for especially high pitches within a difficult passage. “There are ways of going about doing things on the drums that get a response from the audience,” Kenny Washington discovered. “Most people want flash from a drummer. They’re not checking out what you’re playing, but how fast your hands are moving. Sometimes, I can play certain things around my whole drum set as a flash thing. I don’t try to do this, but I realize that some things look fancy to the audience. Because the visual aspect of playing is important and a lot of people come for entertainment, drummers can sometimes get across by the ways they play things rather than by what they play.”
These and other stylistic considerations intensify interaction with an audience. Vea Williams is “not a gimmicky kind of person.” She appreciates, nevertheless, that “there is a kind of emotional thing you can get across through your eye contact with the audience.” Carmen Lundy, too, is sensitive to the fact that at times she must “look at people or they feel you’re withdrawing into yourself and they turn away from you. Looking into another person’s eyes can be captivating. By watching other singers, I learned how important it is to keep a certain feeling when you are performing and to use the power of the eyes.” Expressing appreciation for applause also reinforces audience involvement in the artist’s performance.
Like their improvisation styles, the stage behavior of learners also develops from a fusion of their own ideas and those they copy from different idols. Youngsters constantly test and edit theatrical features of their performances. One singer stopped imitating Betty Carter’s personal “choreography and energy” after failing to do so convincingly. “I just don’t have that kind of movement when I sing,” she concedes. “It doesn’t fit with my personality or my repertory the way it fits Betty’s.” Similarly, a young saxophonist’s exaggerated swaying drew criticism from other players, as did a singer’s perpetual frown while performing and another’s repetitious manner of “thanking audiences” after applause. Carmen Lundy herself once “used to try to tell jokes and be funny on stage because I thought that I should be entertaining in between songs. I used to think of things to say in those situations, because I watched other performers and admired the way they did this. But while they always made their jokes seem spontaneous, I never got a good response with mine. So, I stopped making that part of my act unless I thought of funny things that I really felt at the moment.”
Improvisers ultimately evolve stage personalities that work with audiences and feel comfortable. Representing the profile of the artist at one extreme are band leaders, like Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody, who display great wit over an evening’s course by entertaining audiences with ironic humor, fantastic stories, and good-natured social criticism. At the other extreme are leaders, like Miles Davis, too shy at times to address or acknowledge the audience directly, or even to announce pieces or introduce fellow band members. They prefer, instead, to allow their music to speak for them.4 Artists may shape musical programs to suit their predispositions. Planning short breaks after every piece and limiting the length of renditions allow for regular exchanges with the audience. Conversely, extending performances of pieces and connecting them with musical segues produce continuous sets that minimize direct interaction, thus meeting the needs of those artists who prefer to speak to their audience primarily, or totally, through the music itself.
Interpreting Behavior during Musical Events
As a fundamental part of music presentations, the spontaneous behavior of performers also aids audiences to assess musical events and interpret their subtleties. “You can watch Barry Harris and see how much delight he takes in suddenly coming across something new that’s very exciting in his playing,” an admirer observes. “His eyebrows go up and say, ‘Wow! That was fantastic!’” Additionally, the appreciative responses of improvisers to one another’s inventions can inspire players and observers alike. “Yeah, Vernel!” Clifford Jordan once exclaimed when Vernel Fournier played an effective rhythmic phrase in his drum accompaniment, and the two laughed together. “Come and stand next to me, man,” the bass player beckoned soloist Jimmy Robinson at one point, thereby drawing his trumpet sound nearer. “I really like to feel you when you play.”
Such player interaction is common. During a concert featuring saxophonist Frank Foster’s group, guitarist Ted Dunbar built his solo to a peak of great intensity, then resolved it by strumming several chords on the downbeats of the final turnaround with pronounced, sweeping movements across the guitar’s body. Smiling warmly, Foster nodded during his friend’s definitive close, as if agreeing with his musical statement. Then, before beginning his own solo, he held his saxophone horizontally and mimed Dunbar’s graceful strumming, raising laughter from Dunbar and the audience. As in this instance, displays of mutual admiration by improvisers put listeners at ease and draw them into the group’s intimate musical discourse.
Conversely, displays of friction among improvisers reveal musical problems, affecting the audience’s overall appreciation of the performance. Once, when a group’s bass player concluded a solo with a sequence of sighing, glissando patterns, the violinist began his solo with the same patterns, stretching their intervals and, it would appear, inadvertently distorting their character. When he smiled back at the bass player, he drew an icy glare in return. In another instance, when an accompanying bass player lost his place, the group’s unsympathetic pianist drew attention to the deficiency by loudly calling out the piece’s chords. Moreover, one band’s impatient leader routinely cut short the solos of other players in order to begin his own, and when the others improvised, he turned his back to them on stage and combed his hair. “There are ways in which musicians can sabotage a person’s playing,” Art Davis says. “Or, when one person is soloing, another can be talking loudly or looking elsewhere, obviously distracted. Also, jealousies sometimes arise within groups if a sideman is getting more praise than the leader. Things like that affect the whole group.” Obvious dissension within bands also affects listeners, who typically share the discomfort of the abused parties, possibly dampening audience response to the music.
At the same time that the audience interprets the behavior of improvisers, improvisers interpret the behavior, or, one might profess, the performance of the audience, assessing its competence and relative sophistication. If the audience’s verbal encouragement—or, for that matter, another artist’s—is overdone or artificial, unrelated to the events at hand, it can be a distracting giveaway (PW). Additionally, listeners sometimes flaunt their ignorance by requesting only the most commercial jazz pieces or by displaying an overriding enthusiasm for the melodies of songs and their lyrics over instrumental improvisation. “In Europe, you don’t have some guy coming up to you wanting to hear ‘The Saints Go Marching In’ and then complaining that there was no vocal,” Lou Donaldson contends. In subtler terms, improvisers can determine how well an audience understands jazz from the particular events that inspire applause and from the appropriateness of the audience’s body language in the context of the music.
An audience’s performance may be energetic and supportive but nevertheless, in the artist’s view, lack understanding. One player observes
that “this audience was nice enough to applaud after each piece, but you could tell they weren’t really listening.” Another remarks during his group’s intermission, “I see people out there tapping on two and four, but there is no two and four in the music we’re playing. We’re just playing a constant pulse.” Yet another reflects on a recent tour: “Many audiences didn’t seem to be able to tell whether the band was having a good night or a bad night. Sometimes, we’d play in ways we thought were awful and we’d still get a standing ovation. It made some of the musicians cynical about the audience, and they’d laugh about it after concerts.”
In other instances, inappropriate responses reflect nothing more than unfamiliarity or discomfort with the norms of behavior on the part of jazz audiences. Listeners accustomed to the formality of classical music events may be inhibited or embarrassed about expressing their feelings vocally at performances. For improvisers accustomed to lively interaction with audiences, however, this can be dispiriting.5 “Come on now. Come on now,” an exasperated band leader once chastized his listeners. In an attempt to train them, he urged, “We need a hand for what we’re doing up here. This is hard work and we need your encouragement.” Turning to his band, he added beneath his breath, “I’ve heard of dead audiences, but this is ridiculous.”
Sometimes, a dense screen of extramusical values filters audience perceptions of jazz presentations, feeding misguided responses. During one American tour, an interracial group periodically contended with hostile audience members who resented the sight of white and black performers collaborating respectfully in an African American music tradition. In another instance, a leader recalls his band’s unsympathetic reception at a European event promoted by a “radical socialist group” for whom jazz served primarily as a political symbol. “They were critical of us because we were dressed formally and didn’t move all around on the stage, giving black power signs. They really wanted some kind of avant-garde performance which was an angry demonstration of black revolution, and that’s not what we were about. We’re about making music.”
Thinking in Jazz Page 69