24. Rinzler 1988, 157.
25. For a discussion of preparing for “phrase completion” and artists driving in unison to enhance rhythmic intensity at the end of a chorus, see Monson 1991, 241, 245, 252. In fulfilling such common objectives, artists use “widely different musical techniques idiomatic to [their] particular instrument.... The soloist may play faster rhythms, the pianist may use special voicings or a longer comping phrase with a repeated rhythm, the bassist may play more angularly or in a higher range than normal, and the drum may fill or accent certain beats.” Rinzler 1988, 157. For a description of a climax in Young’s solo in which, as he plays “shorter note values and heightened volume and vibrato,” Jo Jones performs the drums with greater force and Basie “begins to play the chords on every beat in guitar style instead of leaving spaces,” see Porter 1985b, 92.
26. Keil (1966b, 345–47) appropriately stresses the importance of the feeling engendered in performance by the ongoing resolution of “pulse-meter-rhythm” tensions and the essential features of “swing” that contribute to the cohesion and logic of melodic ideas—”holding our attention and increasing our involvement.”
27. There is considerable precedent for such practices in jazz. Preston Jackson reports that Joe Oliver “never had to call the number he was to play. He would play two or three bars of whatever number he was going to play, stomp twice, and then everyone would start playing the same tune as if they had been told.” Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 102.
28. “Soft Winds” on Blakey, rec. 1955.
29. Jones quoted on Coltrane, video 1985.
30. Quotation on Davis, video 1986.
31. Ibid.
32. Errors are often made “in places that suggest the importance of eight-measure units in terms of memory encoding. In an AABA structure, a performer may forget the second A section (or play the bridge too soon, however you wish). Another-related error is to play the wrong bridge, or to forget the correct one.” Gushee 1981, 159.
33. Quotation on Davis, video 1986.
34. Herbie Hancock also recalls an incident in which, at one of the quintet’s performance peaks, he “played a chord that was so wrong that I winced.... [Instantly,] Miles found some notes that made my chord right.” The experience left Hancock “so stunned,” he explained to one writer, “that he was unable to play for a couple of choruses.” Shipp 1991.
35. “If I Should Lose You” on Little, rec. 1961b.
36. For a detailed description of the musical maneuvers through which Jaki Byard’s band members reestablish “a consistent chorus structure” after the bassist inadvertently adds two extra beats to his part, see Monson 1991, 246ff. The example documents “the way in which a band can collectively remedy a mistake in performance while at the same time generating an exceptionally rich musical intensification.”
37. Buster Bailey and Louis Armstrong in Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 103–4.
38. In comparing multiple versions of “Shoe Shine Boy,” one scholar also observes that Young’s improvisation on the bridge had become “something of a routine, with a fixed drum part accentuating [Young’s] phrases.” Gushee 1981, 165.
39. [“Philly” Joe Jones] “knew everything I ... was going to play [Davis writes]; he anticipated me, felt what I was thinking. Sometimes I used to tell him not to do that lick of his with me, but after me. And so that thing that he used to do after I played something—that rim shot—became known as the ‘Philly lick,’ and it made him famous, took him right to the top of the drumming world. After he started doing it with me, guys in other bands would be telling their drummers, ‘Man, give me the Philly lick after I do my thing.’” Davis 1990, 199.
40. Jones quotation from Mansfield interview cited in Stewart 1986, 187. Davis describes his own directions to Tony Williams and Herbie Hancock in his autobiography (1990, 274–75).
41. Haynes interview on Vaughan, video 1991. A version of “Shulie-A-Bop” appears on Vaughan, rec. 1954a.
42. Two takes of Lee Morgan’s solo on “Moanin’ ” appear on Blakey, rec. 1958a; the third solo appears on Blakey, rec. 1958b.
43. Shankar describes this same creative process within the context of the musical life of the many classical Indian performance groups he has performed with and in such popular music groups as his current rock band, the Epidemics. Personal conversation, winter 1991.
14. Evaluating Group Performers
1. One scholar analyzes comparable language metaphors, derived from interviews with other improvisers, interpreting the metaphors in light of anthropological and sociolinguistic theory. She also relates features of group interaction to other forms of social interaction in the African American community such as the relationship between preacher and congregation and various forms of verbal dueling. Monson, 1991, ch. 5.
2. One musician reports to another scholar that “by talking to people up on stage through your music, you can start working on stuff you’ve never heard and never done.... You need people to play with.... When I do it, I’d find that there are these things coming out of myself, which I didn’t even know were there, I’d never heard them, I didn’t know where they came from.... But playing with others triggers it. So maybe consciously or subconsciously you’ll hear that thing that you’re trying to find ... by listening to what other people have to say, and by talking to them about it.” Sawyer 1991, 6.
3. Expressing the general feelings of many jazz musicians, Dave Brubeck says of the success of one record, “Almost everyone who has heard this album (including Joe and Gene, our own rhythm section) has had difficulty separating the composed from the improvised sections. I take this to be a real compliment, because good jazz composition sounds as though it were really improvised, and good improvisation should sound as though it was as well thought out as a composition.” Brown 1981, 31.
4. Musician’s quotation is in Sawyer 1991, 6.
5. Sometimes, humor includes interaction with other members of a larger musical production. Dizzy Gillespie recalls routines with comedian “Johnny Hudgins, the Wah-Wah King, whose otherwise silent act depended upon an ironic inconsistency in timing between Hudgins’ pantomime gestures ... and Gillespie’s playing the Wah-Wah phrase.” Fraser 1983, 161.
6. Gene Ramey in Reisner 1962, 187.
7. I am indebted to Richard Keeling, Department of Ethnomusicology, UCLA, for sharing this story with me. Personal conversation, spring 1981.
8. Miles Davis (1990, 101) gives his legendary account of the disorientation Charlie Parker initially caused rhythm section players with his experimentation with innovative phrasing and rhythmic displacement “to turn the rhythm section around.” Musicians also commonly describe the effect as turning the beat around
9. Embedded in the differences that some artists face in these and similar experiences may be preconceptions that operate in such social contexts as race, gender, sexual preference, and religion.
10. In some circumstances “rhythmic interactiveness—which generates excitement and contributes to the overall intensification of the music—can also be seen as an aesthetic and interpersonal struggle for control of the musical fabric.” Monson 1991, 180.
11. One scholar distinguishes quality and nature of interaction in terms of whether artists are generating their own parts by “merely following the rules of the game with little or no creative impulse,” or “creatively fulfilling their own individual musical function but not interacting with fellow musicians.” or else “creatively interacting with other musicians in the group.” He also describes the difficulties that analysts may have in determining whether seeming aspects of subtle interplay simply represent coincidental occurrences in different parts. Rinzler 1983, 156, 158.
12. In his autobiography Miles Davis describes one such incident within his rhythm section (1990, 280).
15. The Lives of Bands
1. James Reese Europe describes the necessity of frequent rehearsals in order to limit his band members’ creative contributions to band arrangements in Anon. 1919, 28. Similarl
y, Johnny St. Cyr contrasts Joe Oliver’s restrictive practices in the recording studio with Jelly Roll Morton’s flexible interaction with his sidemen in Lomax 1950, 194–95.
2. Larry Gray made this observation after hearing Booker Little quote the melody of “I Got Rhythm” during his solo on “Runnin’ ” just after the rhythm section “got a little shaky.” Little’s solo can be heard on Strozier, rec. 1960.
3. As Monson (1991, 294) also concludes: “In music that is created in performance relationships between musical parts are at the same time relationships between specific people.”
4. Adderley 1960, 12.
5. According to some of Lester Young’s friends, he was not properly credited with inventing riffs that became the themes of compositions associated with the Basie band. Porter 1985b, 19, 39.
6. For Roach’s references to issues of racism, hardships on the road, and Clifford Brown, see Gardner 1961, 21.
7. The painful adjustment to the tragic loss of collaborative jazz artists is a poignant theme with musical consequences in the jazz community. In terms similar to Max Roach’s experience, Jaki Byard changed the emphasis of his art after the deaths of several close musical friends: “That’s when I really concentrated on ... solo piano work and I disregarded all trios and all forms of orchestration because the guys were dying.” Monson 1991, 266.
8. Jarrett quoted on Davis, video 1986.
9. Similarly, because ballads were largely reserved for singers in the Basie band, it was not until Lester Young played in small recording groups with Billie Holiday and formed his own recording groups that he could feature himself as a ballad performer. In his own groups, he also increased his emphasis on blues repertory. Porter 1985b, 38–39.
10. For Hines reference, see Dance 1977, 26.
11. Hawkins quoted in Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 209.
12. Evans quoted on Davis, video 1986.
13. Jones quoted on Coltrane, video 1985.
14. Veterans like George Duvivier who are critical of the level of skill and understanding of the youngest generation of jazz musicians ascribe their problems, in part, to the lack of thorough immersion in the music that was formerly characteristic of jazz training. This includes constant opportunities to learn from mature improvisers by performing together with them in bands and at jam sessions. Economic factors like exorbitant door fees at some jazz clubs also discourage attendance by aspiring players and limit their absorption of ideas from live performances by jazz masters. Moreover, as Betty Carter recently informed me, some club owners in New York City have shifted the burden of their financial losses to the performing artists themselves, at the extreme requiring them to rent the nightclub performance space. “It’s much harder for young musicians to start out today than it was for our generation,” she commented.
16. Vibes and Venues
1. I am indebted to Chicago pianist Jodie Christian for sharing this account of Bud Powell’s prowess with me. Personal conversation, summer 1984.
2. Jo Jones describes the genesis of some of his unique approaches to drumming. “The way I use cymbals and the hand-drum solo, I’ve been doing for twenty-three years. It all happened almost unconsciously, through the bare necessities I had to work with at the time I was learning drums—in carnivals. When I was traveling with a carnival, I didn’t travel with much.... With this limited amount and kind of equipment I had to do something.” Hentoff and Shapiro 1966, 306.
3. For additional discussion of the ways in which jazz groups regulate their precise mix of musical features to accommodate the tastes of different audiences, see Becker 1982, 318–20; and Schuller 1989, 406.
4. Dizzy Gillespie’s interpretation of Miles Davis’s stage behavior on Davis, video 1986.
5. Unfamiliar audience environments also undermine the normal “self-criticizing process” that “operates spontaneously where performers sing and play in contact with their cultural base. [The process] cannot function the same way when ... jazz ... [is] performed for audiences whose behavior is governed by the customs of the European concert hall.” Floyd 1991, 276.
6. A re-creation of his admonitions is on Mingus, rec. 1960.
7. From this standpoint, audience approval can even become a liability at times. In Denny Zeitlin’s experience, “An audience’s excitement as the music unfolds presents [the] ... challenge [of using] ... that energy to lift your music to a higher level without becoming seduced by their approval into grandstanding or overusing that material.” Milano 1984, 30.
8. Morton in Lomax 1950, 91–92, 140, 183. Armstrong in Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 131. For an account of contemporary violence, see Davis 1990, 306–7.
9. His comments on sophisticated audience response are from an oral presentation (Olly Wilson 1990).
10. Perlman and Greenblatt (1981, 180) distinguish knowledgeable jazz listeners on several bases, including their skill to follow solos closely, “note by note and phrase by phrase ... comprehend[ing] what is happening, both structurally and historically.” Similarly, in all the forms it can take, the improviser’s practice of “Musical Signifyin(g) ... elicits response and interaction from a knowledgeable and sensitive audience.” Floyd 1991, 275.
11. Haynes’s observations of Parker are on Parker, video 1987. According to Gene Ramey, “Bird kept everybody on the stand happy, because he was a wizard at transmitting musical messages to us, which made us fallout laughing. All musicians know certain musical phrases that translate themselves into ‘Hello Beautiful’ or, when a young lady ambles to the powder room, ‘I know where you’re going.’ Well, Bird had an ever-increasing repertoire of these.... If he was in the act of blowing his sax, he would find something to express and would want you to guess his thoughts.... Sometimes on the dance floor, while he was playing, women who were dancing would perform in front of him. Their attitudes, their gestures, their faces, would awaken in him an emotional shock that he would express musically in his solos. As soon as his tones became piercing, we were all so accustomed to his reactions that we understood at once what he meant.... He could look elsewhere, but soon as he repeated this phrase, we all raised our eyes and grasped his message.” Reisner 1979, 186–87.
12. St. Cyr in Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 20.
13. Zeitlin explains, “Very often I get into an altered state of consciousness where I feel that I’m really part of an audience, and that we’re all listening to the music. In fact, we’ve become the music—everything has merged. And an audience can be tremendously helpful in reaching that ecstatic state if they supply the energy and the willingness.... You can sure feel it when you’re up on stage. It’s really quite magical when that happens—when we’re all listening to the music.” Milano 1984, 25.
14. Coltrane interview in Kofsky 1973, 226.
15. Betty Carter concert at Pick-Staiger Auditorium, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, July 15, 1983.
16. Murray (1973, 87) describes the “confusion, annoyance, boredom and ... indifference” with which listeners respond to “inept performances.” According to Denny Zeitlin, such responses “certainly can [affect which road you go down].... I’ve experienced an audience’s restlessness with certain musical material; when you sense that, there is a tendency to scuttle the direction you’re taking, or to prolong it out of stubborn defiance. It’s a challenge to be peripherally aware of their reaction without derailing yourself. To be willing to alter your course if the audience is truly ‘telling you something’ that alters your esthetic judgement. Maybe the music has gotten boring, too abstract, et cetera.” Milano 1984, 25, 30.
17. One account by a musician attributes the failed debut performance of a fine trumpet player at the Village Vanguard to the venue’s “vibes.... Coltrane, Mile~, Cole-man Hawkins ... cats who’ve left their vibes here ... [the trumpet player] didn’t belong in that company. The vibes scared the hell out of him.” Gordon 1980, 96–97. In a related story, Rex Stewart describes his trepidation at taking over the chair of his idol, Louis Armstrong, with Fletcher Henderson’s orch
estra. He quit the position not long after having accepted it because he “couldn’t stand the pressure.” Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 208.
18. Buster Bailey reports that Joe Oliver would hold back particular tunes and alter his ideas as a soloist when he noticed musicians in the audience who he felt were inclined to steal from him; bebop innovators like Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie would perform “complex variations on chords ... to scare away the no-talent guys” who might otherwise be inclined to sit in with them during performances. Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 96, 337.
19. Ornette Coleman spoke to Chicago saxophonist Bunky Green; personal conversation, fall 1984.
20. For reference to creating definitive versions through studio editing, see Kernfeld 1988c, 363.
21. On experimental recordings of the thirties, see Sheridan 1988, 358, 362–63. Extended jam session performances involving Dizzy Gillespie, Harry Edison, and Roy Eldridge are found on “Steeplechase” and “Tour de Force,” Gillespie and Eldridge, rec. 1955.
22. One saxophonist explained to me that he regarded himself as a “less spontaneous” soloist than the other members in his group. He described writing out and memorizing the solos for his first album. Concerned about how this practice might be regarded by other jazz musicians, he asked to remain anonymous in reference to this matter.
23. On the brass facing away from the recording horn and discussion of early recording techniques, see Sheridan 1988, 358. On the other hand, the evidence for the technological limitations of early recording equipment appears to be mixed. Robert Witmer suggests that, because some early jazz records, such as by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, James Lent, and James Reese Europe, display intense drum and cymbal work, the variability may reflect different technical abilities of different recording engineers, and the musical preferences of individual musicians, who, in some instances, may have wished to re-create woodblock drumming styles from the minstrelsy era. Personal conversation, summer 1991. Similarly, Jasen (1973, 9) dismisses the common notion that the piano’s sound was too soft to be picked up by acoustic recording techniques and points out that “prior to 1912,” piano accompaniment on vocalists’ records could be heard clearly. He agues that the low payment offered early ragtime pianists by record companies discouraged many from making records. They could simply earn more by making piano rolls. He also suggests that the artists who toured the vaudeville circuit were concerned about their material becoming overexposed through records.
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