tirro - constructive elements in jazz improvisation (1974)

Constructive Elements in Jazz ImprovisationAuthor(s): Frank TirroSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Summer, 1974), pp.285-305Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/830561 .Accessed: 21/06/2011 15:41

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Constructive Elements in Jazz Improvisation* By FRANK TIRRO

SMPROVISATION, the somewhat mystical art of performing music as an 'immediate reproduction of simultaneous mental processes, is but the

daily fare of the practicing jazz musician. Just as the ability to improvise was a prerequisite skill for the Renaissance ensemble instrumentalist, the jazz improviser gains recognition and stature after a long apprenticeship that both

"pays his dues" and teaches him his craft. Although the products of artistic creation are reverently studied and savored, the process of artistic creation receives much less attention because it is seldom documented.' Since process and product tend to fuse in improvisation, it is commonly assumed that jazz improvisations do not achieve the same heights as the products of notating composers;2 and

* A portion of this study was originally read at the Sixth International Congress of Aesthetics in Uppsala, Sweden, 1968, and an abstract appears in the Proceedings of that meeting (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, series Figura, n.s., Vol. X [Uppsala, 1972]). It is included here with the kind permission of Professor Teddy Brunius, editor of the Acta. I also wish to express my appreciation to the American Society for Aesthetics and the American Council of Learned Societies for the financial grant awarded the original paper, "Jazz Improvisation."

1 There are, of course, many insightful studies on this subject. Successive stages in the composition of the development section of Beethoven's Andante from Op. 68 are analyzed by Joseph Kerman, "Beethoven Sketchbooks in the British Museum," Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, XCIII (1966/67), 77-96. Also, see his The Beethoven Quartets (New York, 1966). Lewis Lockwood orders three sets of sketches and a rudimentary score with "cue-staff" in "Beethoven's Unfinished Piano Concerto of 1815," The Musical Quarterly, LVI (1970), 624-46. Beethoven's works lend themselves better to this kind of analysis than do those of other composers because of the existence of his sketchbooks, but a similar method of inquiry is applied to the music of Bach by Robert L. Marshall, The Compositional Process of 1. S. Bach (Princeton, 1972), and his "How J. S. Bach Composed Four-Part Chorales," The Musical Quarterly, LVI (0970), 198-220. Most studies on improvisation, however, such as Ernst T. Ferand, Die Improvisation in der Musik (Ziirich, 1939) and his article, "Improvisation," MGG, Vol. VI, cols. o1093- 135, as well as related studies on performance practice, concentrate on embellishment and the application of appropriate formulas rather than on the method of simultaneous composition and performance. 2 Andr6 Hodeir's excellent critical study, Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence (New York, 1956) errs in this regard. He divides jazz melody into two types, theme phrase and variation phrase, and divides the latter in two again, [theme] paraphrase and chorus phrase [improvisation]. Of the improvisation, he says, "It is conceived . . . in complete liberty. Freed from all melodic and structural obligation, the chorus phrase is a simple emanation inspired by a given harmonic sequence" (p. 144). He disavows thematic relationships in the improvisation, and, using Coleman Hawkins's solo on "Body and Soul" as an example, says, "the only thing the theme and the variations have in common is the harmonic foundation" (p. 144). His example in musical notation (Fig. 8, p. 145), supports an opposite view. Gunther Schuller supports Hodeir's thesis saying, "[jazz] 'variation' is in the strictest sense no variation at all,

286 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

since nothing remains to be scrutinized by the eye, most musicians do not bother to question that assumption.

Musical development and the expansion of motivic material in the extended improvisation of a great jazz performer is comparable to that found in notated compositions of Western music. The best jazz solos are indeed constructive in nature and may be evaluated syntactically as are other teleological compositions of the notating Western composer. Considered from a formalist point of view, most jazz has in common with most Western music a goal orientation that distinguishes beginnings, middles, and ends. The means by which these ends are achieved can, within the norms of the substyle in question, be achieved in a variety of ways with an equal variety of degrees of success. Both the traditional Western composer and the jazz improviser proceed by attempting to continue an antecedent musical situation in such a way that the piece fulfills the latent expectations implied by the beginning while traversing a musical obstacle course that delays gratification and creates tension.

The jazz improviser reuses and reworks material from previous performances; and, as will be demonstrated, musical ideas evolve through the passage of time and during subsequent performances. The skilled improviser begins with neither a completely free or totally blank situation nor rambles aimlessly to an inconclusive termination, but instead develops motives with cyclic treatment. The demonstration of this process may be seen on three different architectonic levels. On the lowest, the improviser creates new phrases whose continuity overlaps cadences and elides normal phrase structure; on a higher plane, the improviser constructs consequential choruses out of antecedent situations which are relatively close in proximity, usually the preceding chorus; on the highest level identified, the improviser manipulates musical ideas stemming from remote past events. Both the composer and the improviser attempt to create new solutions which, through their grace, inventiveness, and bal- ance, avoid both the most probable and the most diffuse routes.

Improvisation is one element usually present in every performance in every jazz style. It consists of the simultaneous acts of composition and performance of a new work based on a traditionally established schema-

since it does not proceed from the basis of varying a given thematic material," ("Sonny Rollins and Thematic Improvising," Jazz Panorama, ed. Martin Williams [New York, 1964], p. 240), but acknowledges exceptions in a few great solos (it is amusing that he cites Hawkins's second chorus of "Body and Soul" as an excep- tion). Schuller's fine analysis of Rollins's "Blue 7" demonstrates that this work "is an example of a real variation technique. The improvisation is based not only on a harmonic sequence but on a melodic idea as well" (p. 248). However, this performance is clearly exceptional in Schuller's view, for he says, "In this Rollins has only a handful of predecessors, notably Jelly Roll Morton, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, and Thelonious Monk, aside from the already mentioned Lewis and Giuffre" (p. 248, fn. 5). "The average improvisation is mostly a stringing together of unrelated ideas" (p. 240).

CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS IN JAZZ IMPROVISATION 287

a chordal framework known as the "changes." The jazz improviser works from a standard repertory of changes derived from popular songs, blues riffs,3 show tunes, and a few jazz "originals." As a well-constructed tonal melody implies its own harmony, these chord patterns imply their own pre-existent melodies.4 The implication is specific at any point in the progress of a piece, and consequently the educated and sensitive listener is at all times oriented with regard to the temporal progress of the piece. So is the performer, whether playing solo or in ensemble, whether playing chords, rhythm, melody, or countermelody. The Harvard Dic- tionary's definition of improvisation, "The art of performing music as an immediate reproduction of simultaneous mental processes, that is, without the aid of manuscript, sketches, or memory,"5 is somewhat misleading, for although memory is not used to recall in detail a once-learned, notated composition for a present-time performance, memory is used to recall the details of the style in which the improviser is performing; and it will be demonstrated that memory recalls, consciously or sub- consciously, musical events, patterns, and sound combinations that have become a part of the improviser's musical self. Sketches are used-sometimes written and sometimes memorized. Schemata, or models, exist in jazz, and these are the patterns, collections of patterns, or modifications of patterns which form the framework upon which, or against which, the improviser builds his new compositions.

Jazz improvisers commit the changes to memory, and these soloists depend upon the rhythm section-usually piano, bass, and drums-to maintain this structure throughout the performance of a piece. In this way, the soloist becomes responsible to "make the changes," adjust the temporal progress of his solo to coincide exactly with the temporal progress of the harmonic foundation. Likewise, the rhythm section has its own responsibilities. The drummer "keeps time," that is, "lays down the beat." If ever a concept of invariable tactus were valid, its practical application is demonstrated by the jazz drummer. All percussive sounds- proportional, syncopated, and metric-are adjusted to an unswerving pulse, and this is a constant the jazz improviser relies on as he works

3 "Blues" has several meanings, and the improvisational schema discussed here should be recognized as different from the AAB form of the text of most sung blues and from the AAB form of many blues melodies. A fascinating but unconvincing argument tracing the origins of the blues to the i6th-century Italian passamezzo is made by Otto Gombosi, "The Pedigree of the Blues," Music Teachers National Association Proceedings, XL (1946), 382 ff. "Riff" has three common meanings: (i) a blues melody, (2) a short (two- to four-measure) passage repeated to accom- pany a solo, and (3) a melodic passage improvised by one jazz musician and copied by others.

4 See Frank Tirro, "The Silent Theme Tradition in Jazz," The Musical Quarterly, LIII (1967), 323-24.

SWilli Apel, "Improvisation," Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, Mass., I944), p. 240.


through time. The concrescence of piano and bass with the drum com- pletes the substructure which organizes and measures the improvisation, for the bass sounds roots at structural points and the piano adds complete chords in a variety of manners depending on the style and the individual. The exact makeup of a rhythm section may vary-guitar instead of piano or piano and drum without bass, but two elements of a schema which define form are invariable: time and changes. Jazz can be perceived on many levels, but to comprehend fully those jazz creations which transcend the ordinary, those which are works of art, one must grasp the information supplied by the rhythm section to put syntactical order to the language, statement, and grammar of the jazz solo.

The minimum professional requirement of the improvising jazzman is that he play everything correctly. Technical mastery of an instrument is assumed. Then he has the task of constructing an unusually clever solution, of creating an unusually beautiful result, of accomplishing an unusually difficult feat, or of completing a process in such a manner that it expands the very framework of the original task. It is in relationship to these concepts that one is measured as virtuoso, artist, or genius; hence the stress and emphasis placed upon the listener's responsibility to learn to perceive the schema.

These patterns have become so much a part of the subconscious of the jazz performer that it is not uncommon for a soloist to "take a stroll," continue an improvisation to the changes of a piece while the rhythm section is silent or "laying out." This process might be seen in Examples 1-3. The "chord chart" for "Cherokee" by Ray Noble is followed by an improvisation to this schema by trumpeter Clifford Brown.6 His solo was performed with standard rhythm section accompaniment, but that which follows, Example 3, is a stroll by alto saxophonist Bunky Green. Notice that the last improvisation implies all the changes in their proper sequence. Even without the concrete support of the rhythm section, this style of improvisation is locked tightly to chronological time. Even though the schema is silent, it is not omitted. The goal orientation of both solos is specific, and the series of notes may be thought of as a stochastic process, a sequence of notes that occur according to a certain probability system called a style. At any point in time, the present event can be seen to have proceeded from past events, and so the solo is indeed a Markoff chain." Because both the listener and the improviser are ori-

6 Traditional Western notation, which is somewhat imprecise for the recording of the standard repertory, is quite inadequate for transcribing the jazz repertory. Microtonal pitch variation, characteristic articulations, and tempo-dependent rhythmic patterns are only a few of the jazz performance-practice peculiarities that are essen- tial to the style but have developed no explicit notation. For a few of the assumptions made by me for the transcription of jazz solos, see the appendix to my article, "The Silent Theme Tradition," p. 334. All of the transcriptions in the present article are my own.

SSee Leonard B. Meyer, Music, the Arts, and Ideas (Chicago, 1967), especially Chap. i, "Meaning in Music and Information Theory," pp. 5-2 1.


Example i "Cherokee" ("Indian Love Song"), by Ray Noble

Bb F- Bb7 Eb Ebm

Bi III. II

F7 Bb F 9 F#7 B+7 B7 1 2. I ..

TI I I g

"

Bm7 E9 A D9 D7 G

I

G7 C7 Gm7 C7 Cm7 F+-

Bb F+

Bb7 Eb Ebm Bb

-10 a --t-- i.- I-

Copyright MCMXXXVIII by Peter Maurice Music Co., Ltd., London, England. U.S.A. Copyright renewed and assigned to Skidmore Music Co., Inc., 666 Fifth Ave., N.Y., N. Y. Used by permission.

ented to the schema which limits the probabilities allowable for a solo in a particular style, and since initial statements in the solo carry implica- tions for what is to follow, prediction and, hence, musical meaning are possible. Listener expectation, analysis, and criticism go hand in hand.

One further statement about schemata needs to be made before pro- ceeding. Models have some degree of flexibility built into them. Green's solo in Example 3 added and subtracted redundant beats without altering the identity of the model or destroying the concept of time-invariable pulse. Harmonic speed may also be varied while still maintaining a basic framework if the choice of chords at structural points remains consistent with the model. By inserting a more complex harmonic progression into the normal blues framework, musical tension can be increased by raising


Example 2

"Cherokee," solo by Clifford Brown, EmArcy Records, DEM-2 Fast Bb F4 Bb7

ti.

Trpt. Eb Ebm

Bb Dm

eJ .- ,-

C9 Cm7

Fdim Eb F7 ' I .I I-m

I I -

::I F B1

Eb Ebm

Bb Dm C9

Cm7 F7 Bb BbF+ 3 .

the level of difficulty of correct performance. Examples 4a and 4b might be compared to a downhill run on skis, the first with an occasional turn and the second along a path woven through slalom flags. If the beat remains the same for both performances, the second is the more difficult. Trumpeter Chet Baker accepts the challenge of the thickened progression in his performance of "Bea's Flat" (Ex. 5)-

CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS IN JAZZ IMPROVISATION 29I

Example 3

"Marshmallow" ("Cherokee"), solo by Bunky Green (private tape) Fast Bb Faster

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Had a single chord been held for the first four measures, as in Example 4a, Baker could have had more freedom and less chance of error. The goal orientation between measures i and 5 is much stronger in Example 4b than 4a, because each intermediate goal further limits the possible stylistic paths which must end on an Eb-major chord in measure 5. Baker's series of notes is but slightly ornamental and is instead principally con-

Example 4 Two Blues schemata

Bb Eb Bb F Bb I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Io II 12

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0 :r r r r

0 0 rr rr


Example 5

"Bea's Flat" (Bb Blues), as played by Chet Baker, Pacific Jazz Records, PJ 12o6 Bb Fm7 BM7 Em7 A7 Dm7

Trpt.

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structive. It is a line that is at once melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic, and the selection of notes is made frequently from the upper partials of the harmonic series of the chords of the schema.

With the onset of Free Jazz, the blues have become less used, but Example 6, a tribute to Charlie Parker by Ornette Coleman, demonstrates how aware the listener must be of the standard twelve-measure period to perceive that this distorted structure combines both blues and pop-song form. The overall form is AABA, but each A is a blues variant. After a two-measure introduction, the first A uses the first nine and one-half measures of a blues chorus; the second A uses eleven measures; and the last uses ten.

At first glance, the blues schema appears too simple, almost naive, incapable of sustaining melodic fabrics of artful design. Charlie Parker clearly demonstrates this is not the case, for the ingenuity and artistry of the phenomenal performer created an imposing variety of riffs. The ostinato pattern of "Now's the Time" (Ex. 7) is diametrically opposed to the continuously unfolding line of "Cheryl" (Ex. 8). The heavy, four- beat drive of "Air Conditioning" (Ex. 9) finds little similarity in the light, off-beat articulations of "Visa" (Ex. io). Even more significant in this regard are the hundreds of improvised solos which followed these and other riffs and which, as yet, remain untranscribed and unpublished. They demonstrate the true variety possible within the tight confines of a short, constantly repeated, fixed form. In these creations, one finds the true measure of the jazzman's genius.8

8 A transcription and analysis of Parker's "Perhaps," theme and three-chorus solo, may be found in William W. Austin, Music in the 20th Century (New York, 1966), pp. 289-91. A detailed and perceptive analysis of Parker's solo on "Slam Slam Blues" is offered by Richard Wang, "Jazz circa 1945: A Confluence of Styles," The Musical Quarterly, LIX (0973), 542-44. Wang's comparison of blues solos by Teddy Wilson, Flip Philips, and Dizzy Gillespie (pp. 534-41) is particularly instructive, and one might see in these excellent transcriptions, constructive development in con- trasting styles.


Example 6

"Bird Food," by Ornette Coleman, Atlantic Records, i 327

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Trpt. 8'" and unisoni

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Example 7 "Now's the Time," by Charlie Parker, Verve Records, MG V-800oo5

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The means by which the traditional Western composers have at- tempted to achieve their goals and communicate with their audiences has been discussed at length and sometimes with great clarity.9 The need to demonstrate the existence of that process in jazz improvisation where

Example 8

"Cheryl," by Charlie Parker, Le Jazz Cool Records, JC- 102 -..oom I MOOR 1 1 -qm Ole ML ad 4AW rim i w w ga I I i I do

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#j 4v- w7w-,o-l GF 9 Eduard Hanslick, The Beautiful in Music, trans. G. Cohen (New York: Novello,

Ewer, 189i); Heinrich Schenker, Der freie Satz, trans. and ed. T. H. Kreuger (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1960), pub. no. 6o-i558; Felix Salzer, Structural Hearing (New York, 1952); Leonard B. Meyer, Emotion and Meaning in Music (Chicago, 1956); and Suzanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (New York, 1959), focus most of their discussion on purely musical relationships.


Example 9 "Air Conditioning," by Charlie Parker, Dial Records, 207

?I , , k I i !( ?12. I A I I

motives are developed and ideas revised exists not only because the process is not often recognized, but also because the opposite is frequently argued. Charles M. H. Keil, referring to jazz and some non-Western music, attacked the applicability of Leonard B. Meyer's contention that "music must be evaluated syntactically."10 Keil argues that jazz improvisa-

Example i o

"Visa," by Charlie Parker, Verve Records, MG V-8ooo

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pool 112

o10 Charles M. H. Keil, "Motion and Feeling through Music," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XXIV (1966) 337-49. Meyer's statement is in Leonard B. Meyer, "Some Remarks on Value and Greatness in Music," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XVIII ('959), 496.


tion is unlike traditional Western composition in that it does not depend heavily on syntactical relationships and can be understood better through a study of process (by which I take him to mean something akin to performance practice, the acts of producing the sound that is jazz). On the basis of his observations, he suggests that "engendered feeling," an undefined term, be substituted in the analysis of jazz improvisation for Meyer's "embodied meaning," the meaning that arises "within the context of a particular musical style [when] one tone or group of tones indicates-leads the practiced listener to expect-that another tone or group of tones will be forthcoming at some more or less specified point in the musical continuum."" In place of a definition for "engendered feeling," Keil constructs a list of polarities, opposing composed with improvised, repeated performance with single performance, syntactic with processual, coherence with spontaneity, and so on. He contends the former are applicable -to Western traditional composition and the latter to jazz. He admits that "all music has syntax or embodied meaning," but he argues that in "African-derived genres, an illumination of syntactical relationships or of form as such will not go very far in accounting for expression."12

I would argue that Keil has confused compositional process with its result, the notated version or performance of a traditional Western composition: a confusion of process and product. In jazz, process and product are simultaneous. When the analyst deals with syntactical relationships, he is dealing with the results of the compositional process, the music itself. When, as Keil does in his discussion "Motion and Feeling through Music," an author describes the motion of rhythm-section attacks, verbalizing the action of drummers who

"lay back" or play "on top of the beat," he is dealing with performance practice, not compositional process. They affect each other to a certain degree because they are somewhat interrelated, but they can be dealt with separately and should not be confused. Example 5, "Bea's Flat" played by Chet Baker, is a good example of a jazz piece that creates tension syntactically. The relationship of musical sounds does account for expression.

It is true that an improvisation occurs but once, but each improvisation has a history of similar, related performances. The creative process stops once the composition is notated and once the improvised performance is over, but if the same tune or schema is performed again with new improvisations at a later date, both versions can be studied as separate, interrelated compositions. Since jazz tunes are frequently rerecorded, sequential performances can be studied.

I have made some studies of this kind with the aid of commercial recordings. But in order to provide a kind of laboratory check against

11 Meyer, Music, the Arts, and Ideas, p. 7. 12 Keil, "Motion and Feeling," p. 338.


results thus obtained, a five-piece jazz combo was given an unfamiliar and difficult piece to prepare for public performance. All members of the group had extensive professional experience in Chicago and elsewhere, and two, the alto saxophone soloist, Bunky Green, and the drummer, Jerry Coleman, were regularly employed in the Chicago recording studios at the time. The pianist, Richard A. Wang, has the qualifications of both a professional musician and a jazz authority.13 Recordings of all the rehearsals and two public concerts of this same composition made over a two-month span were compared. A single passage was selected for observation to determine if ideas were repeated and evolved or free and ever changing, as the spontaneous approach to improvisation might lead one to believe would be the case. The results of this laboratory situation were compared with recordings of parallel situations in which the performances were on commercial recordings and played by recognized jazz masters. These studies show clearly that the jazz improviser's final version, his latest revision, is the product of a reworking of formerly used syntactical elements and can, therefore, fairly be discussed, criticized, and evaluated as can traditional Western composition.

As explained above, composers create, within their respective stylistic norms, music that is a process in which present events proceed out of past events within a complex probability system that implies a defined goal. This is the case in jazz as well. The constructive nature of a jazz improvisation can be demonstrated by studying Stan Getz's performance of "Lover, Come Back to Me!" by Sigmund Romberg. In Example I I, even in the first introduction of the theme, Getz places the structural notes of the theme askew with reference to their regular metric positioning. He can communicate his accomplishment of an irregular overlay of meters and an out-of-phase positioning of phrase to his audience on his first statement because his audience is part of a larger jazz community that can be assumed to know the standard repertory.14 Example ii is Getz's first introduction of the thematic motive. Examples 12 and 13 are taken from his first improvised chorus and demonstrate his further reworking of previously stated material. Example 14 illustrates musical relationships that exist in Examples i i-i 3.

The passage of time is often an important factor in the maturation of a musical idea. Beethoven's sketchbooks sometimes reveal years of motivic transformation. This process can be seen in jazz as well, for the improviser, usually a working musician who often performs five to seven nights a week, replays tunes and ideas with relative frequency. Such a process, which gradually remolds the material, disproves Keil's notion of a jazz performance representing a single, unique event. Granted that

13 See fn. 8, above. 14 A vivid description of the environment in which jazz operates is painted by

Alan P. Merriam in "The Jazz Community," Social Forces, XXXVIII (i960), 211-22.


Example i i "Lover, Come Back to Me!" as played by Stan Getz, Clef Records, MG7-137

Getz version

"go

-

F- J "

.do

Original melody -AOL-

A, 6

.

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J J F~~ =7j

I L

no two performances will be exactly alike, one must include a considera- tion of past events that act as preparation for a present event. Example 15 presents a passage recorded by Stan Getz in 1952. Examples I6 and 17 are passages extracted from a different work nine years later. The latter two are so obviously related to the first in spite of the change from duple to triple meter and fast to moderate tempo that it becomes evident that an improvised idea, once stated, is not necessarily lost by the improviser. In this instance, a similar set of changes revived the old motive even though the remainder of the context is quite different.

Further evidence of the extent to which a composer-improviser re-


Example 12

"Lover, Come Back to Me!" Repetition of A section before the bridge in the first improvised chorus by Stan Getz

0001~

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works germ motives is the beginning of Warne Marsh's solo in "Marsh- mallow," which consists of three but slightly altered statements of the first four notes of the silent theme "Cherokee" by Ray Noble, the tune that provided the changes for Marsh's composition "Marshmallow."15 Example i presents the opening of "Cherokee," and Example i8 shows the beginning of the Warne Marsh solo which uses the first four notes of the silent theme as the point of departure.

Charlie Parker reworked "Cherokee" into his own silent theme composition, or improvisation, "Ko-Ko," in 1939.16 For the laboratory experi- ment described above, the five-piece combo was provided the music of

15 A transcription of the theme of "Marshmallow" may be found in Tirro, "The Silent Theme Tradition," pp. 331-32. 16 There is a contradiction in the literature about this date. The recording session for "Ko-Ko" took place November 26, 1945, and it would seem that on the basis of this information, the creation of this work should be dated 1945 (see James Patrick, "The Uses of Jazz Discography," Notes, XXIX [1972], 21). However, Parker is quoted as saying that he worked over "Cherokee" in 1939, and I interpret "the thing I'd been hearing" as an early version of "Ko-Ko" (Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' To Ya [New York, 1955], pp. 354-55).


Example I 3

"Lover, Come Back to Me!" End of the bridge and final repetition of A section in first improvised chorus by Stan Getz

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"Marshmallow" and not told that the original was "Cherokee" or that a Parker version, "Ko-Ko," existed.17 The soloist, Bunky Green, soon began reworking an opening passage to the bridge which echoed one of the Parker passages but never duplicated it. Subsequent performances of the passage restated the general outline of the preceding version, but new cyclic variations resulted. Of the twenty-two versions recorded by Green, the first two bore little relationship to the eventually adopted pattern. Then, of the subsequent twenty versions, seventeen bear the imprint of the idea. Example 19 is the appropriate passage from "Ko-Ko" as played by Charlie Parker, and Examples 20, 21, and 22 are three of the seventeen above-mentioned versions by Green demonstrating the compositional evolution of an idea.

Charlie Parker demonstrates the same developmental process in a recording which has two alternate "takes" of three choruses each. Each

17 Charlie Parker's "Ko-Ko" has been transcribed by John Mehegan, Jazz Im- provisation, IV (1965), 103 if.

CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS IN JAZZ IMPROVISATION 3OI Example 14

Motive transformation in improvisation by Stan Getz

X X Y = three %4 measures Z

From Ex. I 2 ; j y Y

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X

X X X

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z

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Example 15

"The Way You Look Tonight," as played by Stan Getz, Clef Records, MG7-I 37 D Gm7 C7 F

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Example 16 "Minuet Circa '6 i," by Stan Getz, Verve Records, V/V6-841 8

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reworking of the idea introduces just enough change so that the relationship of version i to version 6 is clear only if versions 2 through 5 are known or are assumed. To know all the sources and their chronology is as important for a real understanding of jazz as it is for an understanding of a Kyrie trope or a Beethoven quartet. In Example 23, note Parker's remarkable ability to elide cadences with a phrase concept that stretches from three to six measures. The freshness of the ideas which poured forth from his seemingly limitless imagination has singled this man out above all other jazz musicians to this day as much more than a virtuoso.

Western composition and jazz improvisation have in common a co- herent syntax and a hierarchical structure which provide a means for deferred gratification through a perception of the music's embodied meaning. In jazz, process and product occur simultaneously as the improviser both ornaments and extemporizes.

Philip Gehring writes on the aesthetics of improvisation as follows:

Unlike a composition, there is no recreative process in an improvisation whereby it can be experienced again and again. If it happens that a certain

Example 17 "Minuet Circa '6 i," chorus by Stan Getz

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Example1 8

"Marshmallow," by Warne Marsh. Opening of solo by Marsh, Prestige Records, LP 7004

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Example 19

"Ko-Ko," by Charlie Parker, Savoy Records, 12079

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Example 20

"Marshmallow," as played by Bunky Green, version i (private tape)

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Example 21

"Marshmallow," as played by Bunky Green, version 2 (private tape) h 1 '60,01 N rft%4 I MEMO" rp I I wm_ I 11111h.- I [ I --qm I I 1 3 1 Tr I'do :j I Tl if

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Example 2 3 "An Oscar for Treadwell," by Charlie Parker, Verve Records, V-8oo6 Version I

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improvisation is recorded and later written down, then it lives the rest of its life as a composition rather than an improvisation.'8 There can be little doubt that these transcribed improvisations are indeed compositions, each following musical laws that govern the progress of the work. The variety possible is but partially observed when examining the Charlie Parker blues melodies-Examples 7 through io. The schema is extremely simple and rigid; the laws of tonal harmony and the metric demands of four beats per measure in twelve-measure groups are very limiting. Still, the creative resources of this great improviser were so vast that he was able to surpass the ordinary and infuse with life a pattern that is monotony itself.

In writing about music of the I3th century, Rudolf von Ficker de- clares that the works are

still dependent upon the old method of improvisation, which allowed the performers' subjective faculty for development wide latitude-a method now, together with the tradition, quite extinct. For the rigid note forms of the manuscripts are only a sort of musical sketch, not a precise guide for tempo, dynamics and agogics, for tonality and accidentals. To endow it with the breath of life was the function of the producer, whose task it was to add all details needed for a finished performance, in every case producing something new and different according to his artistic ability, while following traditional rules and usages.19

The historian of 20th-century improvisation is more fortunate than the scholar who studies the Middle Ages. The tradition of improvisation is not extinct. As documents for study, sound recordings provide the material for criticism. They are sources of the first rank.

Duke University

s18 Philip Gehring, "The Aesthetics of Improvisation," Festschrift Theodore Hoelty-Nickel, ed. Newman W. Powell (Valparaiso, Ind., 1967), p. 88. 19 Rudolf von Ficker, "Polyphonic Music of the Gothic Period," The Musical Quarterly, XV (1929), 486.

Article Contentsp. [285]p. 286p. 287p. 288p. 289p. 290p. 291p. 292p. 293p. 294p. 295p. 296p. 297p. 298p. 299p. 300p. 301p. 302p. 303p. 304p. 305

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Summer, 1974), pp. 181-378Front Matter [pp. 181-182]A Dominican Organum Duplum [pp. 183-211]Towards a History of Viennese Chamber Music in the Early Classical Period [pp. 212-247]Beethoven's Sixth Symphony: Sketches for the First Movement [pp. 248-284]Constructive Elements in Jazz Improvisation [pp. 285-305]Studies and AbstractsA Fragmentary Manuscript of Early 15th-Century Music in Dijon [pp. 306-315]Lassus in English Sources: Two Chansons Recovered [pp. 315-325]Imitation and Expression: Opposing French and British Views in the 18th Century [pp. 325-330]

Publications Received [pp. 331-334]ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 335-338]Review: untitled [pp. 338-343]Review: untitled [pp. 343-348]Review: untitled [pp. 348-352]Review: untitled [pp. 352-353]Review: untitled [pp. 353-360]Review: untitled [pp. 360-366]

Communications[Letter from Herbert Kellman] [p. 367][Letter from Siegmund Levarie] [pp. 367-369][Letter from Michael Collins] [p. 369][Letter from Frederick Neumann] [pp. 369-370]

Back Matter [pp. 371-378]

tirro - constructive elements in jazz improvisation (1974)

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