Title: Remembering in jazz: collective memory and collective improvisation
Abstract: Speaking ofjazz performances, late composer Alec Wilder is reported to have once said I wish to God that some neurologists would sit down and figure how improviser's brain works, how he selects, of hundreds of thousands of possibilities, notes he does at speed he does how in God's name his mind works so damned fast! And why when notes come right, they are right (Wilder as quoted in Suchor 1986: 134) There are undoubtedly many people who, after listening to an improvised solo, have wondered either same question or something akin to it. Recently, Paul Berliner published results of his fifteen-year ethnomusicological study of jazz improvisation, entitled Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art ofImprovisation (1994). Thinking in Jazz is a wonderful comprehensive tome detailing many aspects of ever elusive art of improvisation. Berliner would probably not wish to consider himself a neurologist, yet despite this he may have found solution or at very least, a good-sized portion of solution to Wilder's question. Quite simply stated, solution is that behind each improvisational performance is an entire lifetime of experience which performer utilizes to make the notes come right. Berliner's study essentially lays to rest popular but misleading notion that improvisation is a completely spontaneous art form (i.e. something not given much thought). The purpose of this paper, as its title may reflect, is to expand on Berliner's work by drawing upon concepts of memory and performance as utilized in recent anthropological research and applying these concepts to Berliner's heavily documentary research on learning process in jazz as well as metaphor of storytelling (see Berlin 1994:201-220) used by jazz musicians to describe improvisation. In order to accomplish this, I will first give a brief synopsis of common musical form in Jazz. This will then be followed by a discussion of some conceptions ofjazz as proposed by various ethnomusicologists and anthropologists. Secondly, I wish to summarize Berliner's findings regarding learning process in jazz. This summary will then lead into a discussion of some possible roles of memory in jazz improvisation via cross-cultural comparison. Finally, as this type of comparison becomes problematic if taken to point of rigid adherence to certain shared characteristics, insights gleaned from these comparisons will be applied and modified to jazz. Hopefully this exercise will shed light on aspects of collective memory and collective improvisation within jazz medium. As a final note before beginning a discussion of musical forms commonly used in jazz improvisations, I should state that this paper will take into account only bebop and its related genres with common, recurring chord progressions (e.g. 12 bar-bar blues, 32-bar AABA and ABAC forms, etc.) And not free or out jazz as documented by researchers Lambda Alpha Journal 28: 7-18
Publication Year: 1998
Publication Date: 1998-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 4
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