Dilemmas in jazz composition and impacts on the improvisor: (Part 3: Conveying form and improvisational technique)

With all these problems of composition and improvisation previously mentioned, how should we present our compositions? It is important to analyse the  form of our new compositions very carefully. What exactly is the form? And more critically, is the form unsymmetrical or irregular? 

Form, as I have stated elsewhere, is God in jazz because form is the structure of the improvisation and improvisation, as I have also stated previously, is 90 % of the composition. By analysing more carefully the form of our new compositions and conveying this  in a clear, graphical way on the manuscript the composer can facilitate more rapid internalisation and memorisation of a work for the musicians. This can be aided by liberally using repeats to show when the music is returning to earlier harmonic sections. [1]

We should also facilitate the rapid memorisation of compositional forms by not writing out compositions like big band charts. i.e. with no respect for the shape of the music. If the forms are irregular, we can arrange them on the page as such, so the improviser can actually see the shape. For example if you have a ten bar A section followed by a five bar B section, set it up on the page like that, with the sections separated graphically. It will then be much easier to improvise more quickly on this irregular form.

It is important to be aware that excellent compositions, like graphic structures, often look attractive on the page. This is due to the fact that a great composition, like nature itself, often has an element of design and inherent symmetry. This aspect of attractive design also aids the musician in memorising the chart more quickly. More and more as you understand this you will see that most of the great compositions have a remarkable inherent order.

Unfortunately many improvisers in jazz do not think in a classical compositional sense when improvising. At its highest level, jazz improvisation is true thematic development in real time, but often the improviser, being a lower level player, is more concerned with practicing the techniques that they think will elevate them to the next improvisational level. Hence, the compositional length that is suggested by the original theme is often well exceeded and then the problem is usually exacerbated by extensive harmonic and rhythmic repetition and lack of melodic and dynamic contour within the improvisation. The result of this is that a great deal of jazz improvisation simply loses focus and becomes boring. As a drummer, inherently powerless to change the outcome of an improvisational composition, apart from varying dynamics, I have often been acutely aware of this. As stated earlier, if the drummer who is usually concentrating 100% on the music is bored, imagine how the public feels: people who often have no understanding at all of the mechanics of the music.

This focus on improvising techniques is death to the thematic development that should be occurring in a jazz solo: the thematic development that can lift a simple melody and its improvisation into the realms of a “perfect” classical composition. A greater focus from the beginner is needed, not so much on personal technique, but more on what is actually occurring outside the instrument, i.e. the sound of the whole group–the myriad communications and dynamic flows occurring within it. This outer focus is something that the beginner improvisor often neglects.They are so focused on perfecting the hours spent studying technique at home that technique becomes the only focus on the bandstand. Obviously this outer focus is much more difficult to apply when soloing than when accompanying because the mind is in a much more heightened state. Only the most advanced musicians can truly do this. In fact to do this very well while soloing requires a special type of ability.

Discussing this we are moving into the realm of more esoteric techniques such as astral travel. [2] It is said that Charlie Parker was frequently able to observe himself while playing. Whether this may be just mythology, the result of his frequent abuse of heroin and barbiturates, or pure lies, we will never know, but this story has become part of the mystique of Parker and even if false, is something to aspire too, for the simple reason that it moves the focus away from ourselves, the improviser and outwards to the total sound.

[1] My friend, the New Zealand bass player Dan Fulton has developed an even more abbreviated technique for writing out compositions. He uses vertical arrows to show where chords are re-used in second time repeats. This diminishes  the physical size of the composition even more on a page and therefore facilitates more rapid internalisation/memorisation of the harmonic structures contained within a form.

[2] Astral Travel: I have never experienced anything but the vaguest hint of this at the exact moment before falling asleep; however, I do not doubt the validity of these accounts in the slightest. An astral traveller can leave their body as an avatar and travel to other countries, places and dimensions.

Dilemmas in jazz composition and impacts on the improvisor: (Part 2: Notation)

Notation, the working out of compositions, is primarily an ingenious expedient for catching an inspiration, with the purpose of exploiting it later. But notation is to improvisation as the portrait to the living model. It is for the interpreter to resolve the rigidity of the signs into the primitive emotion.

Ferruccio Busoni [1]

It is a great trap for the jazz composer to write something simple and then try to make it into something that it is not. Slightly ashamed of our seemingly insignificant melodic idea, we may try to make it appear more complicated than it actually is by adding a few bars to create an irregular form [2] or an unsymmetrical form, [3] or over complicating the rhythm of melody. This is often a real trap for the novice jazz composer who may do everything possible to make a little sixteen bar tune seem more important than it actually is. I know this, because I have done it. 

Though it seems somewhat counter-intuitive, we should actually be striving to make our compositions appear as simple as possible.[4]

This statement would not sit well with modern classical composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, whose stated aim is to terrorise a musicians into a stressed psychological state with incredibly complex manuscripts. Curiously, Ferneyhough feels that this state actually serves his music. Maybe this is possible in contemporary classical music, though I am skeptical. However, I am certain that jazz improvisation is better served by a relaxed mind.

A melody with just few chords on a lead sheet which produces a fantastic improvisation is a completely successful jazz composition. The Miles Davis composition, Solar, a twelve bar non-blues form, is one of the great examples of such genius. This seemingly simple composition has likely yielded more bright improvisational moments on stages around the world in the last thirty years than almost any other. If we were to musically analyse the best of those Solar “improvised compositions”  we would likely discover all the complexity contained within a twenty-minute string quartet of Beethoven or Bartok. Solar is like the greatest of pop songs. It is perfect. The genius is in this deceptive simplicity.

In the same vein I have often had musicians tell me that that they would love to sit down and write a hit pop song, but they do not have the time to do so. They often say it would be easy. I always know when someone tells me this that that they have never even tried. Writing a simple pop song is as difficult as writing a good improvisational vehicle, perhaps even more so.

 
[1] Ferruccio Busoni quoted in Introducing Modern Music written by Otto Karolyi, 1995 Penguin Books 329p

[2] Irregular form: My personal definition: I have defined this is as any composition that does not remain static on fours trades. For example forms with a total of 10, 12, 14, 18, 20, 22, 26, 28, 30, 34, 36, 38, 42, 44, 46, 50 and 52, Any such composition is automatically non-static on eights trades also.

[3] Un-symmetrical form: My personal definition: the un-symmetrical form is a more advanced irregular form that has a harmonic section with an odd number of bars and is unfortunately not very common in the jazz repertoire. I love to play this type of composition because one has to concentrate totally to maintain the form. Thelonious Monk has mainly written regular tunes but in his remarkable legacy of more than eighty compositions there are also a number of unsymmetrical forms. Wayne Shorter and Charles Mingus are also important composers of the un-symmetrical form.

[4] I deeply thank New Zealand bass player Dan Fulton for the seeds of this  illumination.