Literature Review, Research Methods
As a composer/player and leader of a small jazz ensemble, it is essential to the study and to the development of my creative practice to review procedures and frameworks inherent in the writing, rehearsal and performance of a composition. My aspiration is to know how best to explore complexities of music making, using illustrations and concepts with a view to discovering insights, perspectives and approaches to investigating and developing small jazz ensemble compositional practice.
Jazz as process
What does the word “jazz” mean in the 21st century? The layperson or 21st century student of jazz is presented with the challenge, what is representative of a jazz style? How do we differentiate between jazz and any other improvised music? Hasn’t the improvisational art form been in existence for some time now, revealed in many musical forms and traditions? Jazz pianist/composer, Bill Evans stated that “jazz is not so much a style as a process of making music” (Evans, 1966). Jazz trumpet player/composer, Dave Douglas expounds on Bill Evans’ statement, by describing his aesthetical values and expectations in the music-making process: “You’re not thinking about any one thing. You’re trying to represent everything. Every part of your experience from birth to that moment” (as cited in Peterson, 2006, p. 75).
In 1938 jazz pianist and composer, Jelly Roll Morton stated that “without a break, you have nothing” in regards to the performance of jazz (Hill, Richard & Meddings, 2003). “Even if a tune has no break in it, it is always necessary to arrange some kind of a spot to make a break. Because without a break, as I said before, you haven’t gotten jazz . . .” (ibid.). Morton’s comments are relevant today, indicating the distinctive nature of jazz for potential exploration of musical material, inherent as compositional intent, and improvisational interpretation, in rehearsal, arrangement and performance of the musical score.
Contemporary improvisers such as Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, perceive jazz from different lenses, and are not interested in “neo-traditionalism”. Musicians such as these two, use traditions and cultural influences as a means to creating something new and distinct. Numerous approaches to music-making coincide and intersect due to developing artistic practice; the connection between artist and creative output are susceptible to continuous variation and innovation (Frisk & Karlsson, 2011, p. 280). Metheny and Mehldau have both learnt their craft from listening, imitating and assimilating musical knowledge from influential contributors of jazz history; preferring to explore imaginative, interpretative ideas as composers and improvisers, resulting in an idiosyncratic approach, as indicated by Metheny:
As much as I love playing on standards and blues forms and modern jazz compositions, there was a way of playing, an improvisational feeling that although I could kind of impose it into that zone a little bit, I didn’t really find music that really allowed me to follow through on my own improvisational urge. So I started writing tunes out of necessity (as cited in Niles, 2009, p.146).
Metheny’s personal approach coincides with the need for jazz musicians to compose an “inner musical image”, used as a “framework for improvisation” (Goldstein, 1993, p. 11). "Brilliant compositions and improvisations are often a microcosm of one another" (ibid., p.16), and Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk “forged personal musical styles through improvisation”, demonstrating the “variety and richness of music which has been created in this idiom" (ibid., p. 11).
Global influences have added new interpretations/permutations, beyond familiar spheres of canon and history, to reflect a ‘jazz moment in time’, either as an improvisation, composition and or performance. Diverse information and resources on jazz composition and improvisation are abundant. With the invention of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press in 1448 (Winston, 2005, p.5), and Edison’s phonograph record in 1878 (ibid, p. 239), to music streaming and the internet; knowledge is disseminated more efficiently than ever before; challenging the rationale of jazz as having specific musical characteristics, given the evolution and array of styles. Our modern day listening habits contrast to the days of the two-sided 78 rpm Gramophone record which had less playing time. According to Art Lange in his forward to Ran Blake’s Primacy of the Ear (2010), absorption of information was a deeper experience:
The fact that there were only two songs per disc, and not a dozen or more as is often the case today, meant that the listener was able to focus--had to focus—more frequently and more intently upon those two pieces of music. We have so much more music available to us, and so little time to listen, that we tend to sample more, but spend less time digesting it… (as cited in Blake, pp. iv–v, 2010).
The environment in which musical insights and learning occur has changed significantly over the last century: a live performance to memorizing a tune from a radio broadcast; transcribing a solo off the record to rewinding and reviewing a track on cassette tape; skipping over the melody on a compact disc to searching through digital files on the internet for inspiration. Social, folkloric, and cultural traditions have contributed as a resource to music-making process, due to musical collaborations as a community, a benefit from technological advancement. Historically, the origin of jazz is African American, however, due to the coverage of music, initially through the radio to a worldwide audience, jazz was adopted by other musicians, integrated into other world cultures and vice versa. Various people groups and settings have produced fresh, new perspectives on jazz, due to exposure and influence of the traditional African-American art form in their corner of the world. “Jazz is good music–when it sets itself, as earnestly as any other form, to explore and express the feelings and conditions of its time” (Ellington, 2003, p. 257).
Tradition is a practice that becomes standard, yet creativity is a spontaneous ordered invention, thus improvisation is reflected in the modernity’s essence: society at a juncture in time, in the present tense. As Dave Douglas puts it: “It’s really quite simple: wake up every day and try to reflect what’s really going on inside you and outside you. In this period, it’s reflected in the thousands of ways music is changing and growing” (as cited in Nicholson, 2003). This aspect of change and growth is reflected in Edward De Bono’s comments on effective learning from traditional and current resources, available for invention: “Traditional methods of thinking” have taught us “how to refine such patterns and establish their validity”, however, “we shall always make less than the best use of available information unless we know how to create new patterns” (De Bono, 1977, p. 13).
My assertion is that we are evolving past style into consideration of jazz as process. ‘Process’ seems an apt word for effectively locating and developing perspectives and outcomes on music-making in the 21st century. A theory of process recognises its unification “not in terms of underlying substance” but as a “permanent form or pattern”, exhibited as “continuously changing processes”, much like a “wave maintains its form” even though variables occur as a result of “different volumes of water and different times” (Blackburn, 2005, p. 294).
I argue that the fusing of jazz, that is, an improvisational art form with other cultural interpretations, (the relationship with traditional African American influence and other social settings), resulted in great diversity as a process, and not necessarily stylistic in character. Brad Mehldau’s solution to these complexities faced by the contemporary musician/composer, seeking to find a personal voice, is to “base that identity on the inception of jazz and go from there” or not “raise the question of identity in the first place” (as cited in Peterson, 2006, p. 180). Melhldau elaborates on this dilemma of a genre's expectations, using the analogy of jazz music as:
A very generous family with a big house that has a lot of guests from all over. Every so often, a visitor is particularly illuminating and affects the viewpoint of jazz permanently, leaving something behind in that house that will stay there forever (ibid., p. 180).
By perceiving jazz as a process, I argue that certain elements come into play, contributing to and demonstrating jazz as a verb, “to take part in any capacity in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance” (Small, 1998, p. 9). Musical process is a direct outcome of and influence on “jazz community’s…performance practices, rearranging and transforming…elements”, developing “original approaches to collective improvisation”, exposing the “limitations of applying conventional labels to style periods and idioms when describing the diversity of music making within the jazz tradition” (Berliner, 2009, p. 341).
Style suggests certain characteristics particular to a certain genre, and the “strongest creative element in jazz is improvisation” (Evans, 1966), however, this music-making process has been present for some time beforehand. “In an absolute sense, jazz is more a certain creative process of spontaneity than a style. Therefore, you might say that Chopin, or Bach, or Mozart, or whoever, was able to make music of the moment (improvised music), was in a sense playing jazz" (Evans, 1966). Another perspective on the conception of a musical moment, is explained by Bruno Nettl (1974), through suggesting that “composition and improvisation were not qualitatively different”, but rather “a continuum among musical genres, from more improvised to less improvised”, indicating that “rapid composition” occurred at the “improvisational end”, and “slow composition” occurred at the “compositional end”, indicating that “Western composers, such as Schubert, composed in bursts of quick, spontaneous creation” (as cited in Sawyer, 2003, p. 80).
Jazz as process is also revealed in how composers and improvisers generate diverse content from contrasting perspectives due to their personalities, experience, knowledge, methods, environments and respective instruments. Life memories and information which are stored in a jazz composer and improviser are encapsulated, transformed, transferred and arranged as ideas through an individual’s voice or musical canvas, either in the form of an improvisation or composition. The two occurrences are identical except for the function of time in the manner it is utilised: improvisation is a spontaneous, organized and creative act; composition is a spontaneous, organized, edited, creative act. To emphasize this point, Derek Bailey in Improvisation, its nature and practice in music (Bailey, 1993) describes differences between improvisation and composition in regards to a creative act occurring as a moment in time. Bailey recalls a brief encounter in Rome, 1968 with jazz saxophonist, Steve Lacey:
I took out my pocket tape recorder and asked him to describe in fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation. He answered: ‘In fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds.’ His answer lasted exactly fifteen seconds and is still the best formulation of the question I know (Bailey, p. 141).
With a number of resources at our disposal, jazz musicians and composers now have endless possibilities to create their own unique canvas, not limited to style but encouraged by process. However, a contrasting assessment to jazz as process is raised by Wynton Marsalis in a New York Times article:
Despite attempts by writers and record companies and promoters and educators and even musicians to blur the lines for commercial purposes, rock isn't jazz and new age isn't jazz, and neither are pop or third stream. There may be much that is good in all of them, but they aren't jazz (Marsalis, 1988).
Does that mean contemporary improvising jazz musicians/composers who may draw on rock, pop, third-stream, world music etc. are not playing jazz? Yet “the combination of freedom and tradition is vital for jazz” (Collier, 2009, p. 180). Thus, I consider process to be effective in pursuing artistic practice and its development in jazz composition/improvisation in the 21st century, without the limitations of style. A suggestion could be, rather than pointing to any particular style or styles, jazz should be defined as a genre encompassing a variety of influences, allowing a space created by the composer in the form of a template for musicians to improvise, making this type of music scenario unique. Graeme Collier reiterates this point by stating that:
One of the unique strengths of jazz lies in how what is written down is treated and developed during a performance. The music used is, in the main, incomplete in some way, written in a way that allows for - in some cases, demands - being developed, or, at the very least, coloured, by improvising (ibid., p. 264)
The present tense demands a solution, the ability to seek out and solve problems in relation to a musical moment as an organised structure. As Keith Jarrett said: “Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple” (as cited in Collier, 2009, p. 31). To play jazz is to improvise, organising sounds into a structure, in direct correlation with a compositional performance. Giddens & Deveaux (2009, p. 378) define composition as a musical work, performed by musicians in various settings and formats, much like in any other genre, remaining true to the composer’s intentions, whilst the first goal of jazz improvisation is the interpretation and unique performance of the score. Interactions take place where participants are required to make decisions as to the amount of liberty taken, negotiating between the composer’s direction, and the improvising musicians’ performance as arrangers of the compositional material. ‘Arrangement’ is the cross-section between composition and improvisation where the presentation of material for performance is organised; I refer to this process as creative design. The creative design and process of this music-making activity requires a “constant balance between finding a problem and solving that problem, and then finding a new problem during solving the last one…” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 115), through the writing, rehearsal, arrangement and performance of the small jazz ensemble composition.
The word ‘jazz’ describes a unique process, made up of improvising musicians, interpreting the intentions of the composer in the hope of obtaining a positive outcome. As a jazz composer/improviser, I see “jazz” as an opportunity to generate music spontaneously, with the intention of organising ideas into a coherent framework for presentation, either independently as a soloist, or interdependently as a collective. Ingrid Monson argues that improvisation in the jazz ensemble performance must take the approach of interactive, collaborative exploration as a cause for “musical invention”, and as a “point of departure” (Monson, 2009, p. 74). As compositional structure generates a platform for improvisation and vice versa, the arrangement is the architectural design of the performance, organised during rehearsal, “challenging group members to negotiate fresh musical models in performance and stimulating the conception of ideas in the process” (Berliner, 2009, p. 233).
This example of correlation between imagination and order as a social scheme is demonstrated in the choices, contributions, and leadership of individuals to form a successful unit. “In group creativity, the process is the essence of the genre, and it must be the central focus” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 6), and the potential success of a small jazz ensemble compositional performance is dependent on improvising musicians pursuing a genuine, idiosyncratic musical moment; the ability as narrators, to portray a story efficiently and effectively, placing oneself in the shoes of the author and his or her characters. More often than not, as is the case with most jazz standards, the composer is not present, and a group of improvising musicians are left to design an inspired performance through collective listening experiences in order to discover the ideal interpretation of a musical work. The template on which ideas are documented for performance could be seen as a map, with directions to a destination, the composer’s intention; yet the discussions which take place en route is demonstrated in the performer’s interpretation, organisation and performance of the score. This creative development is also expressed as physical and metaphysical relationships which take place in music structures, established in the form of a score, a rehearsal or a performance. Communications take place in organising a performance, unfolding at various levels co-existing dualities of internal/external processes contribute to musical style through the collaboration of individuals; resulting in the sharing of knowledge and experiences as “jazz community”, along with the physical world of information in the form of music fundamentals and theory, and exploration into metaphysical dimensions of imagination and creative potential.
I’m certainly not against the traditions and contributions made by jazz musicians/composers/leaders, past and present; for without them, our own ideas would have no foundation from which to learn and build upon, particularly from the practice and process of individuals and collectives, and not just the study of artistic outcomes. The ongoing development of practice “entwines with jazz’s artistic tradition”, with “mutual absorption and exchange of ideas”, taking place in a community, leading to “idiosyncratic musical perspectives” (Berliner, 2009, p. 59); and like any other art form, reflects the social conditions of its time, captured in performance as an improvisation and composition and vice versa.
An individual’s participation in music is complicated at times; variable conditions, perceptions, and incidental social events, embedded in historical process, cultural circumstance, systems, and complex mediations of technology and material culture influence artistic output (Clarke, 2011, p. 612).
Musicians such as Brad Mehldau recognise that most of his contemporaries “specialise” and “focus on a few periods and delve more deeply into them”, in regards to learning and developing from the jazz tradition. He compares this process to the study of philosophy, highlighting the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as the “last philosopher who could still give a full account of the whole history of human thought in his writing”; acknowledging that it is “too much information, so people had to stop trying to go for that meta-view” (as cited in Peterson, p. 181) as a consequence.
With global, social, and political change throughout the last century, ability to produce ideas and investigate new horizons has remained constant. This opportunity for artistic development and its exploration in the 21st century is identified by Wayne Shorter, who asserts failure as “an illusion” (Shorter, 2009). He continues by commenting on potential complacency in human beings if imagination is not used to further ourselves as a civilisation:
Now is the time for us to reach further than our grasp...our cognitive preservation, our cognitive power is the tip of the iceberg; so if we don’t reach the preservation of that iceberg, if we don’t reach for what is in our grasp, it might melt” (ibid.).
In summary in regards to the perspective of jazz as process, I make use of Pat Metheny’s suggestion for expansion and development of the tradition. He acknowledges that as musicians, composers, and listeners:
We have to get to work on a vision that is more concerned with what this music can become than what it has already been…a kind of jazz that sounds nothing like the jazz of the 20th century…a new kind of animal-but one that is still unmistakably connected to the larger jazz tradition (as cited in Nicholson, 2003).
Using language and metaphor as a descriptor
I have decided to include some examples of jazz literature in this paper but I have also drawn on other fields to help scaffold the notion of language and metaphor as a descriptor for intuitive and intellectual process in creativity, in particular, small jazz ensemble composition and its performance. The fundamental music structures of melody, harmony, rhythm and form used in the moment of improvised music and composition are also found in day-to-day conversation: a line of thought is conveyed, drawing upon a vocabulary of words, phrases and statements as a means of dialogue and correspondence. The mapping of ideas can be seen in the example of language and written text in books, much like a composition. There are similarities and differences in the way the vocabulary and language is presented in the two forms of communication, as Larson writes:
No one who accepts Chomsky’s claims about the structure of sentences would assert that spoken language, solely because it is improvised, lacks the underlying structure that can be found in written language. Likewise, no one who accepts Shenker’s claims about underlying structure in phrases of music ought to assert that unnotated jazz, solely because it is improvised, lacks the underlying structure that can be found in composed music. (Larson, 1998, p. 212)
Chomsky highlights distinctive, inventive qualities found in underlying structure of language as a means of human expression. In Language and Mind (Chomsky, 2006) the author refers to the work of German philosopher and poet, Karl Schlegel, who found the word poetical to best describe the “element of creative imagination in any artistic effort” (ibid., p. 90). Furthermore, Schlegel concluded that:
Every mode of artistic expression makes use of a certain medium and that the medium of poetry – language – is unique in that language, as an expression of the human mind rather than a product of nature, is boundless in scope and is constructed on the basis of a recursive principle that permits each creation to serve as the basis for a new creative act. (ibid.)
The recursive principle, exploring possibilities which co-exist in the constructs of music fundamentals as artistic expression and activity is conveyed eloquently by one of the greatest teachers of 20th century composition, Nadia Boulanger. In a documentary, Boulanger describes her aesthetic expectations as well constructed musical statements, noting that: "I only hope that a certain approach to grammar and to the form of language goes beyond personal taste” (as cited in Monsaingeon, 2007).
Creative design
The discovery of possibilities which co-exist, leading to the construction of a creative product as an artistic expression is demonstrated in the method of ‘creative design'. It is a metaphor and descriptor for understanding process and generating solutions. In other words, creative design is a form of ‘problem-solving’ as a composer/player/leader of a small ensemble. The ‘problems’ vary accordingly, particularly in regards to varying circumstances and roles of composer/player/leader as constructor of various outcomes such as the ‘score’, its ‘arrangement in rehearsal’ and its ‘performance’. For the purposes of this paper, creative design is the intersection between the process of composition and improvisation in connection to performance of a small jazz ensemble composition.
In a chapter by P.E. Vernon entitled "The Nature—Nurture Problem in Creativity” (Vernon, 1989) from the "Handbook of Creativity” (Glover, Ronning & Reynolds, Eds.), the author proposed creativity as:
A person’s capacity to produce new or original ideas, insights, restructurings, inventions, or artistic objects, which are excepted by experts as being of scientific, aesthetic, social, or technological value. In addition to novelty as our major criterion, we must incorporate in our definition the acceptability or appropriateness of the creative product, even though this valuation may change with the passage of time. (Vernon, 2013, p. 94)
Vernon’s explanation seeks to emphasise the need for creative outcomes as unique, practical, and of value. This is a pragmatic approach to problem-solving. However, in Guy Claxton’s “Hare brain, tortoise mind: How intelligence increases when you think less” (Claxton, 1998) the author provides a contrasting explanation for creativity and its development:
Creativity develops out of a chance observation or a seed of an idea that is given time to germinate. The ability of the brain to allow activation to spread slowly outwards from one centre of activity, meeting and mingling with others, at intensities that may produce only a dim, diffuse quality of consciousness, seems to be exactly what is required. (Claxton, 1998, p. 148)
Claxton’s approach is very imaginative and free-thinking, allowing the capacity of human potential to develop as gradual process, almost an intuitive approach. In “Lateral Thinking” (de Bono, 1977), the author describes the motivation of design as a backdrop to “generate alternatives”, which survey “beyond the adequate in order to produce something better”, releasing the designer from “domination by cliché patterns” (de Bono, 1977, pp. 255–256). De-Bono’s ‘lateral thinking’ is a very different example again, an approach that seeks to explore ‘alternatives’, to weigh up choices and perspectives, seeking the best option and optimum solution to a problem.
Decomposition
In Aesthetic Theory (Adorno, 2002), Philosopher and composer, Theodor Adorno distinguishes between integrated elements and complexities existing in art, as also having the ability to disintegrate and collapse; thus contributing to different perspectives in developing artistic practice and product: “To this extent their success is their decomposition and that lends them their fathomlessness. Decomposition at the same time releases the immanent counterforce of art, its centrifugal force” (ibid., p. 78). In this quote, I perceive Adorno’s example of decomposition as an approach to the exploration, understanding and application of endless possibilities existing in the fundamental structures of artistic creative practice and music making process.
Similarly, in the philosophical science text, The Sciences of the Artificial (Simon, 1996), Herbert Simon added that design is “concerned with how things ought to be, with devising artifacts to attain goals” (Simon, 1988, p. 69). He continues by offering rationale in using decomposition as an example, metaphor and model in the design process for devising and understanding relationships within an elaborate system:
To design such a complex structure, one powerful technique is to discover viable ways of decomposing it into semi-independent components corresponding to its many functional parts. The design of each component can then be carried out with some degree of independence of the design of others, since each will affect the others largely through its function and independently of the details of the mechanisms that accomplish the function. (Simon, 1996, p. 128)
This procedure of exploring semi-independent components serves as an example for investigation and break down of elements that occur in music. This notion of decomposition as a model for investigating music was brought to my attention in 2010 when I had a brief opportunity to meet with jazz saxophonist and composer, Wayne Shorter. I conveyed to Wayne a thought in regards to the performance of his music by his quartet at the Sydney Opera House. I noted that the group’s improvisations on his compositions seemed like live composition. In other words, I thought everyone in the group was contributing to a collective, creative process in relation to the compositional performance, through the act of improvisation. Wayne responded, “decomposition” and repeated again with a tone of mystery, “decomposition” (W.Shorter, personal communication, 7 March 2010).
The idea of exploring decomposition as creative process can be an individual or collective action. It’s the relationship between performers, reflective experience, information on the score, and instinctive approaches as individuals and as a collective, which contributes to this unique perspective of arranging and exploring microcosms that occur in jazz composition. In Michelle Mercer’s biography, The Life and Works of Wayne Shorter (Mercer, 2004), Shorter reflects on performances with the Miles Davis Quintet and how decomposition was used as a tool for investigation:
Each song has its DNA. So you just do the DNA and not the whole song. You do the characteristics. You say, ‘Okay, I will do the ear of the face. I will do the left side of the face.’ Everyone took a certain characteristic of the song and you can do eight measures of it, and then you can make your own harmonic road or adventure within a certain eight measures. (Shorter, cited in Mercer, 2004, p. 119)
Jazz educator and piano player, Dr. Barry Harris once said in a master class in New York, “Music is about movement” (B.Harris, personal communication, 18 July 2000). In other words – the parameters stay the same but the relationships between them change and evolve, never remaining static. Examples of parameters and techniques that may be explored, using the metaphor of decomposition as a model for reducing musical structures to their lowest, common denominators include:
Can deeper perceptions be achieved by examining any one of these components from a contrasting perspective? To illustrate my point, I will utilise time/pulse as an example. Can one use an antonym to exaggerate and study time-keeping in music? What is not time-keeping in music? In this case the opposite for time/pulse is stillness. Consequently, we obtain an understanding of time as a component, necessary for generating a musical space to exist. In other words, the creation of ‘sound’ followed by ‘movement’. Other examples would include: Intervals–separateness, triads–concentrical, melody–cacophony, harmony–disagreement, rhythm–roughness, form–shapelessness, space–continuity. I am certain there are more accurate techniques for describing the dualities present in music-making process and its use of fundamental components, and further investigation may be needed; but the emphasis to this point is perceiving what a component is not and does not do in relation to its function in music. This awareness can also be applied to intangibles which exist in writing, rehearsing, arranging or performing a musical score as an either intentional or interpretative process.
Intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance
According to Borgdorff, “As a rule, artistic research is not hypothesis-led, but discovery-led” (Borgdorff, 2011, p. 56). This type of research enquiry and process is seen in the activities associated with work in laboratories. In a chapter entitled, Thinking About Art After the Media: Research as Practised Culture of Experiment, found in, The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts, it is noted that advancement, examination, trial, disposal and fulfilment of ideas and results, parallel artistic praxis of art and shared with science; however, the distinguishing feature in art and its creative process is the two main threads of intuition and intellect (Zielinski, 2011, p. 299). This idea of intuition and intellect as threads in artistic practice and enquiry is shown in the following example.
The illustration of the creative act, involving instinct, intelligence, discovery and comprehension of musical structures, was conveyed to me in conversation with jazz drummer/composer, Victor Lewis at Sydney’s jazz venue, The Basement. Lewis mentioned that jazz saxophonist/composer, Joe Henderson was “the perfect balance between intuition and intellect” (V. Lewis, personal communication, 18 September 1999). He continued the point, recalling his first encounter with Joe in a recording session with jazz trumpeter, Woody Shaw:
I had written a tune for the recording. All the parts for the instruments were written out, including Bb tenor saxophone. We rehearsed despite the fact that Joe wasn't there. I was concerned and asked Woody, "Joe isn't here. How's he going to go on the recording?” Woody just smiled. When the day arrived, Joe was at the session and I handed him his chart. He thanked me and got out some manuscript. He proceeded to write it all back into concert! Then he wrote some other stuff on another piece of manuscript. Now all this happened whilst his horn sat in the corner. He didn't touch it. Then we recorded. He played it better than I wrote it! (V. Lewis, personal communication, 18 September 1999)
This music experience demonstrates the creative approach at work as a composer, a performer and as a critic. Victor Lewis had spent time putting down on paper his ideas. It was a spontaneous act that then required editing by relying on the musical knowledge stored. Joe Henderson had spent his preparation time absorbing the information. “He created a different pathway of learning and storing the information” (S. Newcomb, personal communication, 12 March 2015). By rewriting the music back into concert key, Henderson investigated the intentions of the musical work, thereby putting himself in the shoes of the composer.
In The Jazz Composer: Moving Music Off the Paper (Collier, 2009), the author offers an appreciation and insight into the musical performance from the composer’s perspective. The work by Graeme Collier is an enquiry and pedagogical tool into the development and understanding of artistic practice and interpretation of jazz composition, played out in performance. The author sates that jazz composition process can interweave in three components: tune, arrangement and composition. Tunes are a document and configuration, providing a base for improvisation; arrangement is a way of directing and communicating to the musicians when to play, but generally refers to the act of writing specific parts for the performance; and composition is the recording, development and integration of ideas between what is written on the page and what is improvised by an individual (Collier, 2009, p. 8).
The subject of interactions which occur throughout the preparation and performance of a jazz composition between the composer and musician is addressed in Ingrid Monson’s Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation (Monson, 2009). This publication looks at musicians developing ideas with one another, using analogy to communicate intentions not written in the musical score: “the informal, sociable and metaphorical modes of speaking about music favoured by many jazz musicians challenge traditional presumptions about the nature of the musical object and the definition of musical analysis” (Monson, 2009, p. 74).
One of the best examples which has documented the small jazz ensemble composition and its performance, demonstrating principles of intention and interpretation of the score, is found in the classic album, Kind of Blue (Davis, 1959) by jazz composer/player/leader, Miles Davis. In his book, Miles: The Autobiography (Davis & Troupe, 1989), Davis reflects on music created over two recording sessions in an environment of freedom within boundaries. As a composer, Davis brought a set of instructions and frameworks notated on the page to his musicians, “I didn’t write out the music for Kind of Blue, but brought in sketches for what everybody was supposed to play because I wanted a lot of spontaneity in the playing” (Davis, 1989, p. 224). The musicians in the ensemble interpreted the intentions of the composer/leader in an imaginative, collective, improvisatory performance, as noted by Davis himself:
But you write something and then guys play off it and take it someplace else through their creativity and imagination and you just miss where you thought you wanted to go. I was trying to do one thing and ended up doing something else (ibid.).
Research Methods
This research project’s inspiration, motivation and investigation of creative process in music composition and performance can be compared to similar practice based research studies taking place in institutions such as Belgium’s, Orpheus Institute. Currently there is a research project entitled, A Scientific and Artistic Inquiry Into the Nature and Potential of Exploratory Experimentation in Composition and Performance (Coessens, Östersjö, Gloor, Cancino, Schacher, Vanhecke & Douglas, 2014), which outlines in its abstract the aspiration to explore: “the riddle of music creation”, in “performance and composition”, aided by “exploratory oriented experimentation (EE) in artistic practice”, using “sensorial observation and dynamic interactive exploration” as an “aesthetic and epistemic tool” (Coessens et al., 2014). The research team wish to understand transferability of “tacit knowledge” contained “within the practice itself and its artistic material” by examining “literature and music (scores/recordings)”, as explanation for “origins and characteristics of EE and practice-led experimental research”, “music compositions and performances” and “potential for artistic output exploratory experimentation (EE)” (ibid.). The project draws on the influence of “Goethian sensorial and interactive approach of knowledge discovery” rather than “Newton's more analytic and cognitive approach” (ibid.). The argument is that even though science has assigned “theory-driven, hypothesis-led, explanatory experiments” rather than “open-ended, dynamic experience-driven experiments”, as means for reaching conclusive findings; exploratory oriented experimentation has continued to contribute as method in science, and has application to “artistic creation” (ibid.).
Knowledge discovery, revealed as tacit knowledge, contained and transferred in artistic practice, is presented and demonstrated in this paper through the approach and examples of intangibles in music making; framing and contextualizing the examination of creative design and artistic creation taking place in the presentation of various metaphor to help demonstrate technique in composing, developing, absorbing, interpreting and transferring musical material from the score to the performance, thus contributing to artistic practice of the composer/player/leader of a small jazz ensemble, supporting the concept of intuition and intellect as jazz process. Assorted models have been used in this paper in examining invention, performance and reflection of small jazz ensemble composition: ‘language and metaphor as a descriptor’, ‘creative design’, ‘decomposition’, ‘intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance’, and ‘small jazz ensemble composition as experiment’.
Beginning with the musical idea and writing of a work, to its rehearsal and completed performance, my working ensembles have been used as a music lab for providing a platform and opportunity for the development of my creative practice as a composer, player and leader, and that of the musicians I am working with who contribute as improvisers, in the hope of discovering the best possible outcome for performances of my original compositions. A musical score and set of instructions was given to the group for performance, and as a leader/composer and player, I determined the amount of freedom allowed for performers’ interpretation of the compositional works. That said, the musical framework of the composition (the score) allowed the musicians involved to contribute to musical outcomes as improvisers and arrangers of the overall performance and vice versa. I expected creative activity involving the triangulation of composition, performance, and listening to evolve through personal relationships, interactions, contributions and collaborations of the participating musicians, wanting to develop ideas with each other, using musical imagination to communicate unwritten aspects, leading to a successful interpretation and performance of my intentions as composer of the musical score.
Artistic practice is at the centre of this research project, taking its lead from the term musicking (music-making), defined by Christopher Small in his publication, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Small, 1998) as: “To music is to take part, in any capacity in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing” (Small, 1998, p. 9). I anticipated triangulation of various methods used in this study of artistic practice to lead to a successful research design in the recording of the musicking, which occurs in the performance of the compositions written for this study.
The key method for documenting the project was the gathering of data in the form of a diary consisting of: various drafts/stages of music compositions/experiments, photographs and recorded video excerpts of my creative practice as an improvising saxophonist/composer, rehearsals and full music performances. This approach has no distinct separation between the researcher and the object. It is a unique, qualitative, practiced arts based research method; where findings are recorded whilst creative process and product is developed into an outcome; as articulated by artistic researcher, Marcel Cobussen:
Here you are as a researcher, and you study music, which is over there. In summary, the art practice is the essential component of the research process and the research results. You start from your art practice, the art practice is also the method, and your art is also the outcome of the research. (Cobussen, 2014, YouTube)
By using a reflexive diary to document my artistic practice I allowed myself “examination of reported events and experiences” in a “natural, spontaneous context, providing information complementary to that obtainable by more traditional designs” (as cited by Reis in Bolger, Davis & Rafaeli, 2003, p. 580). The other benefit is the decrease in the possibility of “retrospection, achieved by minimizing the amount of time elapsed between an experience and the account of this experience” (p. 580). By observing and reporting personal responses to interactions with participating musicians in their interpretation of musical repertoire in performance; I could foresee this approach lending itself to advancements and comprehension of my intentions and choices as a composer, player and leader, as a creative design (Etherington, 2004, p. 19). Weber (2003), describes this type of enquiry as the need “to understand the assumptions, biases, and perspectives that underlie all components of our research and, in particular, the interrelationships among them”, attributing to the “understanding of the individual components of our research—our theories, our research methods, our interpretations, and so on” (Weber, 2003, p. vi).
Data collected throughout the study was coded, labelled and grouped into themes, serving as a basis for further analysis and interpretation (Robson, 201, p. 467). The findings have developed a narrative describing the process which has informed creative practice and performance of new compositional works. This mode of analysis aligns itself with the recording of personal experiences and that of others, used as the main body of work in the form of reflexive artistic practice, documenting strategies used in the development of my idiosyncratic language as a composer, alternating with an outward focus on my role as a player/leader, working in collaboration with the musicians in my small jazz ensemble.
Music compositions/frameworks were written to test my ideas as a composer/player/leader of a small jazz ensemble. I planned, acted, reviewed, developed or created a new work and its performance, resulting in various music scenarios being played out. This process was then applied to the development of my artistic practice as a composer/player/leader in a small jazz ensemble. Kemmis and Wilkinson argue that participatory action research is a “social–and educational–process”, “directed towards studying, reframing, and reconstructing practices”; involving the self-reflective cycles of: “planning a change”, “acting and observing the process and consequences”, “reflecting on these processes and consequences” and “re-planning”, which is best attempted in collaboration with co-participants (Kemmis & Wilkinson, 1998, p. 22). The authors state that some theorists consider action research a “solitary process of systematic self-reflection” (p. 22). I considered the perspectives of self-reflection, and the learning and development through collaboration as a participant in the performance of my compositions, as relevant techniques to this study. Furthermore, I planned to use two models as a method for developing and investigating artistic practice, using each composition as a case study, exploring “possible causes”, “determinants”, “factors”, and “experiences” which contribute to creative outcomes and design (Robson, 2011, p. 138):
Ten musical frameworks were created in the form of a music score and set of instructions, given to musicians as platform for improvisation, and recorded as a live music performance on three separate occasions. Using participant observations as a field researcher involved in performances of my musical work is advantageous in its internal and external validity. It is the integration of collecting and analysing data at the same time, giving the method face validity (Sanchez-Jankowski, 2002, p. 145). Participant observations of band member’s reactions, interpretations and developments to compositions or instructions proposed in rehearsals and music performances added to the overall investigation (see Appendix). Each performance of the score was listened to, reviewed and used to inform the next stage of the compositions’ development/and or performance. As an observer I will found myself asking questions about the situation, more of myself, and more sparingly (Robson, 2011, p. 324) of band members, in order to obtain honest interpretations and precision of recorded data.
An ethics clearance was attended to for purposes of documenting experiences of all persons involved; who received a participant recruitment email containing background material on the research project, its context, indicative questions related to the research question, and an informed consent package to be signed and returned before the commencement and recording of observations.
A chapter of comparative analysis and one on conclusions finalized the methods used, looking at common links, themes, and gaps revealed in the literature review and my reflexive artistic practice; objectively seeking out processes and forms of jazz composition, using various examples of metaphors and concepts in creating conditions for deeper understandings of intention and interpretation of material in the score, informed through musical performance and listening, contributing to the compositions, and my overall creative practice as composer/player and leader of a small jazz ensemble.
Jazz as process
What does the word “jazz” mean in the 21st century? The layperson or 21st century student of jazz is presented with the challenge, what is representative of a jazz style? How do we differentiate between jazz and any other improvised music? Hasn’t the improvisational art form been in existence for some time now, revealed in many musical forms and traditions? Jazz pianist/composer, Bill Evans stated that “jazz is not so much a style as a process of making music” (Evans, 1966). Jazz trumpet player/composer, Dave Douglas expounds on Bill Evans’ statement, by describing his aesthetical values and expectations in the music-making process: “You’re not thinking about any one thing. You’re trying to represent everything. Every part of your experience from birth to that moment” (as cited in Peterson, 2006, p. 75).
In 1938 jazz pianist and composer, Jelly Roll Morton stated that “without a break, you have nothing” in regards to the performance of jazz (Hill, Richard & Meddings, 2003). “Even if a tune has no break in it, it is always necessary to arrange some kind of a spot to make a break. Because without a break, as I said before, you haven’t gotten jazz . . .” (ibid.). Morton’s comments are relevant today, indicating the distinctive nature of jazz for potential exploration of musical material, inherent as compositional intent, and improvisational interpretation, in rehearsal, arrangement and performance of the musical score.
Contemporary improvisers such as Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, perceive jazz from different lenses, and are not interested in “neo-traditionalism”. Musicians such as these two, use traditions and cultural influences as a means to creating something new and distinct. Numerous approaches to music-making coincide and intersect due to developing artistic practice; the connection between artist and creative output are susceptible to continuous variation and innovation (Frisk & Karlsson, 2011, p. 280). Metheny and Mehldau have both learnt their craft from listening, imitating and assimilating musical knowledge from influential contributors of jazz history; preferring to explore imaginative, interpretative ideas as composers and improvisers, resulting in an idiosyncratic approach, as indicated by Metheny:
As much as I love playing on standards and blues forms and modern jazz compositions, there was a way of playing, an improvisational feeling that although I could kind of impose it into that zone a little bit, I didn’t really find music that really allowed me to follow through on my own improvisational urge. So I started writing tunes out of necessity (as cited in Niles, 2009, p.146).
Metheny’s personal approach coincides with the need for jazz musicians to compose an “inner musical image”, used as a “framework for improvisation” (Goldstein, 1993, p. 11). "Brilliant compositions and improvisations are often a microcosm of one another" (ibid., p.16), and Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk “forged personal musical styles through improvisation”, demonstrating the “variety and richness of music which has been created in this idiom" (ibid., p. 11).
Global influences have added new interpretations/permutations, beyond familiar spheres of canon and history, to reflect a ‘jazz moment in time’, either as an improvisation, composition and or performance. Diverse information and resources on jazz composition and improvisation are abundant. With the invention of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press in 1448 (Winston, 2005, p.5), and Edison’s phonograph record in 1878 (ibid, p. 239), to music streaming and the internet; knowledge is disseminated more efficiently than ever before; challenging the rationale of jazz as having specific musical characteristics, given the evolution and array of styles. Our modern day listening habits contrast to the days of the two-sided 78 rpm Gramophone record which had less playing time. According to Art Lange in his forward to Ran Blake’s Primacy of the Ear (2010), absorption of information was a deeper experience:
The fact that there were only two songs per disc, and not a dozen or more as is often the case today, meant that the listener was able to focus--had to focus—more frequently and more intently upon those two pieces of music. We have so much more music available to us, and so little time to listen, that we tend to sample more, but spend less time digesting it… (as cited in Blake, pp. iv–v, 2010).
The environment in which musical insights and learning occur has changed significantly over the last century: a live performance to memorizing a tune from a radio broadcast; transcribing a solo off the record to rewinding and reviewing a track on cassette tape; skipping over the melody on a compact disc to searching through digital files on the internet for inspiration. Social, folkloric, and cultural traditions have contributed as a resource to music-making process, due to musical collaborations as a community, a benefit from technological advancement. Historically, the origin of jazz is African American, however, due to the coverage of music, initially through the radio to a worldwide audience, jazz was adopted by other musicians, integrated into other world cultures and vice versa. Various people groups and settings have produced fresh, new perspectives on jazz, due to exposure and influence of the traditional African-American art form in their corner of the world. “Jazz is good music–when it sets itself, as earnestly as any other form, to explore and express the feelings and conditions of its time” (Ellington, 2003, p. 257).
Tradition is a practice that becomes standard, yet creativity is a spontaneous ordered invention, thus improvisation is reflected in the modernity’s essence: society at a juncture in time, in the present tense. As Dave Douglas puts it: “It’s really quite simple: wake up every day and try to reflect what’s really going on inside you and outside you. In this period, it’s reflected in the thousands of ways music is changing and growing” (as cited in Nicholson, 2003). This aspect of change and growth is reflected in Edward De Bono’s comments on effective learning from traditional and current resources, available for invention: “Traditional methods of thinking” have taught us “how to refine such patterns and establish their validity”, however, “we shall always make less than the best use of available information unless we know how to create new patterns” (De Bono, 1977, p. 13).
My assertion is that we are evolving past style into consideration of jazz as process. ‘Process’ seems an apt word for effectively locating and developing perspectives and outcomes on music-making in the 21st century. A theory of process recognises its unification “not in terms of underlying substance” but as a “permanent form or pattern”, exhibited as “continuously changing processes”, much like a “wave maintains its form” even though variables occur as a result of “different volumes of water and different times” (Blackburn, 2005, p. 294).
I argue that the fusing of jazz, that is, an improvisational art form with other cultural interpretations, (the relationship with traditional African American influence and other social settings), resulted in great diversity as a process, and not necessarily stylistic in character. Brad Mehldau’s solution to these complexities faced by the contemporary musician/composer, seeking to find a personal voice, is to “base that identity on the inception of jazz and go from there” or not “raise the question of identity in the first place” (as cited in Peterson, 2006, p. 180). Melhldau elaborates on this dilemma of a genre's expectations, using the analogy of jazz music as:
A very generous family with a big house that has a lot of guests from all over. Every so often, a visitor is particularly illuminating and affects the viewpoint of jazz permanently, leaving something behind in that house that will stay there forever (ibid., p. 180).
By perceiving jazz as a process, I argue that certain elements come into play, contributing to and demonstrating jazz as a verb, “to take part in any capacity in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance” (Small, 1998, p. 9). Musical process is a direct outcome of and influence on “jazz community’s…performance practices, rearranging and transforming…elements”, developing “original approaches to collective improvisation”, exposing the “limitations of applying conventional labels to style periods and idioms when describing the diversity of music making within the jazz tradition” (Berliner, 2009, p. 341).
Style suggests certain characteristics particular to a certain genre, and the “strongest creative element in jazz is improvisation” (Evans, 1966), however, this music-making process has been present for some time beforehand. “In an absolute sense, jazz is more a certain creative process of spontaneity than a style. Therefore, you might say that Chopin, or Bach, or Mozart, or whoever, was able to make music of the moment (improvised music), was in a sense playing jazz" (Evans, 1966). Another perspective on the conception of a musical moment, is explained by Bruno Nettl (1974), through suggesting that “composition and improvisation were not qualitatively different”, but rather “a continuum among musical genres, from more improvised to less improvised”, indicating that “rapid composition” occurred at the “improvisational end”, and “slow composition” occurred at the “compositional end”, indicating that “Western composers, such as Schubert, composed in bursts of quick, spontaneous creation” (as cited in Sawyer, 2003, p. 80).
Jazz as process is also revealed in how composers and improvisers generate diverse content from contrasting perspectives due to their personalities, experience, knowledge, methods, environments and respective instruments. Life memories and information which are stored in a jazz composer and improviser are encapsulated, transformed, transferred and arranged as ideas through an individual’s voice or musical canvas, either in the form of an improvisation or composition. The two occurrences are identical except for the function of time in the manner it is utilised: improvisation is a spontaneous, organized and creative act; composition is a spontaneous, organized, edited, creative act. To emphasize this point, Derek Bailey in Improvisation, its nature and practice in music (Bailey, 1993) describes differences between improvisation and composition in regards to a creative act occurring as a moment in time. Bailey recalls a brief encounter in Rome, 1968 with jazz saxophonist, Steve Lacey:
I took out my pocket tape recorder and asked him to describe in fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation. He answered: ‘In fifteen seconds the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in fifteen seconds, while in improvisation you have fifteen seconds.’ His answer lasted exactly fifteen seconds and is still the best formulation of the question I know (Bailey, p. 141).
With a number of resources at our disposal, jazz musicians and composers now have endless possibilities to create their own unique canvas, not limited to style but encouraged by process. However, a contrasting assessment to jazz as process is raised by Wynton Marsalis in a New York Times article:
Despite attempts by writers and record companies and promoters and educators and even musicians to blur the lines for commercial purposes, rock isn't jazz and new age isn't jazz, and neither are pop or third stream. There may be much that is good in all of them, but they aren't jazz (Marsalis, 1988).
Does that mean contemporary improvising jazz musicians/composers who may draw on rock, pop, third-stream, world music etc. are not playing jazz? Yet “the combination of freedom and tradition is vital for jazz” (Collier, 2009, p. 180). Thus, I consider process to be effective in pursuing artistic practice and its development in jazz composition/improvisation in the 21st century, without the limitations of style. A suggestion could be, rather than pointing to any particular style or styles, jazz should be defined as a genre encompassing a variety of influences, allowing a space created by the composer in the form of a template for musicians to improvise, making this type of music scenario unique. Graeme Collier reiterates this point by stating that:
One of the unique strengths of jazz lies in how what is written down is treated and developed during a performance. The music used is, in the main, incomplete in some way, written in a way that allows for - in some cases, demands - being developed, or, at the very least, coloured, by improvising (ibid., p. 264)
The present tense demands a solution, the ability to seek out and solve problems in relation to a musical moment as an organised structure. As Keith Jarrett said: “Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple” (as cited in Collier, 2009, p. 31). To play jazz is to improvise, organising sounds into a structure, in direct correlation with a compositional performance. Giddens & Deveaux (2009, p. 378) define composition as a musical work, performed by musicians in various settings and formats, much like in any other genre, remaining true to the composer’s intentions, whilst the first goal of jazz improvisation is the interpretation and unique performance of the score. Interactions take place where participants are required to make decisions as to the amount of liberty taken, negotiating between the composer’s direction, and the improvising musicians’ performance as arrangers of the compositional material. ‘Arrangement’ is the cross-section between composition and improvisation where the presentation of material for performance is organised; I refer to this process as creative design. The creative design and process of this music-making activity requires a “constant balance between finding a problem and solving that problem, and then finding a new problem during solving the last one…” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 115), through the writing, rehearsal, arrangement and performance of the small jazz ensemble composition.
The word ‘jazz’ describes a unique process, made up of improvising musicians, interpreting the intentions of the composer in the hope of obtaining a positive outcome. As a jazz composer/improviser, I see “jazz” as an opportunity to generate music spontaneously, with the intention of organising ideas into a coherent framework for presentation, either independently as a soloist, or interdependently as a collective. Ingrid Monson argues that improvisation in the jazz ensemble performance must take the approach of interactive, collaborative exploration as a cause for “musical invention”, and as a “point of departure” (Monson, 2009, p. 74). As compositional structure generates a platform for improvisation and vice versa, the arrangement is the architectural design of the performance, organised during rehearsal, “challenging group members to negotiate fresh musical models in performance and stimulating the conception of ideas in the process” (Berliner, 2009, p. 233).
This example of correlation between imagination and order as a social scheme is demonstrated in the choices, contributions, and leadership of individuals to form a successful unit. “In group creativity, the process is the essence of the genre, and it must be the central focus” (Sawyer, 2003, p. 6), and the potential success of a small jazz ensemble compositional performance is dependent on improvising musicians pursuing a genuine, idiosyncratic musical moment; the ability as narrators, to portray a story efficiently and effectively, placing oneself in the shoes of the author and his or her characters. More often than not, as is the case with most jazz standards, the composer is not present, and a group of improvising musicians are left to design an inspired performance through collective listening experiences in order to discover the ideal interpretation of a musical work. The template on which ideas are documented for performance could be seen as a map, with directions to a destination, the composer’s intention; yet the discussions which take place en route is demonstrated in the performer’s interpretation, organisation and performance of the score. This creative development is also expressed as physical and metaphysical relationships which take place in music structures, established in the form of a score, a rehearsal or a performance. Communications take place in organising a performance, unfolding at various levels co-existing dualities of internal/external processes contribute to musical style through the collaboration of individuals; resulting in the sharing of knowledge and experiences as “jazz community”, along with the physical world of information in the form of music fundamentals and theory, and exploration into metaphysical dimensions of imagination and creative potential.
I’m certainly not against the traditions and contributions made by jazz musicians/composers/leaders, past and present; for without them, our own ideas would have no foundation from which to learn and build upon, particularly from the practice and process of individuals and collectives, and not just the study of artistic outcomes. The ongoing development of practice “entwines with jazz’s artistic tradition”, with “mutual absorption and exchange of ideas”, taking place in a community, leading to “idiosyncratic musical perspectives” (Berliner, 2009, p. 59); and like any other art form, reflects the social conditions of its time, captured in performance as an improvisation and composition and vice versa.
An individual’s participation in music is complicated at times; variable conditions, perceptions, and incidental social events, embedded in historical process, cultural circumstance, systems, and complex mediations of technology and material culture influence artistic output (Clarke, 2011, p. 612).
Musicians such as Brad Mehldau recognise that most of his contemporaries “specialise” and “focus on a few periods and delve more deeply into them”, in regards to learning and developing from the jazz tradition. He compares this process to the study of philosophy, highlighting the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as the “last philosopher who could still give a full account of the whole history of human thought in his writing”; acknowledging that it is “too much information, so people had to stop trying to go for that meta-view” (as cited in Peterson, p. 181) as a consequence.
With global, social, and political change throughout the last century, ability to produce ideas and investigate new horizons has remained constant. This opportunity for artistic development and its exploration in the 21st century is identified by Wayne Shorter, who asserts failure as “an illusion” (Shorter, 2009). He continues by commenting on potential complacency in human beings if imagination is not used to further ourselves as a civilisation:
Now is the time for us to reach further than our grasp...our cognitive preservation, our cognitive power is the tip of the iceberg; so if we don’t reach the preservation of that iceberg, if we don’t reach for what is in our grasp, it might melt” (ibid.).
In summary in regards to the perspective of jazz as process, I make use of Pat Metheny’s suggestion for expansion and development of the tradition. He acknowledges that as musicians, composers, and listeners:
We have to get to work on a vision that is more concerned with what this music can become than what it has already been…a kind of jazz that sounds nothing like the jazz of the 20th century…a new kind of animal-but one that is still unmistakably connected to the larger jazz tradition (as cited in Nicholson, 2003).
Using language and metaphor as a descriptor
I have decided to include some examples of jazz literature in this paper but I have also drawn on other fields to help scaffold the notion of language and metaphor as a descriptor for intuitive and intellectual process in creativity, in particular, small jazz ensemble composition and its performance. The fundamental music structures of melody, harmony, rhythm and form used in the moment of improvised music and composition are also found in day-to-day conversation: a line of thought is conveyed, drawing upon a vocabulary of words, phrases and statements as a means of dialogue and correspondence. The mapping of ideas can be seen in the example of language and written text in books, much like a composition. There are similarities and differences in the way the vocabulary and language is presented in the two forms of communication, as Larson writes:
No one who accepts Chomsky’s claims about the structure of sentences would assert that spoken language, solely because it is improvised, lacks the underlying structure that can be found in written language. Likewise, no one who accepts Shenker’s claims about underlying structure in phrases of music ought to assert that unnotated jazz, solely because it is improvised, lacks the underlying structure that can be found in composed music. (Larson, 1998, p. 212)
Chomsky highlights distinctive, inventive qualities found in underlying structure of language as a means of human expression. In Language and Mind (Chomsky, 2006) the author refers to the work of German philosopher and poet, Karl Schlegel, who found the word poetical to best describe the “element of creative imagination in any artistic effort” (ibid., p. 90). Furthermore, Schlegel concluded that:
Every mode of artistic expression makes use of a certain medium and that the medium of poetry – language – is unique in that language, as an expression of the human mind rather than a product of nature, is boundless in scope and is constructed on the basis of a recursive principle that permits each creation to serve as the basis for a new creative act. (ibid.)
The recursive principle, exploring possibilities which co-exist in the constructs of music fundamentals as artistic expression and activity is conveyed eloquently by one of the greatest teachers of 20th century composition, Nadia Boulanger. In a documentary, Boulanger describes her aesthetic expectations as well constructed musical statements, noting that: "I only hope that a certain approach to grammar and to the form of language goes beyond personal taste” (as cited in Monsaingeon, 2007).
Creative design
The discovery of possibilities which co-exist, leading to the construction of a creative product as an artistic expression is demonstrated in the method of ‘creative design'. It is a metaphor and descriptor for understanding process and generating solutions. In other words, creative design is a form of ‘problem-solving’ as a composer/player/leader of a small ensemble. The ‘problems’ vary accordingly, particularly in regards to varying circumstances and roles of composer/player/leader as constructor of various outcomes such as the ‘score’, its ‘arrangement in rehearsal’ and its ‘performance’. For the purposes of this paper, creative design is the intersection between the process of composition and improvisation in connection to performance of a small jazz ensemble composition.
In a chapter by P.E. Vernon entitled "The Nature—Nurture Problem in Creativity” (Vernon, 1989) from the "Handbook of Creativity” (Glover, Ronning & Reynolds, Eds.), the author proposed creativity as:
A person’s capacity to produce new or original ideas, insights, restructurings, inventions, or artistic objects, which are excepted by experts as being of scientific, aesthetic, social, or technological value. In addition to novelty as our major criterion, we must incorporate in our definition the acceptability or appropriateness of the creative product, even though this valuation may change with the passage of time. (Vernon, 2013, p. 94)
Vernon’s explanation seeks to emphasise the need for creative outcomes as unique, practical, and of value. This is a pragmatic approach to problem-solving. However, in Guy Claxton’s “Hare brain, tortoise mind: How intelligence increases when you think less” (Claxton, 1998) the author provides a contrasting explanation for creativity and its development:
Creativity develops out of a chance observation or a seed of an idea that is given time to germinate. The ability of the brain to allow activation to spread slowly outwards from one centre of activity, meeting and mingling with others, at intensities that may produce only a dim, diffuse quality of consciousness, seems to be exactly what is required. (Claxton, 1998, p. 148)
Claxton’s approach is very imaginative and free-thinking, allowing the capacity of human potential to develop as gradual process, almost an intuitive approach. In “Lateral Thinking” (de Bono, 1977), the author describes the motivation of design as a backdrop to “generate alternatives”, which survey “beyond the adequate in order to produce something better”, releasing the designer from “domination by cliché patterns” (de Bono, 1977, pp. 255–256). De-Bono’s ‘lateral thinking’ is a very different example again, an approach that seeks to explore ‘alternatives’, to weigh up choices and perspectives, seeking the best option and optimum solution to a problem.
Decomposition
In Aesthetic Theory (Adorno, 2002), Philosopher and composer, Theodor Adorno distinguishes between integrated elements and complexities existing in art, as also having the ability to disintegrate and collapse; thus contributing to different perspectives in developing artistic practice and product: “To this extent their success is their decomposition and that lends them their fathomlessness. Decomposition at the same time releases the immanent counterforce of art, its centrifugal force” (ibid., p. 78). In this quote, I perceive Adorno’s example of decomposition as an approach to the exploration, understanding and application of endless possibilities existing in the fundamental structures of artistic creative practice and music making process.
Similarly, in the philosophical science text, The Sciences of the Artificial (Simon, 1996), Herbert Simon added that design is “concerned with how things ought to be, with devising artifacts to attain goals” (Simon, 1988, p. 69). He continues by offering rationale in using decomposition as an example, metaphor and model in the design process for devising and understanding relationships within an elaborate system:
To design such a complex structure, one powerful technique is to discover viable ways of decomposing it into semi-independent components corresponding to its many functional parts. The design of each component can then be carried out with some degree of independence of the design of others, since each will affect the others largely through its function and independently of the details of the mechanisms that accomplish the function. (Simon, 1996, p. 128)
This procedure of exploring semi-independent components serves as an example for investigation and break down of elements that occur in music. This notion of decomposition as a model for investigating music was brought to my attention in 2010 when I had a brief opportunity to meet with jazz saxophonist and composer, Wayne Shorter. I conveyed to Wayne a thought in regards to the performance of his music by his quartet at the Sydney Opera House. I noted that the group’s improvisations on his compositions seemed like live composition. In other words, I thought everyone in the group was contributing to a collective, creative process in relation to the compositional performance, through the act of improvisation. Wayne responded, “decomposition” and repeated again with a tone of mystery, “decomposition” (W.Shorter, personal communication, 7 March 2010).
The idea of exploring decomposition as creative process can be an individual or collective action. It’s the relationship between performers, reflective experience, information on the score, and instinctive approaches as individuals and as a collective, which contributes to this unique perspective of arranging and exploring microcosms that occur in jazz composition. In Michelle Mercer’s biography, The Life and Works of Wayne Shorter (Mercer, 2004), Shorter reflects on performances with the Miles Davis Quintet and how decomposition was used as a tool for investigation:
Each song has its DNA. So you just do the DNA and not the whole song. You do the characteristics. You say, ‘Okay, I will do the ear of the face. I will do the left side of the face.’ Everyone took a certain characteristic of the song and you can do eight measures of it, and then you can make your own harmonic road or adventure within a certain eight measures. (Shorter, cited in Mercer, 2004, p. 119)
Jazz educator and piano player, Dr. Barry Harris once said in a master class in New York, “Music is about movement” (B.Harris, personal communication, 18 July 2000). In other words – the parameters stay the same but the relationships between them change and evolve, never remaining static. Examples of parameters and techniques that may be explored, using the metaphor of decomposition as a model for reducing musical structures to their lowest, common denominators include:
- analysis and observations of one’s own musical work in fundamental music structures and sophisticated relationships of melody, harmony, rhythm, arrangement, form, use of space and pulse/tempo;
- environment as a factor in the development and experience of the composer, musician and listener;
- intuition and intellect as threads to learning and development;
- the ability to read and improvise;
- and musical memory and reflection.
Can deeper perceptions be achieved by examining any one of these components from a contrasting perspective? To illustrate my point, I will utilise time/pulse as an example. Can one use an antonym to exaggerate and study time-keeping in music? What is not time-keeping in music? In this case the opposite for time/pulse is stillness. Consequently, we obtain an understanding of time as a component, necessary for generating a musical space to exist. In other words, the creation of ‘sound’ followed by ‘movement’. Other examples would include: Intervals–separateness, triads–concentrical, melody–cacophony, harmony–disagreement, rhythm–roughness, form–shapelessness, space–continuity. I am certain there are more accurate techniques for describing the dualities present in music-making process and its use of fundamental components, and further investigation may be needed; but the emphasis to this point is perceiving what a component is not and does not do in relation to its function in music. This awareness can also be applied to intangibles which exist in writing, rehearsing, arranging or performing a musical score as an either intentional or interpretative process.
Intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance
According to Borgdorff, “As a rule, artistic research is not hypothesis-led, but discovery-led” (Borgdorff, 2011, p. 56). This type of research enquiry and process is seen in the activities associated with work in laboratories. In a chapter entitled, Thinking About Art After the Media: Research as Practised Culture of Experiment, found in, The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts, it is noted that advancement, examination, trial, disposal and fulfilment of ideas and results, parallel artistic praxis of art and shared with science; however, the distinguishing feature in art and its creative process is the two main threads of intuition and intellect (Zielinski, 2011, p. 299). This idea of intuition and intellect as threads in artistic practice and enquiry is shown in the following example.
The illustration of the creative act, involving instinct, intelligence, discovery and comprehension of musical structures, was conveyed to me in conversation with jazz drummer/composer, Victor Lewis at Sydney’s jazz venue, The Basement. Lewis mentioned that jazz saxophonist/composer, Joe Henderson was “the perfect balance between intuition and intellect” (V. Lewis, personal communication, 18 September 1999). He continued the point, recalling his first encounter with Joe in a recording session with jazz trumpeter, Woody Shaw:
I had written a tune for the recording. All the parts for the instruments were written out, including Bb tenor saxophone. We rehearsed despite the fact that Joe wasn't there. I was concerned and asked Woody, "Joe isn't here. How's he going to go on the recording?” Woody just smiled. When the day arrived, Joe was at the session and I handed him his chart. He thanked me and got out some manuscript. He proceeded to write it all back into concert! Then he wrote some other stuff on another piece of manuscript. Now all this happened whilst his horn sat in the corner. He didn't touch it. Then we recorded. He played it better than I wrote it! (V. Lewis, personal communication, 18 September 1999)
This music experience demonstrates the creative approach at work as a composer, a performer and as a critic. Victor Lewis had spent time putting down on paper his ideas. It was a spontaneous act that then required editing by relying on the musical knowledge stored. Joe Henderson had spent his preparation time absorbing the information. “He created a different pathway of learning and storing the information” (S. Newcomb, personal communication, 12 March 2015). By rewriting the music back into concert key, Henderson investigated the intentions of the musical work, thereby putting himself in the shoes of the composer.
In The Jazz Composer: Moving Music Off the Paper (Collier, 2009), the author offers an appreciation and insight into the musical performance from the composer’s perspective. The work by Graeme Collier is an enquiry and pedagogical tool into the development and understanding of artistic practice and interpretation of jazz composition, played out in performance. The author sates that jazz composition process can interweave in three components: tune, arrangement and composition. Tunes are a document and configuration, providing a base for improvisation; arrangement is a way of directing and communicating to the musicians when to play, but generally refers to the act of writing specific parts for the performance; and composition is the recording, development and integration of ideas between what is written on the page and what is improvised by an individual (Collier, 2009, p. 8).
The subject of interactions which occur throughout the preparation and performance of a jazz composition between the composer and musician is addressed in Ingrid Monson’s Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation (Monson, 2009). This publication looks at musicians developing ideas with one another, using analogy to communicate intentions not written in the musical score: “the informal, sociable and metaphorical modes of speaking about music favoured by many jazz musicians challenge traditional presumptions about the nature of the musical object and the definition of musical analysis” (Monson, 2009, p. 74).
One of the best examples which has documented the small jazz ensemble composition and its performance, demonstrating principles of intention and interpretation of the score, is found in the classic album, Kind of Blue (Davis, 1959) by jazz composer/player/leader, Miles Davis. In his book, Miles: The Autobiography (Davis & Troupe, 1989), Davis reflects on music created over two recording sessions in an environment of freedom within boundaries. As a composer, Davis brought a set of instructions and frameworks notated on the page to his musicians, “I didn’t write out the music for Kind of Blue, but brought in sketches for what everybody was supposed to play because I wanted a lot of spontaneity in the playing” (Davis, 1989, p. 224). The musicians in the ensemble interpreted the intentions of the composer/leader in an imaginative, collective, improvisatory performance, as noted by Davis himself:
But you write something and then guys play off it and take it someplace else through their creativity and imagination and you just miss where you thought you wanted to go. I was trying to do one thing and ended up doing something else (ibid.).
Research Methods
This research project’s inspiration, motivation and investigation of creative process in music composition and performance can be compared to similar practice based research studies taking place in institutions such as Belgium’s, Orpheus Institute. Currently there is a research project entitled, A Scientific and Artistic Inquiry Into the Nature and Potential of Exploratory Experimentation in Composition and Performance (Coessens, Östersjö, Gloor, Cancino, Schacher, Vanhecke & Douglas, 2014), which outlines in its abstract the aspiration to explore: “the riddle of music creation”, in “performance and composition”, aided by “exploratory oriented experimentation (EE) in artistic practice”, using “sensorial observation and dynamic interactive exploration” as an “aesthetic and epistemic tool” (Coessens et al., 2014). The research team wish to understand transferability of “tacit knowledge” contained “within the practice itself and its artistic material” by examining “literature and music (scores/recordings)”, as explanation for “origins and characteristics of EE and practice-led experimental research”, “music compositions and performances” and “potential for artistic output exploratory experimentation (EE)” (ibid.). The project draws on the influence of “Goethian sensorial and interactive approach of knowledge discovery” rather than “Newton's more analytic and cognitive approach” (ibid.). The argument is that even though science has assigned “theory-driven, hypothesis-led, explanatory experiments” rather than “open-ended, dynamic experience-driven experiments”, as means for reaching conclusive findings; exploratory oriented experimentation has continued to contribute as method in science, and has application to “artistic creation” (ibid.).
Knowledge discovery, revealed as tacit knowledge, contained and transferred in artistic practice, is presented and demonstrated in this paper through the approach and examples of intangibles in music making; framing and contextualizing the examination of creative design and artistic creation taking place in the presentation of various metaphor to help demonstrate technique in composing, developing, absorbing, interpreting and transferring musical material from the score to the performance, thus contributing to artistic practice of the composer/player/leader of a small jazz ensemble, supporting the concept of intuition and intellect as jazz process. Assorted models have been used in this paper in examining invention, performance and reflection of small jazz ensemble composition: ‘language and metaphor as a descriptor’, ‘creative design’, ‘decomposition’, ‘intangibles of intention and interpretation in the score’s performance’, and ‘small jazz ensemble composition as experiment’.
Beginning with the musical idea and writing of a work, to its rehearsal and completed performance, my working ensembles have been used as a music lab for providing a platform and opportunity for the development of my creative practice as a composer, player and leader, and that of the musicians I am working with who contribute as improvisers, in the hope of discovering the best possible outcome for performances of my original compositions. A musical score and set of instructions was given to the group for performance, and as a leader/composer and player, I determined the amount of freedom allowed for performers’ interpretation of the compositional works. That said, the musical framework of the composition (the score) allowed the musicians involved to contribute to musical outcomes as improvisers and arrangers of the overall performance and vice versa. I expected creative activity involving the triangulation of composition, performance, and listening to evolve through personal relationships, interactions, contributions and collaborations of the participating musicians, wanting to develop ideas with each other, using musical imagination to communicate unwritten aspects, leading to a successful interpretation and performance of my intentions as composer of the musical score.
Artistic practice is at the centre of this research project, taking its lead from the term musicking (music-making), defined by Christopher Small in his publication, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Small, 1998) as: “To music is to take part, in any capacity in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing” (Small, 1998, p. 9). I anticipated triangulation of various methods used in this study of artistic practice to lead to a successful research design in the recording of the musicking, which occurs in the performance of the compositions written for this study.
The key method for documenting the project was the gathering of data in the form of a diary consisting of: various drafts/stages of music compositions/experiments, photographs and recorded video excerpts of my creative practice as an improvising saxophonist/composer, rehearsals and full music performances. This approach has no distinct separation between the researcher and the object. It is a unique, qualitative, practiced arts based research method; where findings are recorded whilst creative process and product is developed into an outcome; as articulated by artistic researcher, Marcel Cobussen:
Here you are as a researcher, and you study music, which is over there. In summary, the art practice is the essential component of the research process and the research results. You start from your art practice, the art practice is also the method, and your art is also the outcome of the research. (Cobussen, 2014, YouTube)
By using a reflexive diary to document my artistic practice I allowed myself “examination of reported events and experiences” in a “natural, spontaneous context, providing information complementary to that obtainable by more traditional designs” (as cited by Reis in Bolger, Davis & Rafaeli, 2003, p. 580). The other benefit is the decrease in the possibility of “retrospection, achieved by minimizing the amount of time elapsed between an experience and the account of this experience” (p. 580). By observing and reporting personal responses to interactions with participating musicians in their interpretation of musical repertoire in performance; I could foresee this approach lending itself to advancements and comprehension of my intentions and choices as a composer, player and leader, as a creative design (Etherington, 2004, p. 19). Weber (2003), describes this type of enquiry as the need “to understand the assumptions, biases, and perspectives that underlie all components of our research and, in particular, the interrelationships among them”, attributing to the “understanding of the individual components of our research—our theories, our research methods, our interpretations, and so on” (Weber, 2003, p. vi).
Data collected throughout the study was coded, labelled and grouped into themes, serving as a basis for further analysis and interpretation (Robson, 201, p. 467). The findings have developed a narrative describing the process which has informed creative practice and performance of new compositional works. This mode of analysis aligns itself with the recording of personal experiences and that of others, used as the main body of work in the form of reflexive artistic practice, documenting strategies used in the development of my idiosyncratic language as a composer, alternating with an outward focus on my role as a player/leader, working in collaboration with the musicians in my small jazz ensemble.
Music compositions/frameworks were written to test my ideas as a composer/player/leader of a small jazz ensemble. I planned, acted, reviewed, developed or created a new work and its performance, resulting in various music scenarios being played out. This process was then applied to the development of my artistic practice as a composer/player/leader in a small jazz ensemble. Kemmis and Wilkinson argue that participatory action research is a “social–and educational–process”, “directed towards studying, reframing, and reconstructing practices”; involving the self-reflective cycles of: “planning a change”, “acting and observing the process and consequences”, “reflecting on these processes and consequences” and “re-planning”, which is best attempted in collaboration with co-participants (Kemmis & Wilkinson, 1998, p. 22). The authors state that some theorists consider action research a “solitary process of systematic self-reflection” (p. 22). I considered the perspectives of self-reflection, and the learning and development through collaboration as a participant in the performance of my compositions, as relevant techniques to this study. Furthermore, I planned to use two models as a method for developing and investigating artistic practice, using each composition as a case study, exploring “possible causes”, “determinants”, “factors”, and “experiences” which contribute to creative outcomes and design (Robson, 2011, p. 138):
- Model A deals with my compositional practice i.e. solitary reflexive research as a composer;
- Model B relates to the group experience i.e. participatory reflexive research involving myself as a player and leader, and those of my small jazz ensemble participants, working on the composition, gathering data informally and documenting the process through rehearsals and performances.
Ten musical frameworks were created in the form of a music score and set of instructions, given to musicians as platform for improvisation, and recorded as a live music performance on three separate occasions. Using participant observations as a field researcher involved in performances of my musical work is advantageous in its internal and external validity. It is the integration of collecting and analysing data at the same time, giving the method face validity (Sanchez-Jankowski, 2002, p. 145). Participant observations of band member’s reactions, interpretations and developments to compositions or instructions proposed in rehearsals and music performances added to the overall investigation (see Appendix). Each performance of the score was listened to, reviewed and used to inform the next stage of the compositions’ development/and or performance. As an observer I will found myself asking questions about the situation, more of myself, and more sparingly (Robson, 2011, p. 324) of band members, in order to obtain honest interpretations and precision of recorded data.
An ethics clearance was attended to for purposes of documenting experiences of all persons involved; who received a participant recruitment email containing background material on the research project, its context, indicative questions related to the research question, and an informed consent package to be signed and returned before the commencement and recording of observations.
A chapter of comparative analysis and one on conclusions finalized the methods used, looking at common links, themes, and gaps revealed in the literature review and my reflexive artistic practice; objectively seeking out processes and forms of jazz composition, using various examples of metaphors and concepts in creating conditions for deeper understandings of intention and interpretation of material in the score, informed through musical performance and listening, contributing to the compositions, and my overall creative practice as composer/player and leader of a small jazz ensemble.
