[Dixielandjazz] essence of improvising

[tito martino]

Charlie Hooks made IMHO an extraordinary contribution that I can't let
pass without a word.

    <<<    But start with the blues.  Always start with the blues.  When
you think about jazz, or when you think of any music.  Because you know
the blues. You may not know doodeldee scata about anything else, but if
you are a jazz player, then you know the blues.  Because if you didn't
know the blues, you couldn't BE a jazz player.  Simple.

    Well, then.  The blues start with a feeling.  Not necessarily sad,
but steady and level: been thinking about things.  No melody given to
you.  Just a series ("progression"?) of chords and kinda loose, at that.
Don't really know which a-way this thing gonna go yet, just hangin'
loose and lettin it happen till I kin catch onto it....

    The blues don't have a melody supplied by some "composer."  Lyrics
may
be supplied by a lyricist, or not.   But the melody is up to you. And
God.
Oh, sure: "The St. Louis Blues" or the "Dallas Blues" or the "Basin St.
Blues" were written out.  But JUST the blues is not.  NOBODY'S blues:
your very OWN blues.  Think, gentlemen, about how you "improvise" to
nobody's blues.  What do you invent?  What exactly IS "the blues in Bb"?

    If you are wise, you try to invent a feeling--or whatever will
create a
feeling--in your listeners.   You try to open your mouth (horn) and talk
to
them: collectively by necessity, but really one on one, "me and you."
"Here's what I'm thinkin', rightly feelin,' right now.  You hear this?"

    Sometimes you whisper, other times you speak to them clearly: "You
may not even have thought of this yet, but you will.  Yeah, you hear me
now, hear what I'm sayin'!  Am I talking to you?"

    Sometimes they hear and respond, other times not; and, at those
times, are they are deaf or are you mute?

    I know one thing: if I am merely playing variations on some melody
line, then I'm not saying anything worth listening to.  I must invent my
own SONG from these chord structures, right out of the way I feel.  That
itself is the "improvisation."  The greatest compliment I'm ever paid is
when someone says, afterward, "it's the song, but it's another complete
song, really...".

    Nobody really knows how this works, how it happens, when it happens.
It's fun to speculate, but no one really knows.  The music I invent
comes from an infinite number of variables, never exactly the same,
never sequenced the same.  Even if I could explain one chorus, every
other chorus would differ.  
  ...  (snip)...  compositions--all differ greatly from improvisation:
instant demand, instant supply, no revision, no excuse.  'Tis or
'tain't.  Cheers or tears.

    Not sure that any of this makes sense.  But it's an interesting
thread. ...  Charlie >>>>

 Charlie, I think with these words you have defined the very essence of
JAZZ.   It's a very valuable contribution to all newbies and some old
timers too, I suspect...    :-)       Thanks for that.  

Tito Martino
cl, sax, 
Sao Paulo   Brazil   

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