[Dixielandjazz] Improvised music

[LARRY'S Signs and Large Format Printing]

Brian wrote:
Jazz, I thought, was supposes to be mainly improvised. Or am I in the wrong
discussion group?
Brian Harvey

I would really agree with you and don't get me wrong, I live to improvise and I think I do it well in several different styles. But - I have had years of experience and when I started you didn't have to be good you just had to hang in there.  It was great - I had a lot of work where I could make mistakes and learn how to do it.  I also had some really good Jazz musicians around me that I could listen to in the AF band.  Times have changed.

First of all there is no work for the kids today.  When I was young there were wall to wall wedding receptions to play.  There were youth groups that had dances and you could play clubs as long as you didn't drink. (that's a laugh)  People expect perfection and after all they hear perfection every day on their CD's.  Never mind if that perfection was made in the studio.  There is no where you can make mistakes and learn.  Young people aren't interested in doing something that may take years to perfect.  I had steady money coming in and that's a pretty good incentive.  When I was in high school (graduated 58) I wouldn't have been caught dead in jeans.  I owned 21 white shirts that I sent out.  I wore $60 shoes.  Translate that into today's money.  I also had a car and I put myself through college married with kids. This was all from playing gigs.    That's where I learned how to play and improvise.  I couldn't do it today.

Someone about 30 years ago got the bright idea that you could teach Jazz improv.  If you could read a chord then you could play a lick based on it.  String a bunch of those together with passing tones and you have a solo.  Trouble is that while they play all correct notes the result is musical nonsense.  One of the best sax players in town is a remarkable musical athlete.  When he gets done with a solo you have to say what was that that just blew by.  He puts in more notes than anyone I know but in the final analysis it's just a lot of notes.  It's like saying that if you string a bunch of colors together and they are all nice colors you will paint Rembrandts.

This is vertical Jazz. (you play vertically based on the chord tones)  And it's true you can teach that.  You can even get a university degree in it and go teach it to others.  Very simple.  Learn licks, learn the notes in the chords, play real fast, throw in some passing tones and you are a jazz musician and every one will go wow and clap especially if you do it real high and really fast.  But how many times have you heard one of these guys get half way through a solo and lose the key or just sort of peter out.  They lose the key because they lost their place in the chord chart and/or can't anticipate the progression, don't know where they're at and they have no clue because they don't know the tune.

Horizontal Jazz requires that you have a good ear and that you can compose a melody and accompaniments on the fly.  You have to have a good knowledge of tunes and lots more tunes.  This type of improvisation is not connected to the paper and guys (ladies too) who play this type will often close their eyes while playing.

Vertical Jazz can be learned quickly while horizontal jazz takes years.  One takes a composer the other a line of chords.  One is based on chords the other is based on melody and chords.  Vertical is often jerky while Horizontal flows.  Vertical almost never develops ideas or themes while horizontal almost never leaves the audience behind. Vertical jazz is much more abstract than horizontal.   Horizontal jazz requires something entirely different and I don't think that "the something"  can be taught because if it could we would all be jazz greats.

There are no shortcuts to good jazz improv.