[Dixielandjazz] Improvisation isn't = to jazz (Bach, first jazzman?)

[Charles Suhor]

On Jan 25, 2005, at 4:47 PM, LARRY'S Signs and Large Format Printing 
wrote:

> When I started college I took theory classes where the instructor 
> would give
> us, usually, a Bach Choral with figured bass . In the beginning there 
> were
> two lines of music the top being the melody line and the bottom the 
> bass
> line.  We had to fill in the rest using proper voice leading etc.  
> Later we
> got the melody line with only the figured bass and we would write in 
> the
> rest.  Later still we would write melodies and use figured bass with 
> all the
> inversions etc.  This is very similar to the chord symbols used today.
> Therefore Bach and others used this as a written aid for improv.  This 
> was a
> system used at that time and I assume players of the time could read 
> and
> fill it in just as Jazz musicians use chord symbols today.  What Bach
> actually played is something of a mystery.

Larry clearly laid out some similarities between jazz improvisation and 
the composing methods in his class, but the wonder of jazz (and other 
non-written improvisation), which makes the difference, was once 
described by the songwriting great Alec Wilder.

"I wish to God that some neurologists would sit down and figure
out how the improviser's brain works,  how he selects, out of
hundreds of thousands of possibilities, the notes he does at the speed
he does--how in God's name, his mind works so damned fast!  And why, 
when the notes come out right, they are right . . .Composing is a slow, 
arduous, obvious, inch-by-inch process, whereas improvisation is a 
lighting mystery.  In fact, it is the creative mystery of our age."

Wilder's comments about lightning-fast invention from innumerable 
possibilites also apply to the way we improvise everyday conversation. 
I've done several session on the musical and linguistic parallels, 
which would be academic stuff except for the musical explanations and 
examples provided Ellis Marsalis and other collaborators. We'll do the 
program again at the Phi Delta Kappa convention in New Orleans in 
November.

Charlie Suhor



>
>
>
>> Great analysis from Ric, below. Some further ramblings...
>>
>> Improvisation in the classical tradition, I think, can capture the 
>> free
>> spirit of jazz, and like jazz improv, it can be done skillfully or
>> poorly. But the particular form of improv in jazz, from early jazz up
>> to but not including free form/avant garde jazz, is a
>> song-structure-based, rule-governed form that gives musicians and
>> listeners benchmarks whereby they can relate the improv to a base
>> (e.g., aaba or 12-bar blues, underlying chords) that's used to 
>> generate
>> the jazz line.
>>
>> Also, jazz of just about every style uses African influences that
>> Western music didn't make use of and thought bizarre, at first. You
>> know the catalogue---blue tonality, bent notes, smears, growls, rips,
>> radical syncopation/accentuation, a voice-based conception of
>> instrumental tone, etc.
>> These were anathema to the European tradition. Early jazz introduced
>> new dimensions of expressiveness that were only later understood by
>> musical Establishments. BTW, those elements came to be incorporated in
>> jazz arrangements. An Ellington arrangement, then, can be " jazzier"
>> than a an improvisation that makes no use of at least part of the 
>> array
>> of African elements.
>>
>> Back to Bach--okay, he wasn't a jazzman, but again, the long and
>> leaping lines and imaginative counterpoint of his written music were
>> certainly influenced by his genius as an improviser, and I think that
>> an analogy to jazz, though not an equation, is invited. Also, I
>> understand that Bach didn't write dynamic markings or tempos to many 
>> or
>> most of his writings, giving the performer and/or conductor the
>> privilege and responsibility of imagining the piece anew. Hence, the
>> differences in Glenn Gould's different renderings in the Goldberg
>> variations that Steve writes of fondly, and the marvelous adaptability
>> of Bach's music ton various settings and instrumentations.
>>
>> Charlie Suhor
>>
>>
>> On Jan 25, 2005, at 8:25 AM, Ric Giorgi wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Ric Giorgi [mailto:ricgiorgi at sympatico.ca]
>>> Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 9:23 AM
>>> To: 'Steve barbone'
>>> Subject: RE: [Dixielandjazz] Bach, The First Jazzman?
>>>
>>> Thanks for posting this Steve.
>>>
>>> I think there are two basic problems with this argument [Bach, The 
>>> 1st
>>> Jazzman and that "because Bach improvised so much, most of his pieces
>>> were
>>> not contained on paper. Some people consider that most of Bach's 
>>> works
>>> that
>>> are on paper are not worth saving anyway, since music written for one
>>> occasion (in Bach's case, church...)]
>>>
>>> As a young man he walked 40 miles to be able to hear a very famous
>>> organist
>>> (Buxtehude) play because he was known both as a great composer and a
>>> great
>>> improviser. Improvisation was an absolutely necessary skill for any 
>>> old
>>> world musician well before Bach's time. It was probably the great
>>> profusion
>>> of bad improvisation that forced composers to insist that musicians
>>> play
>>> what they wrote and as performing technique became more demanding it
>>> was
>>> probably easier for musicians to do just that and not improvise.
>>>
>>> The net result was that improvisation was lost to western music for
>>> then
>>> next 150 years until OKOM came along.
>>>
>>> Bach never had some of his greatest work performed, namely, "The
>>> Brandenburg
>>> Concertos" and probably others but he did write them and what has
>>> survived
>>> very much the way he would have wanted them performed with some 
>>> leeway
>>> for
>>> improvisation based on his knowledge of the probable players involved
>>> (the
>>> BC's were an "on spec" audition he created to try to get a gig with 
>>> the
>>> Margrave of Brandenburg). Most people agree that the 2nd movement of
>>> No. 3
>>> was devised to be entirely improvised by JSB or the likely 
>>> keyboardist
>>> at
>>> the Brandenburg court. But like any composer of almost any time, he
>>> could
>>> only get writing gigs if musicians played his music the way he
>>> intended it
>>> (or better) and he couldn't be at every performance so it had to be
>>> notated
>>> with his intentions intact.
>>>
>>> Ric Giorgi
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com [mailto:dixielandjazz-
>>>> bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of Steve barbone
>>>> Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2005 9:59 PM
>>>> To: DJML
>>>> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Bach, The First Jazzman?
>>>>
>>>> Bill Haesler commented that one could tap one's feet to J.S. Bach.
>>>> I've
>>>> been
>>>> googling since the weather here cancelled tonight's and tomorrow's
>>>> gigs
>>>> and
>>>> found this interesting snippet on Bach from a graduate music student
>>>> thesis,
>>>> University of California, circa mid 1990s
>>>>
>>>> --- begin snip
>>>>
>>>> "Bach, and many other composers of his time, were experts at
>>>> improvisation,
>>>> composing musical pieces at will, instantly, on the spot - similar 
>>>> to
>>>> jazz
>>>> players today. It was not considered rude to add whatever the player
>>>> desired
>>>> into the written context of the composer himself. Thus, early music
>>>> was
>>>> very
>>>> free and flexible to play. Unfortunately, because Bach improvised so
>>>> much,
>>>> most of his pieces were not contained on paper. Some people consider
>>>> that
>>>> most of Bach's works that are on paper are not worth saving anyway,
>>>> since
>>>> music written for one occasion (in Bach's case, church) should be
>>>> discarded
>>>> anyhow. But all people have a certain level of curiosity, to hear 
>>>> what
>>>> Bach
>>>> had to say with the language of music. More than a thousand of 
>>>> Bach's
>>>> works
>>>> have been saved, but it is mind-boggling to think of how many more -
>>>> and
>>>> how
>>>> much greater - his other thousand or so compositions could be."
>>>>
>>>> --- end snip
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Steve Barbone
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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