Jazz question.

[lungimsam]

The typical formula for instrumental jazz songs is Theme section / improvise section /theme section / end.

Is there any jazz artist that comes up with melodies as coherent and sweet during the improv section as the themes section has? Or are they not trying for that? What is the goal of the improv part of the song?

This is not a slight on jazz musicians, as I consider them to be the best musicians.

 

[fronobulax]

In the world of classical music and composers, there are variations on a theme. The composer is doing the "improv" but the basic idea is to take a theme or melody and transform it to get a variation. It is usually expected that the audience "knows" the theme and can at least hear echoes of it in a variation. Sometimes the transformation is the point in which case the variation could be described as "in 4/4 time" (instead of the original 3/4) or the original played in a minor key. It is unusual for a variation to be "superior" to the main theme but it can happen.

I have found that classical composers talk about the "melody" but many jazz improvisors talk about "the changes". So I would not expect a jazz improvisation to be as melodic as the main theme.

Perhaps the finest improvisers in classical music are organists. They routinely improvise to build a bridge between two songs or to change keys or just entertain while something else is going on. And that doesn't count improvising for its own sake. Indeed several improvisations by early 20th century French organists were transcribed and have now found their way into the repertoire and are routinely performed as such.

So I would answer your questions by observing that the soloist doing the improv probably has a goal or vision but it is not always to produce something that is as coherent and sweet (to the ears of the audience) as the original melody. That begs your second question because the point or goal is going to vary with the soloist and the ensemble. The point is always to let someone express themselves musically by letting them solo but beyond that.....

I obviously believe that "improvisation" has a motivation that transcends genres.

Composition and improvisation are the same intellectual and musical activity. The difference is that improvisation happens in real time and often never gets written down or edited.

Too much coffee, not enough editing

 

[Uke]

I'm thinking more classical music here, but there are certainly melodies which are anything but sweet; and though a composer may understand a particular melody to be coherent, there are times when the hearer may never hear the coherence at all. Disclaimer: these are just thoughts from an amateur listener.

 

[Midnight Toker]

In classical, I see the conductor as interpretive, going by their vision based on the composer's original instruction on paper, and the only real room for improv going to a soloist during cadenzas. More often than not, a soloist's cadenza will vary somewhat, even on a nightly basis. Cadenzas are typically played unaccompanied and the orchestra almost always stays on script.

Jazz is very different, in that a soloist's section can take the entire ensemble to unscripted places and then they are typically drawn back by the reintroduction of the original theme being played by one member on top of the improv. The general mood and flavor of the original theme certainly dictates the solo, so the goal of the improv is simply to showcase your talents within the confines of a given theme. If the theme is light and airy, the solo section typically will be as well. If the theme is energetic and aggressive, you'll likely get the same during the solo. The solo section can be variations on the original theme....or it can be a musical tangent very far removed from it. It's all just free expression.

 

[gjmalcyon]

The typical formula for instrumental jazz songs is Theme section / improvise section /theme section / end.

Is there any jazz artist that comes up with melodies as coherent and sweet during the improv section as the themes section has? Or are they not trying for that? What is the goal of the improv part of the song?

This is not a slight on jazz musicians, as I consider them to be the best musicians.

I think I understand what you're getting at and what comes to mind for me are the piano players - Chick Corea and Oscar Peterson in particular. Lionel Hampton, too.

 

[jp]

The typical formula for instrumental jazz songs is Theme section / improvise section /theme section / end.

Is there any jazz artist that comes up with melodies as coherent and sweet during the improv section as the themes section has? Or are they not trying for that? What is the goal of the improv part of the song?

To add to what others have said above, I feel the answer to your first question is subjective, and there are those who would discuss this to death. I think the answers to your other questions may differ depending on the period of jazz.

In early days of instrumental jazz, the soloist is, in essence, doing the job of the vocalist. During Swing and Big Band eras, jazz was the pop music of the time, so soloists focused more on entertaining and on getting people dancing. Soloists tended to stick to the chart while playing over chord changes--hinting at, dancing around, or echoing the melody. Jazz musicians also became more competitive and tried to outplay each other, which affected how they soloed.

When Bebop came of age in the late-1930s and 40s, soloists like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker started to improv with chord substitutions over changes and took a more intellectual approach. Without getting too technical, they were starting to arpeggiate different chords over the standard chord progressions on the chart. This practice was common in classical compositions. The result was more harmonically rich improvisations around the melody. This further developed with Hard Bop, especially with John Coltrane. So one could say that their goals with their solos were different and decidedly more exploratory.

I think the Cool Jazz era with Miles Davis and the integration of modal playing into soloing marked a return to a more simplistic approach, which although is arguably also complex, resulted in beautiful reinterpretations and treatments of the melody during the improv solos.

Most jazz standards do follow the classic form of "head AABA--improvise over AABA--AABA again with outro." In the 60s and 70s, compositions that departed from this form became more common, and approaches to soloing went in many directions, esp. with Free jazz.

Unfortunately, your astute questions merit more detailed answers than I can provide here. The Ken Burns Jazz series offers a lot of insight, if you haven't checked it out.

 

[mad dog]

Melody, playing melodically, is not the only way to comment and solo. Some players do indeed focus on melody. Grant Green most often solos melodically, in a linear fashion. His solos are coherent compositions. Other players focus on rhythm as much as melody. The panamanian pianist Danilo Perez always comes to mind:



Here he is doing an extended tribute to Monk, whose compositions are such idiosyncratic blends of odd melody fragments over surprising rhythm changes. Which illustrates another point. Soloing is contextual. Songs are thematic not only in melodic terms.

I'm no jazz player, but have studied jazz guitar, have jazz tendencies in my own playing. To me, solos and comments (obligato) are conversational. Expository yes, not always strictly melodic. More like the give and take, the ebb and flow of an actual conversation. Sometimes the conversation is highly melodic. Check almost any recording with Lester Young and Billie Holiday. More than just a soloist, the Prez actually sang along with her in verses via obligato comments:



And there's a whole lot of jazz which very intentionally departs from, moves past melody. The chaos factor. Coltrane's sheets of sound. Sonny Sharrock, who could be the most melodic guitarist and the least all in the same song. Here's a cut from his brilliant album "Ask the Ages". The great Elvin Jones on drums too, plus Pharoah Sanders:



Another from the chaos side. The Mary Halvorsen Jamaaladeen Tacuma duo. Mary on guitar. There is melody here, but melodic playing is not really what this is about. This is a conversation too:

A Fine Intrusion, by Jamaaladeen Tacuma

from the album Jamaaladeen Tacuma & Mary Halvorson Strings & Things

jamaaladeentacuma.bandcamp.com

Me, I love the chaotic stuff.

 

[walrus]

And then there's Bill Frisell.

"Bill Frisell's technique differs from mainstream jazz in that it is entirely dependent on the melody, not the chord structure".

Interviewer: Your approach to melody seems unique in that you break it down piece by piece until you are dissecting the elements of sound within the context of melody. Can you explain that process?
Frisell: When I first started getting into jazz, I studied what was going on with the music theoretically and would look at things more in a mathematical way. I would look at the chords and learn what the chord tones were, what the scales were. But somewhere along the way, I tried to understand all the inner workings of the melody. If the melody isn't there, then it really doesn't mean anything. It's also where it gets harder to explain. With every song, I'm trying to internalize the melody so strong that that's the backbone for everything that I am playing no matter how abstract it becomes. Sometimes I'll just play the melody over and over again and try to vary it slightly. It's really coming from that, like trying to make the melody the thing that's generating all the variations rather than some kind of theoretical mathematical approach.
Interviewer: Could you explain what you mean by internalizing the melody?
Frisell: It's playing and hearing the melody and not playing anything but the melody until it starts going on inside your body, even without thinking about it. But the older I get, the longer it seems to take to learn new things and get it to the point where it's really deep down in there somehow."

walrus

 

[Canard]

Then there is the problem of defining exactly what Jazz is. It just won't stick to definition. It keeps wriggling and squirming, and just won't fit in the box.

You could take the extremely broad approach and say that it is a musical form that involves improvisation, but even this would not be true for all periods of Jazz. In the big band era solos would often be composed through initial improvisation but would then become frozen/set/rote in performance, particularly after a piece had been recorded. Musicians had charts.

Some Jazz is complete improvisation. I once saw the young Bill Frisell put on stage opposite a young Chinese woman who played traditional Chinese music on traditional instruments but who also did modern things outside the traditional envelope. The two had never met before and had never heard or heard of each other before. It was a totally improvised performance starting from nothing.

There was a Jazz label that was notorious for rounding up desperate junkies and stuffing them into a studio and recording them. Whoever was most famous at the time would be the name the music was recorded under. Changes from standards would be stolen to avoid royalty payments. New heads would be improvised over the stolen changes. The middle would be improvised. The head would be repeated. In the can. New name given to the piece. Authorship claimed. Rights probably signed over to the label. All improvisation over a set frame.

Jazz probably arose out of kitchen jams among musicians who played in community marching bands and stage bands that played in band shells, etc. It was initially a type of folk music, as in a music of the people. People just goofing around, having a great time, and showing off technique. Perhaps at its best, this is what Jazz still is.

Steely Dan was and was not Jazz. Kendrick Lamar is and is not Jazz. On and on we go.

 

[wileypickett]

Perhaps the finest improvisers in classical music are organists. They routinely improvise to build a bridge between two songs or to change keys or just entertain while something else is going on. And that doesn't count improvising for its own sake. Indeed several improvisations by early 20th century French organists were transcribed and have now found their way into the repertoire and are routinely performed as such.

Indeed. In free-jazz guitarist Derek Bailey's book, *Improvisation*, the first improvisers he writes about are French organists of the early 20th Century.

The French classical composer Olivier Messiaen was, for many decades, also an organist in his church. He wrote many compositions for organ, but when he played for Sunday worshippers he often improvised.

 

[wileypickett]

Melody, playing melodically, is not the only way to comment and solo. Some players do indeed focus on melody. Grant Green most often solos melodically, in a linear fashion. His solos are coherent compositions. Other players focus on rhythm as much as melody. The panamanian pianist Danilo Perez always comes to mind:



Here he is doing an extended tribute to Monk, whose compositions are such idiosyncratic blends of odd melody fragments over surprising rhythm changes. Which illustrates another point. Soloing is contextual. Songs are thematic not only in melodic terms.

I'm no jazz player, but have studied jazz guitar, have jazz tendencies in my own playing. To me, solos and comments (obligato) are conversational. Expository yes, not always strictly melodic. More like the give and take, the ebb and flow of an actual conversation. Sometimes the conversation is highly melodic. Check almost any recording with Lester Young and Billie Holiday. More than just a soloist, the Prez actually sang along with her in verses via obligato comments:



And there's a whole lot of jazz which very intentionally departs from, moves past melody. The chaos factor. Coltrane's sheets of sound. Sonny Sharrock, who could be the most melodic guitarist and the least all in the same song. Here's a cut from his brilliant album "Ask the Ages". The great Elvin Jones on drums too, plus Pharoah Sanders:



Another from the chaos side. The Mary Halvorsen Jamaaladeen Tacuma duo. Mary on guitar. There is melody here, but melodic playing is not really what this is about. This is a conversation too:

A Fine Intrusion, by Jamaaladeen Tacuma

from the album Jamaaladeen Tacuma & Mary Halvorson Strings & Things

jamaaladeentacuma.bandcamp.com

Me, I love the chaotic stuff.

I'm with you, but be careful -- we had one thread shut down here over discussion of Mary Halvorson! (I defended her in what was a pretty heated exchange. I apologized for my role in that.)

Saw Sonny Sharrock several times -- one of my favorite guitarists. Last Exit, a sort of supergroup which included Sonny, did one of the most exicting shows I've ever seen, here in Cambridge many years ago. Sharrock had a mouthful of flatpicks and as he splintered each one with his furious playing, he'd toss it away, spit out another and continue playing.

 

[mad dog]

I'm with you, but be careful -- we had one thread shut down here over discussion of Mary Halvorson!

I did not know that. Somehow missed it. I've heard her on and off for years. Mostly not to my taste, though I sort of see where she's coming from. This duo with J. Tacuma is different. They seem so attuned to one another. On the same strange wavelength.

I only saw Sonny Sharrock once. A duo with a Greek guitarist (forget his name) at Tower records in lower NY, long ago. I knew of his stuff with Miles, had a sense of what he could do. But really, I was unprepared. He was fiercely melodic, also completely chaotic, sometimes all in the same song. Loved how he carried melody lines on the bass strings of his very loud, quite distorted Les Paul. Very emotional, very affecting music. Sonny was someone special.

 

[walrus]

Indeed. In free-jazz guitarist Derek Bailey's book, *Improvisation*, the first improvisers he writes about are French organists of the early 20th Century.

wiley, would you recommend this book?

walrus

 

[DrumBob]

In early days of instrumental jazz, the soloist is, in essence, doing the job of the vocalist. During Swing and Big Band eras, jazz was the pop music of the time, so soloists focused more on entertaining and on getting people dancing. Soloists tended to stick to the chart while playing over chord changes--hinting at, dancing around, or echoing the melody. Jazz musicians also became more competitive and tried to outplay each other, which affected how they soloed.

I agree. If the OP wants more melodic soloing, he should go back to the Swing Era, when the music was much more accessible to the average listener. The advent of Bop and people like John Coltrane made jazz much more complicated and harder for Joe & Jane Average to understand.

 

[Walter Broes]

Django Reinhardt comes to mind as someone who's solos are at least as lyrical as the song's themes.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

The typical formula for instrumental jazz songs is Theme section / improvise section /theme section / end.

Is there any jazz artist that comes up with melodies as coherent and sweet during the improv section as the themes section has? Or are they not trying for that? What is the goal of the improv part of the song?

This is not a slight on jazz musicians, as I consider them to be the best musicians.

Frono's explanation nailed it.

In the right hands, improv is usually at least arguably coherent unless the intention is otherwise and, when the artist is aiming at sweet, sweet.

Whether the artist accomplishes that is in the ear of the beholder. Some extravagant improvisers who, to me, achieve it include Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt, Yusef Lateef, and Pharaoh Sanders and John Hicks. Art Blakely was a drummer, but he and his band, the Jazz Messengers, could do it, too. (There are plenty of jazz greats who annoy or bore me, but there's no need to get into them. Again: ear of the beholder.)

A bit closer to the present (but not by much), I like folks like the Crusaders, Herbie Hancock, Hubert Laws, and Grover Washington.

If you listen to some older-style stuff, like Preservation Hall Band or Jelly Roll Morton, that music never strays far from the theme but still manages to spin cylcones around it. To me, entertaining.

Louie Armstrong was the oldest person to ever have a #1 hit: "Hello, Dolly," at 66. Check out the solo. Does it keep the sweet spirit of the theme? What do your ears behold?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Then there is the problem of defining exactly what Jazz is. . . .

It's only a problem if you try to.

 

[davidbeinct]

It's only a problem if you try to.

To paraphrase Justice Stewart “I know it when I hear it.”

 

[Rocky]

Then there is the problem of defining exactly what Jazz is.

I understand it is at least three wrong notes in a row.

I'll show myself the door.


I hope to learn enough theory at some point that I understand what's happening enough to be able to play it. But for now I'll have to live with 'sounds great to me.'