Jazz Improvisation: an Expression of the Immediate

            Before taking this class on the history of jazz, I had viewed the jazz solo as an extension of the principles of the cadenza in classical European music. The cadenza is a solo designed to show off the technical and expressive capability of the musician. However, the cadenza is pre-written and does not reflect the immediacy of the performance. This class allowed me to understand improvisation in jazz not as a musical extension of the soloist but as a reflection of the present relationship between the musician and audience.

            Jazz developed without any intention of performance in the recital-hall format. It took until 1938 until jazz would premier at Carnegie Hall in a performance by bandleader Benny Goodman (Gioia 152). Jazz music instead relies on the dialogic relationship between performer and audience. In a small space like a Harlem rent party or a dance club like The Savoy, musicians constantly communicated with the audience by observing their dancing. A discussion of improvisation would be incomplete without considering this dialogism because improvisation developed as a feedback response to the audience. As an example, stride pianist James P. Johnson had a diverse repertoire including popular works as well as classical pieces. This versatility allowed him to adapt to the audience by improvising around themes which drew positive responses—whether a ragged-up Chopin Nocturne or Johnson’s “Carolina Shout” (Gioia 97).

            Improvisational expression in jazz originates in the blues of the 19^th century American South. The blues, along with the spiritual, developed as a group musical format intended for collective expression, as opposed to the lecture style recital seen in European classical styles which propagates the expression only of those on stage (lecture 1/17/2013). In his autobiography, Miles Davis wrote of how he infused his revolutionary album Kind of Blue with Arkansas blues and gospel in order to create the feeling of walking along a dark Arkansas road as a child (Davis 234). Along with its expressive roots, Jazz inherits the idea of preset chord sequences from the blues. The blues uses formats like the “12-bar blues” which systematically modulates between I, IV, and V chords (Gioia 14). This structure confines each part just enough so that multiple musicians can simultaneously improvise while retaining overall coherence. The resulting music is a direct and immediate expression of human communication itself—an element of humanity which pre-scored music cannot fully address.

            Bebop improvisation revolves around “scrambled” lines, complex runs with the functional intension of preventing imitators from appropriating the music as whites did during the swing era (lecture 2/21/2013). Because the solos cannot be imitated, each performance is spontaneous and is unique to its location and time. Bebop developed in Minton’s Playhouse, a Harlem club which Miles Davis described as a “music laboratory” (Davis 54). Since most of the patrons were musicians themselves, the performers were forced to adhere to the standards of the most informed critics—Miles recalls a patron beating up a man for playing badly (Davis 54). The combination of the small physical space of Harlem bebop bars and the involvement of the audience summons the image of a soloist playing and an audience yelling back in a constant dialogic relationship.

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Brian Blade Fellowship - Return of the Prodigal Son

Thelonious Monk and the Five Spot: an Oasis from Racism

            Thelonious Monk moved to the San Juan Hill tenements at the age of four from North Carolina (Kelley 16). Racial tensions were prevalent in the neighborhood, formerly a setting for multiple race riots between 1900 and World War I. Though the area was cordoned into blocks belonging to different groups of black migrants—southern, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and so on—the main avenues were inhabited by European immigrant groups (Kelley 18). Monk recalled of the cultural violence, “You go in the next block and you’re in another country. Don’t look at a chick living in the next block and expect to be taking her home and all that; you might not make it” (Kelley 19). He also developed an aversion to the police early in his life, remembering, “Anything you did, if you ran or something, [the cops] called you black bastards” (Kelley 19). For black children, travel (particularly the walk to and from school) accordingly became a group activity for safety. At the school, P.S. 141, the children faced discrimination by the teachers despite the black majority of the school (Kelley 21). As a teenager, Monk developed a reputation in gang circles for his capability to fistfight (Kelley 33).

            Despite his childhood experience, Monk came to largely disregard racial discrimination as an adult, as if ignorance would eradicate the fact. Even as a kid, Monk was taught piano in the European tradition by an Austrian Jew and became a mascot for a rural, white fire department (Kelley 21, 26). Monk’s sidemen were all black, but this reflected choice by talent rather than by race (Kelley 229). Though the main bar Monk played at, the Five Spot, was founded with white musicians and clientele, it developed a diverse audience with respect to age, status, and race during Monk’s tenure there (Kelley 227, 256). This community was bound together by the shared love of dissonant, avant-garde jazz, and was an oasis of tolerance—embodying the Bohemian atmosphere in which Monk thrived. Beyond providing his sustenance, the Five Spot represented a community in which Monk enjoyed great respect and found exemption from the racial tension which consumed other musicians like Miles Davis (Kelley 239) (Lecture 2.28.2013).

            Monk did have an affinity for African artistic traditions. Bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik brought North African modality into Monk’s band (Kelley 236). Monk befriended Guy Warren, a Ghanaian who introduced Monk to the complex rhythms of West African drumming, inspiring Monk’s composition “Bluehawk” (Kelley 245). The African trinkets sent by Warren enthralled Monk.

            White patronage helped to let Monk transcend racial disputes. A white manager, Harry Colomby, was able to convince the court to reinstate Monk’s cabaret card, the New York City license for nightclub employees (Kelley 225). White fans helped Monk move about the city between gigs (Kelley 234). Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, known as Nica, was Monk’s greatest patron. Beyond rides in her Bentley, Nica took care of Monk and let him rehearse with band members in her house. It was Monk’s denial of Jim Crow that led to his arrest in 1958 while with Nica. Monk walked into a hotel kitchen and asked the owner’s white wife for some water, prompting her to summon the police. Monk, not understanding the casus belli, resisted and later struck at the police. He was arrested, beaten, convicted, and stripped of his cabaret card—for the third time, no less. Nica posted Monk’s bond and saved him from a marijuana position charge. Monk fell into a prolonged psychiatric breakdown, partially because he could not cognize that he was abused by the police because of race (Kelley 255).