The art of improvisation and the aesthetics of imperfection

British Journal of Aesthetics

Volumn 40, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 168-185

  Hamilton, Andy ^a  

^a DURHAM UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 35648944077     PISSN: 00070904     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/bjaesthetics/40.1.168     Document Type: Review

References (49)

1. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (New York: Columbia, 1959), sleevenote.
2. Reprinted as 'Improvisation in Jazz', in R. O'Meally, The Jazz Cadence of American Culture (New York: Columbia U.P., 1998).
3. Peter Pettinger, Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings (New Haven, CT and London: Yale U.P., 1998).
4. E. Gioia, The Imperfect Art (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1988), p. 66.
5. L. Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 234 - a brief account of the changing concept of improvisation is found at pp. 188-189 and 232-234.
6. Goehr is possibly influenced by Adorno's insistence on the historicity of the concepts of improvisation and composition, discussed in Max Paddison, Adorno's Aesthetics of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1993), pp. 192-198.
7. R. Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997);
8. George Lewis, 'Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives', Black Music Research Journal, vol. 16, no. I (1996), pp. 91-122.
9. The 'debate' consisted of Schoenberg writing marginal comments in his copy of Busoni's book; subsequent quotations are from F. Busoni, 'Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music', in Three Classics in the Aesthetic of Music (New York: Dover, 1962), p. 84,
10. and H. H. Stuckenschmidt, Arnold Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work (London: John Calder, 1977), pp. 226-227.
11. A. Hamilton, 'Thomas Adès: Sleaze Operas', The Wire, issue 176 (October 1998), p. 13.
12. I discuss later the sense in which recordings convert improvisations into works; and address the issue of recording in a sequel to the present essay. My inadequate first thoughts on the general issue appeared as 'The Aesthetics of Imperfection', Philosophy, vol. 65, no. 253 (1990), pp. 323-340.
13. Quoted in Kevin Bazzana, Glenn Gould: The Performer in the Work (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 20-21.
14. This is the view of Robin Maconie, The Concept of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 150-151.
15. Quoted in 'Improvisation' by Eva Badura-Skoda, in S. Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1980).
16. Quoted by Derek Bailey, Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music (Ashbourne, Derby: Moorland, 1980; 2nd edn London: British Library, 1992), pp. 92, 94 (1st edn). This groundbreaking book is an invaluable resource for discussion of improvisation.
17. Or words to that effect - for a less pithy version, see I. Crofton et al. (eds), A Dictionary of Musical Quotations (London: Routledge, 1988), p. 15.
18. Sam Rivers, Dimensions and Extensions (New York: Blue Note, 1986), sleevenote.
19. John Potter, Vocal Authority: Singing Style and Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1998), p. 1.
20. Pettinger, How My Heart Sings, pp. ix, 72. The cantabile style appeared during the nineteenth century - it was clearly not possible on the fortepiano - though Bartok was not the only classical composer who later rejected it. No one has explained how its production is physically possible, even with the mechanism of the modern piano.
21. Quotation from J. Collier, The Making of Jazz (London: Granada, 1978), p. 456.
22. One irony is that Taylor is also conservatory-trained; another is that Evans himself always cited Bud Powell as his key jazz influence. The interesting case of Thelonious Monk is discussed in T. Fitterling, Thelonious Monk: His Life and Music, trans. R. Dobbin (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills Books, 1997), pp. 98-104.
23. Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Conversations with Bill Evans (London: Decca, 1997).
24. Badura-Skoda, 'Improvisation', p. 43.
25. We know this from alternative takes of the same song. On improvisation in early jazz, see G. Schuller, The Swing Era (New York: Oxford U.P., 1989), pp. 162n. and 307n.;
26. and Conrad Cork, Harmony with Lego Bricks (Leicester: Tadley Ewing, rev. edn 1996), pp. 81-86.
27. Downbeat report from May 1978, quoted in Gioia, Imperfect Art, pp. 52-53. How did Hollenberg, the journalist, know the solos were note-for-note the same - he wasn't taping without the artist's permission by any chance? Even von Dittersdorfs have performing rights.
28. S. Cavell, 'Music Discomposed', in his Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1976), p. 200;
29. quoted in R. Gottlieb, Reading Jazz (London: Bloomsbury, 1997), p. 813. Cavell offers a more elusive sense of 'improvised' on pp. 200-201.
30. Quoted in Bailey, Improvisation, p. 48.
31. E. Carter, Collected Essays and Lectures, 1937-95, ed. J. Bernard (Rochester, NY: Rochester U.P., 1997), pp. 324-325. Carter's music has been much-influenced by jazz rhythms - maybe he just prefers his jazz well-rehearsed, like Jelly Roll Morton's.
32. P. Boulez, Orientations (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), p. 461.
33. Lukas Foss says that in improvisation 'one plays what one already knows', while John Cage, who is not a modernist and so might be more sympathetic, agrees; see Lewis, 'Improvised Music after 1950', p. 106.
34. Aleatoric music is in fact only marginally influenced by improvisation - an issue discussed in A. Hamilton, 'Undercurrents #5: Music of Chance', The Wire, issue 183 (May 1999), pp. 427-45.
35. B. Case, 'Steve Lacy', interview in The Wire, issue 1 (Summer 1982), pp. 6-7;
36. Webber, 'LaMonte Young meets Mark Webber', The Wire, issue 178 (December 1998), p. 44.
37. C. Woideck, Charlie Parker: His Music and Life (Ann Arbor: Michigan U.P., 1996), pp. 175-176, 199-200, and passim.
38. The distinction between creative and non-creative use of motifs is also well discussed by Lewis Porter, Lester Young (London: Macmillan, 1986),
39. and Cork, Harmony With Lego-Bricks.
40. Lewis, 'Improvised Music after 1950', pp. 106-107, discusses the 'motif theory' proposed by cognitive psychologists.
41. Roland Barthes comments that with recording 'the various manners of playing are all flattened out into perfection' (The Grain of the Voice', in his Music, Image, Text [London: Fontana, 1977], p. 189);
42. and see, for instance, Adorno's discussion of Toscanini in 'The Mastery of the Maestro', in his Sound Figures, trans. R. Livingstone (Stanford, CA: Stanford U.P., 1999).
43. Stressed by Gunther Schuller in 'The Future of Form in Jazz', in his Musings (New York: Oxford U.P., 1986), pp. 24-25. Despite the illusion of spontaneous creation, the sad truth is that my article has been reworked to death with almost all traces of the original idea completely obliterated - so in answer to the repeated and irritating question, 'No it wasn't improvised'.
44. I. Carr, Keith Jarrett: The Man and his Music (New York: Da Capo, 1992). Jarrett's 'state of grace' makes frequent appearances, on pp. 67, 72, 92, 104, 131, 151, 159, 163. Indeed it is sometimes described as 'the usual state of grace' - 'it is uncanny how often [Jarrett] manages to achieve the inspired state' (p. 104).
45. The point is made by W. Brooks in 'Music in America: An Overview (Part 2)', in D. Nicholls (ed.), The Cambridge History of American Music (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1998), p. 269.
46. S. Finkelstein, Jazz: A People's Music (New York: Citadel Press, 1948, repr. London: Jazz Book Club, 1964), pp. 109, 111.
47. Scruton, Aesthetics of Music, p. 111;
48. idem, 'Reply to Hamilton, "The Aesthetics of Western Art Music"', Philosophical Books, vol. 40 (1999), pp. 157-158.
49. Interview in sleevenote to George Lewis and Miya Masaoka, Duets (Berkeley CA: Music & Arts, 1998).