“The Feeling of Jazz” – (thank you Duke Ellington)
I’m writing today at Augusts ending,* in a fit of procrastination. What I ought to be doing is preparing a semester’s worth of materials for a class I’ll soon be teaching at Williams College- “Advanced Jazz Theory and Improvisation.” I’ve taught a class by this same name before, but a big part of the fun of it all for me is the chance to reimagine and recreate each class anew, often with specific students in mind. Part of the reimagining is the ongoing attempt to define clearly for myself what I mean by “theory” generally and in the context of my chosen discipline. Although it frustrates me, most of the thoughts I can formulate on this question present themselves in the negative: what I feel that “theory” isn’t, or shouldn’t be called upon or expected to do. (If you can bear with, I think I’ll make it around to positives eventually!)
That word “theory” has the broad aim of a ballpark t-shirt cannon, but one common denominator is that it always seems to evoke some kind of systematic thought; some way of ordering, organizing, and interacting with something that is varied, and complex. So, a purveyor of theory can’t, shouldn’t, (IMHO) and isn’t trying to “teach students jazz,” but rather to “teach students how jazz is learned,” or even “how a century-plus of students have practiced jazz language and organized its idiomatic information.” It’s more an initiation and welcome into a discipline, culture and practice, than it is the dispensing of mere information, guidelines, rules, or dualistic rights and wrongs.
If you have lived as a lover of music but not been exposed to any formal, institutional study you might be horrified at the idea of folks imposing strict rules onto something as beautifully ineffable as musical expression. I’m right with you, picturing a shriveled old mean knuckle-rapping Dickensian schoolmaster/choirmaster. But let’s give that guy a break; none of us are immune to the desire to give form to chaotic things, to know, to understand, and most of all to be known as someone who understands! Theory in the “rules” sense seems to pop up all over, a very human response to discoveries of any kind. For example, in what is called “tonal” music (in all likelihood this would include 99% of all of the music you have ever heard) there is this idea of being “in a key.” The idea of a “key” implies all kinds of neat things. Instead of 12 interchangeable, impersonal pitches,** now we have a veritable solar system of interrelation, a sense of order held together through the gravity of one “home” pitch and /or chord around which all the others orbit. It must have been exhilarating to be among the first people to name and express this idea, a huge sense of discovery…”How far can we take this thing?” The idea of key centers (tonality) is a big one in western music theory, and a huge theme of theory curricula is the gradual expansion and stretching of this concept to and beyond its breaking point, with new exceptions written into the “bylaws” to account for an ever-widening concept of tonality. (Sometimes this can feel silly, like we’re offering justification for the inclusion and existence of this or that group of pitches…. who asked us?) This idea of tonality is interesting, experientially real, helpful, and illuminates far and wide, but like many other constructs it will collapse under its own weight if the idea of “music theory” is conflated with “music truth .”
The best, most lasting music-learning experiences can’t be legislated, neither can they be rushed. Perhaps you’ve heard (even in this blog from yours truly) jazz or music generally described as a “language.” One of the most salient parts of this multifaceted analogy has to do with the way both jazz music and spoken languages are learned (perhaps “acquired” is putting it better). Both are especially immune to shortcuts of any kind! One of my most frequent thoughts about “jazz theory” as an idea is a sort of mental alarm bell, threatening perilous missing-of-the point should theoretical ideas be mistaken for magic skeleton-keys, or considered time-saving end runs around the natural demands of an essentially aural tradition. A seductive aspect often baked into our expectations and definition of “theory” study is the promise of quick wisdom, a sorting-out of surface complexity, a peek inside the guts of a less-than-scrutable machine. We all know intuitively and from experience (think high school “foreign” language classes) that languages are not easy to learn, nor are they difficult. They simply demand time, and immersive experience, both sustained attention and casual absorption. Grammar rules and conventions have their valuable place but they don’t tend to fast-track you to a practical fluency. Classroom instruction lacks the ubiquity and consistency that marks everyday life experience, especially that of a child. Peekaboo and lullaby, conversation over picture books, congregational singing, small talk in a marketplace, these are the first and most effective schools of language, and for the musician they find their closest analog in record grooves worn dull, repetitive solitary rehearsal of melodies and scale exercises, and especially in hours playing together. This process can only be hurried but so much. ***
Languages begin with sound, prior to any notation (and the theoretical abstraction that it enables). Languages also end up being inseparable from their roots in ****culture and community life. The existence of “constructed” languages such as Esperanto reveals (through contrast) another core aspect of commonly used tongues such as English, Urdu or Tagalog; our languages evolved organically, with a messy complexity. There was no perfect core seed of logic governing their genesis, and to the extent that “theory” is a search for this holy grail, it will ultimately be a frustrating one. Theoretical concepts and structures are at their most potent when they are coming off the bench later in the order of operations, naming, organizing and making connections between sounds that already reverberate in one’s imagination, but never given the final say!
Today happens to be the 101st anniversary of the great Charles Christopher Parker- and this is the very same performing “Ornithology” live at NYC’s Birdland in 1950. What sweeter procrastination?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LphuCadyQi0[MG3]
When I’m with my students, there will certainly be conversations that fall into the category of “what to play, how to think and practice, how to approach harmony and rhythm, in order to sound more like Charlie Parker.” I firmly believe in, and have so much affection for the kinds of study that arise in response to these questions. Learning Parker solos by ear, notating them, using the rhythmic language as a jumping-off point for the creation of new melodies, taking note of the specific harmony implied in his lines and how they cohere, compliment or clash with the underlying chord structure. If a jazz artist’s curriculum can be summed up by the treasured Clark Terry proverb: “Imitate, Assimiliate, Innovate”- there’s no better target for these energies than “Bird.” Charlie Parker is the central figure of “modern” jazz. If the concept of a canon has any validity, he’s a cornerstone .
Framed in this way, “theory” study feels deeper, more complex and holistic. It’s not about a cold, falsely objective sense of right and wrong, good-better-best. This kind of study is rich with relationship across time and space. There’s a relationship of a sort formed with Parker himself, as the hours of repeated listening and imitation become a “next best thing” to having been in his actual presence, sharing life on and off the bandstand. (Jazz mythology is replete with tales of such apprenticeship master-padawan bonds… like Louis Armstrong schlepping the cornet case of King Oliver through New Orleans streets, or a young Miles Davis dropping out of Julliard to stalk an elusive Charlie Parker through Manhattan…) There are also relationships created with legions of other jazz artists across time and space, who also take Parker’s syntax as a lingua franca, to expand and comment upon, part of the shared convention that allows for coherent performances between musicians who may have never met. It’s an actual language that communicates belonging, history, and shared values. This image is beautiful and inspirational to me and these energies motivate many of my students: To speak a language and so to be grafted into community; to contribute in a personally authentic way to a great communal work of art, this is a fulfilling way to spend one’s time and energies .
And yet, Is there more? I think so. Like any powerful idea or narrative, the idea of “learning a language” is compelling, but doesn’t feel ultimate. It also has the potential to be turned in upon itself and used for ill-intentioned, stifling exclusion. It can become a nobler-sounding version of in-and-out or right-vs.-wrong.
I can’t help a curiosity at the possibilities of a wider-yet view of things, and a nagging sense that certain questions of the music are too quickly discarded because they elude lock-tight universal answers. It’s easy to remain satisfied with geek-out insider ruminations with fellow musicians and invested students, and in these “spaces” to become more interested in craft than with the music itself. However, when I think about my work as a composer and performer, the music that I create and present, it puts things in a very different light. I want to know, understand, and have a degree of say in what exactly it is that my music is communicating on an emotional level. What does it feel like to people whose perception isn’t being guided (or leashed) by any ideas of form, structure or genre, isn’t bound up in insider lingo?
That’s really it then, for a suggested new lens of “theory.” Why does this music feel the way it does? Charlie Parker’s tone, the placement of his eighth notes against the groove, the shape and rhythmic dynamics of his lines, the choice of pitches and the way they relate to the underlying chord structure…they create momentary feelings and a consistent sense of personality, but why and how? Even “what?”- What exactly does “Ornithology” make you, I or any of us feel?
And more broadly, why does any piece, song, phrase or moment of music (Parker or otherwise) make you feel something? Not just something, but something specific? Something that can be your wormhole to a specific moment in memory, something that can emotionally bend the timeline of your life such that distant moments meet?
And when this happens, Is it all just conditional and contextual? Does music only feel the way it does because of what we happen to be feeling, thinking and experiencing when we encounter it? (For example, the distinctive feeling of new possibilities and freedom you might still get from the anthems of your adolescence…) Are we merely led into a prejudged emotional response based on information that we gleaned about the performer out of history books or magazine reviews? Are the effects of various rhythms and harmonies simply the prescribed effect of cultural conditioning and our own personal histories? When there are lyrics or descriptive titles or some overt message being communicated on the part of a musician, is the music simply assuming, amplifying and advertising these more-direct statements?
Or…are there some words and feelings in musical language that cut across time, space and geography, bringing their own communicative effect to bear outside of other associations? To put it another way, are humans creating or discovering the expressive potential of rhythm and tone, or both?
How does this all work? Here’s an example of a specific example that I wonder about, an emotional color scheme that I personally associate with a particular chord progression*****listen to Cedar Walton play his composition “Hindsight” with David Williams and Billy Higgins. (it’s really the cyclically repeating harmonic form (chord progression) that I’d point to here, if you listen to the first minute and a half you’ll hear it twice…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyxtAUePyJk
And now this- “Come Back to Me” by Janet Jackson with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weiRsKzpUAw
(In this case I’m thinking of the beautiful “bridge” of the song, and specifically the chord progression. This fragment is actually the very first thing that you hear at the beginning of the track!)
Do you hear any similarities, or feel anything in common?
The term “Chord” refers to any group of simultaneously-sounded pitches. A “progression” implies a series of chords that create a feeling of narrative motion through a balance of shared common tones and dissonant differences. If we take each chord to have a unique emotional signature, then how much more varied and complex the feelings engendered by a chord progression? The possibilities seem exponential.
These two snippets of music match up for me in both the analytical-theoretical and the emotional realms , and it doesn’t feel coincidental.
The chords in these passages move chromatically (in the smallest possible steps) downward, using a daisy-chain of progressions most often referred to as “tri-tone substitutions” (basically an extra-poignant variation on the most prevalent basic tension and release progression in Western music: V-I. (Nothing says academic smarty-pants like Roman numerals…))
For me, these progressions bring on a family of images: An orange ribbon hugging the horizon once the glories of an ocean sunset have passed. Childhood staring out of a backseat window at passing landscapes… solitary and reflective. The feeling of an epiphany or long-awaited insight…something really important and meaningful that’s been overlooked right under your nose…
Maybe these progressions strike you as “beautiful” generally and these images strike you as fairly typical responses to an experience of “beauty.” Granted! But let’s try to parse “beauty” further… For contrast here’s another pair of similar harmonic progressions (and for the heck of it we’ll do another jazz/non jazz pair…)
Here’s Wayne Shorter’s “Deluge”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0e9HqipF1Q
And “Would” by Alice in Chains….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB_fNVOPzyM
As with the previous two, these progressions are not exactly the same, but are very close. I’m not talking about the entirety of each harmonic form, just the beginning of each. It’s a simple two chord pattern, where a minor chord repetitively rises to a major chord chromatically upward before falling back down. This pattern lasts a bit longer on “Would” than “Deluge” but they both eventually give way to other motions. Sorry for complicating it!
What about the emotional level? For me these are also linked, and very different from the others. This progression sounds like strength, resolve, determination, something that swells in the belly as you accelerate onto a busy highway…it’s what I’d want to have in my headphones as I walked out of the tunnel at Madison Square Garden or Anfield.
“Hold on,” you might be saying… “check out the titles and lyrics…don’t they also point toward and possibly lead one into the feelings you describe ?”
It’s possible. Even just the titles alone: “Hindsight” and “Come Back To Me” are tinged with a melancholic regret and wistfulness, images of the past …“Would” and' “Deluge” simmer with adventurous portent of the unknown future. It could go either way, I suppose. I wonder, were these songs named in response to their harmonic feeling, or perhaps were the chord progressions chosen for the way that they dovetailed with the sentiment in the titles and lyrics?
Putting aside the intention of these composers and performers, how about those of us listening? Just a few paragraphs ago I was romanticizing a kind of pre-theoretical, empirical experience of music. But is it even possible for any of us, regardless of experience or schooling, to simply listen and feel without organizing, labeling, categorizing, comparing? Sometimes when performing the last dog walking of the day I try to take in a full moon this way, with no astronomy, no history, nothing… and it feels very difficult! I believe that such still states of awareness are possible, but they must be very rare! And what if this state is attainable, and we are indeed able to perceive music “as if we’ve never heard music before,” (paraphrasing Ornette Coleman) but what we find there in our experience is so personal as to make any synergistic discussion impossible? We’d end up with very effective 1st date conversation, but nothing to “study.”
Or…. maybe there are enough neurological commonalities shared by all of us that certain rhythms and sounds can speak as one unified emotive voice to each and every listener, and the particulars of personality and experience, if pursued far enough, end up opening a gateway to the universal?
I’d bet the answer is a gray flavor of both/and, but it’s fun to try to map out more of the margins! These are some of the conversations I’m looking forward to in the coming year-
“What does this sound make you feel, see, remember and imagine?”
Afterthoughts:
* Can’t resist, here’s a beautiful tune by that name by Brad Mehldau- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUfufU42ey4
** An overstatement and simplification. For many people, myself included, discrete pitches do end up assuming, accruing (or just had all along) a certain emotional character. I’m not referring to synesthesia per se (which is also an interesting and relevant phenomenon) but to the way (for a self-referential example) that I personally gravitate to the key of D Major when thinking about my children . What’s that all about?
*** A truth that is less helpful and hopeful to the young adults that I work with and so one on which I’ll tend not to dwell, is that this image of young children learning language also applies to music as well. The quality and nature of one’s childhood passive experiences of music are probably the most important predictor of grown-up musical aptitude.
**** In the case of jazz music, this culture is specifically Black American
***** I want to acknowledge the narrowing of focus that’s happening here- I’ve been going on about the potential breadth of “theory, but this example happens to be dealing with just harmony, which is only one of so many parameters by which one could have an analytical view and discussion of music. (However it’s one that gets an inordinate share of time and ink due to the “academic” sheen imparted by chords and scales in all their mathy glory!) This just happens to be a connection that I’m noticing and thinking about recently, not put forward here as centering or elevating. I think I’m setting myself up for sequel blog installations if I want to be part of an imbalance correction!