On Feb 1, 2006, at 11:34 AM, Chuck Israels wrote:
On Jan 31, 2006, at 8:14 PM, John Howell wrote:
I seriously doubt that the solos were identical each time, given some
of the name brand players, but David does point out a contradiction
in the big band era. Once a song was recorded--and this goes for
sweet jazz, hot jazz, or cool jazz equally--and people were used to
hearing solos one particular way, that's the way they expected to
hear them. The success of jazz recordings was ironically what caused
this problem for jazz players, making a relatively free form into a
relatively fixed form and actually suppressing creativity.
In Ellington's oevre, many solos, especially short ones, became
functional parts of the composition. Changing them significantly
might have altered the overall effectiveness of the performance.
Whether one views this as adding or subtracting from creativity
depends on how much romantic value one places on the concept of
spontaneous composition. The composer often has one point of view,
the player another.
In Bill Evans' music, there was far more fixed arrangement than most
people realized, or were willing to admit. Sometimes the stability of
that reliable framework served as a springboard for creativity, and
sometimes it just provided assurance that the shape and meaning of the
piece would come across consistently. Nevertheless, the illusion of
spontaneity, or perhaps real emotional spontaneity, is more important
than whether or not new notes are being played. I've heard jazz
improvisations that sound dead in the water, in spite of the fact that
they were being improvised, and performances of late Beethoven
quartets that sound as if the music is being made up by the players.
Go figure.
Further to that:
A pal of mine did his Master's thesis comparing Miles Davis' solos on
Bye Bye Blackbird over the course of the fifteen years or so of his
career when that tune was part of his repertoire. The basic shape and
method of constructing his improvisations was surprisingly consistent,
especially given Miles' obvious creativity and wealth of ideas. He
didn't HAVE to play a similar solo every time, so why did he? I think
you answered that question as well as anyone could have.
Christopher
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