Paul Rinzler's Response to Two Questions Regarding The Contradictions of Jazz

PAUL RINZLER’S Response to Two Questions

Hi David:

Nice to hear from you again. I'm still flattered that you're using the Contradictions book, I'm happy to respond.

On Dec 12, 2011, at 10:03 AM, David Ring wrote:

Ring: The first question I believe you will be able to answer fairly easily, but it remains to be seen.

(1) Why are not big bands part of the CORE of jazz?

Rinzler's answer to first question: The simple form of the answer is that big bands have not been widely innovative, influential, nor the numerical majority of working ensembles for much of jazz history.

Ring: As a quick answer I might assume that you would say that the CORE includes combo's and big bands are larger than combo's and therefore not part of the CORE. Still you recognize in the book that some people may not include combo's as part of the CORE, or whatever. I guess the idea is that once one recognizes that the jazz TRADITION certainly includes solo musicians and performances, combo's, and big bands that all three are in the CORE even though not equivalent to each other. So this brings us to the more general issue of:

Ring: Second Question: A related question is to explain what IS the difference between the CORE of jazz and the indisputably jazz areas outside of the CORE.

(2) What makes something still be indisputably jazz but NOT in the CORE? and what puts something into the CORE?

Rinzler: I admit that I did not work out explicitly the criteria for membership in the core as well as not in the core but indisputably jazz. Therefore, I am open to redefining the core as I try to retro-fit criteria. What criteria might we use? I suggest that the core of jazz should include styles or elements of jazz that, throughout jazz history, are the most:

• widespread

• influential (to musicians and/or to listeners)

• elemental/foundational in the sense that other styles or elements of jazz developed in relation to items in the core (perhaps that's a redefinition of "influential"?)

Ring: The second area concerns the issue discussed in The Contradictions of Jazz, on p. 53 regarding 'continuation.' You argue on this page that "in another sense, an improvisation is only the current manifestation of all of an improviser's improvisations on that piece. A jazz musician performs another version of his or her approach to a piece every time he or she has occasion to improvise on it. In this sense, improvisation is an ongoing process, connecting all of the improviser's improvisations on a particular piece. . . . and we hear one version of this work in progress on stage."

With all due respect, and you know that I find your book by far the best thing I have seen in the Philosophy of Jazz, Otwell and I are in serious disagreement with much of what you say on this page.

Of course, we agree with the trivially true claims that follow easily from certain assumptions about time and context. For example, we agree that it is the same musician, using the same instruments, and improvising within the same song structures. So, in this regard, there is a 'continuation' of what has gone before. This is not what concerns us.

We would also agree that the second time you improvise you might have learned something from the first time you did so on this song and modify or change or react to something that one did previously so there is a sense of continuation clearly present in this sort of example.

The philosophical question is whether EVERY TIME one improvises on the same song MUST this be a 'continuation' FROM previous improvisations. We believe this claim is false.

Rinzler: I think we are not that far apart. I don't think there is anything on those pages that require being interpreted in absolute terms. In fact, I find several qualifications, mitigations, or context-dependent statements: "In one sense. . . . In another sense . . . ." "An improvisation can be considered . . . ."

As I said at the end of chapter one, I am attempting not so much to prove something about jazz as I am trying to show an interesting way of looking at jazz.

The above is a broad, general defense of the idea of continuation. A more specific, substantive one is discussed below.

Ring and Otwell: Our challenge is to the claim that the second time you improvise that this must necessarily be some sort of continuation from the previous improvisation. This we reject out of hand and thoroughly as a gross oversimplification and misdescription of how the later improvisations must necessarily be ontologically and musically related to the earlier improvisatory attempts.

Rinzler: I agree that a later improvisation need not necessarily be anything at all, in any significant way, like an earlier one by the same artist on the same instrument and on the same tune. This is from a logical, abstract, absolute, or philosophical viewpoint. But from a practical or empirical viewpoint, I strongly suspect that many, many improvisations - perhaps a majority - perhaps even a large majority - are linked in significant musical ways. The reason for this rests in the nature of how a musician, as much a body as a mind, learns via practice in the woodshed to improvise. It is usually reported that the problem for improvisers is not trying to make links to past improvisations - "if only I could create more continuity in my playing, I sound so different each time" - but, rather, trying to destroy those habits and patterns that always seem to crop up. Berliner's Thinking in Jazz has good material along these lines.

When we open ourselves as improvisers and let the music flow, sometimes we play very differently, but often we play those ingrained habits, those same old licks in the same place in the same tune. That aspect of the real, embodied act of improvisation is at least one significant way that successive improvisations TEND to be linked to each other.

Ring: Let me therefore provide actual arguments that can serve as objections to the claim that ALL improvisations on/over the same song MUST be continuations of prior attempts.

Continuation means "the act or state of continuing; the state of being continued. 2. extension or carrying on to a further point: to request the continuation of a loan. 3. something that continues some preceding thing by being of the same kind or having a similar content."

Depending upon how finely one analyzes what can count as 'the same content' one could argue either way with respect to a 'continuation.' Of course, one is using the same twelve notes from the European tradition so in this respect one is using the same content, but we find this a trivial claim and of no particular philosophical significance. Another sense we accept of continuation if where a musician is playing the piano again which could be considered in some loose and general sense to be the same kind or similar content.

On the other hand, if one play a melodic first improvisation and a non-melodic, dissonant, free jazz, non-recognizable 'notes,' etc. then this could be argue to be of a DIFFERENT content, NOT of the same kind, NOT a similar content, and so forth. In this case, one would NOT be continuing on from an earlier version IF the new version is strikingly dissimilar from the earlier version. Since we believe that this can happen, we reject the idea that EVERY improvisation on the same song MUST be a continuation from an earlier version.

The World English dictionary defines continuation as "(1) a part or thing added, especially to a book or play, that serves to continue or extend; (2) a sequel. A renewal of an interrupted action, process, etc.; resumption. (3) The act or fact of continuing without interruption; prolongation."

I prefer these as providing slightly more insight into what I have in mind by continuation. In this sense the second improvisation is NOT a continuation necessarily because the first solo was NOT interrupted, but completed. I finished playing my solo. I had no more time and did not seek to continue my solo longer than the allotted time. Because I finished my solo, the next time I play an improvisation it is NOT a continuation since the previous solo was completed. I am not renewing where I left off in any sense musically. My second solo can be completely different. Many times a person does NOT like their first solo and so does NOT want to continue in that same or a similar vein precisely because it sucked, or whatever. My second time is an attempt to improve or radically change what I played on the previous poorly designed improvisation. Hence, the second is purposefully not a continuation or extension or prolongation of the previous bad solo.

Rinzler: I think the best approach is to acknowledge that, when viewed one way, a later improvisation is not a continuation of a previous one, but, when viewed with other considerations in mind, it is often enlightening and useful to consider it as a continuation. All the qualifications and mitigations in that sentence are crucial.

Ring: The quick way to put my objection would be this. You concede that a composer need not be continuing in her second composition from her first. Since improvisation, by definition, is spontaneous composition, the same MUST be true and hence the second 'version' of an improvised solo need not be any more of a continuation from the first solo than the composer's second composition is from the first composition.

Of course, you have tried to pre-empt this objection by requiring that the improviser must be improvising on a particular tune or set of chord changes. Presumably you would argue that anyone who's solo is not 'predicated' along with the song's structure would NOT be improvising OFF of that tune. This seems slightly contentious, does it not? Are not a lot of improvisatory solos in the middle of a song at least sometimes not easily recognizable as part of the original song's musical structure e AND YET we still say the musician was improvising OFF OF the song and so still count it as an improvisation during this very song. That is, it really IS an improvisatory solo included and part of (unsure the best way to characterize this point) the song in question having been played. I doubt you want to make it true by definition that a solo improvisation cannot be OF THAT SONG unless it is a continuation of the previous attempt to play within that sone structure making your continuation claim true by definition.

Rinzler: I prefer to state this idea this way: an improvisation is, normally, heard/created in relation to the tune that is being played. One can play something without relation to the tune being played, but it is still heard as having a relation to the tune being played, which is itself a kind of meta-relation. Looked at another way; if a musician plays something that has no relationship to the tune's structure, does it make sense to say that the musician is even playing that tune, just because the leader announced the name of the tune, even if that segment occurs in between segments that are clearly related to the tune? It makes more sense to say "the improviser was playing the tune, then didn't, then did."

Ring: A further significant argument against the continuation theme is this. One cannot be extending or prolonging something if one does not know what occurred before that can be extended or prolonged. I am not continuing, prolonging, or extending the work of tennis player Boris Becker if I do not know what Becker did in the past. With ignorance comes the exclusion of any sort of, at least intentional, and probably almost any other sense of, 'continuation.'

Rinzler: I think you are limiting what an improviser does to the conscious realm, whereas it is pretty well established that a significant part of improvisation is usually not conscious. Much if not all of our brain's work has a non-conscious component, even those behaviors we perceive as conscious.

Ring: Because Charlie Parker, for example, often could NOT reproduce his improvised solos for several important reasons. First, he probably did not remember every little detail that he just played so from the fact he could not remember it all is a reason why he could not easily reproduce it. Second, even if he could remember it all he could not play it with the same emotional flare if he was trying to reproduce a solo from memory rather than letting it fly spontaneously which can usually makes it easier to express oneself's emotions, in some sense. And there are undoubtedly other factors that prevent Parker from being able to reproduce his just played solo.

Rinzler: Agreed, but continuation is certainly not limited to reproducing a full solo. Thomas Owens' dissertation on Parker's consistent use of licks surely establishes some level of connection and continuity among Parker's solos.

Ring: As always, a great admirer of the philosophical acumen contained in your book.

Rinzler: As a musician and an extremely part-time amateur philosopher, my fantasy is that the book could receive a complement from a professional philosopher.

Sincerely,

Paul