British Forum for Ethnomusicology

Review: [untitled]
Author(s): Jonathan Stock
Reviewed work(s):
Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation by Paul Berliner
Source: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 7 (1998), pp. 143-151
Published by: British Forum for Ethnomusicology
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060712
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JONATHAN STOCK
Review
essay
PAUL BERLINER, Thinking
in
jazz.
the
infinite
art
of improvisation. Chicago
Studies in
Ethnomusicology. Chicago: University
of
Chicago Press,
1994.
xix +
883pp.,
13
figures,
117 music exx., appendices, notes, index,
bibliography, discography, videography,
ISBN 0-226-04381-9.
(?23.95,
$29.95.)
Berliner's
study
of
improvisation
in
jazz
has
already
become a classic,
at least
among
some
readerships
-
I've
recently
heard one
musicologist
describe it in
terms that
suggest
it
(or
rather the mode of research on which it
draws)
has not
been
universally
well understood, perhaps unsurprising
in
ethnomusicologically
arid Britain. A book of some 900
pages necessarily
covers much
ground.
The
present
review looks not so much at Berliner's
ethnographic
data
per
se
(I
am in no sense a
jazz expert:
I can read what's there
but I do not know what has been left
out)
as at his
marshalling
of that
data,
and
at the
potential import
of his work for other areas of
ethnomusicology.
The
book itself does not
give
much
space
to cross-cultural
comparison
or to
critique
of the
ethnomusicological
literature. This does not strike me as a
problem
-
it is
already quite large enough,
and has the virtue of
openness
to a wider
readership
than a more
self-consciously ethnomusicological
contribution.
Particularly,
I
will remark on the detailed
picture
of
improvisation
that
gradually
takes
shape,
and illustrate the
ways
in which Berliner's
jazz
musicians
speak
from the
pages
of his book. These are not the
only aspects
of
Thinking
in
jazz open
to
theoretical abstraction;
the book will
repay
close
reading by ethnomusicologists
interested in
learning processes,
musical
cognition, metaphor
and aesthetics,
to
give
but a few further
examples.
The book is
arrayed
in five sections. The main text, preceded by
an
Introduction,
is divided into four
parts, considering
initial
preparations,
acquisition
of soloistic
ability,
collective
aspects
and additional factors
respectively.
Part 5
groups together
all the music
examples
cited in Parts 1-4.
Berliner's
examples
are extensive,
and annotated with technical detail that will
be of much interest to musical readers.
Supporting appendices
and
bibliographical
data follow.
The Introduction considers
methodology
and received notions of
improvisation.
Berliner establishes a
style
of
writing
here that is sustained
until the end of Part 4. Readers familiar with John van Maanen's
critique
of
writing styles
in
ethnography
will
recognise
this book as a fine
example
of the
"realist tale"
(1988:45-72). Essentially,
Berliner assumes the role of
knowing
narrator, guiding
the reader
through
a network of theoretical
ideas,
his own
observations as
ethnomusicologist
and as
jazz musician,
and the detailed
reportage
of the
responses
of numerous
jazz professionals.
For instance,
BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL. 7 1998 pp.143-151
144 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.7 1998
noting
common views of
improvisation
as "neither the faithful re-creation of
a
composition
nor the elaboration of
prefigured
musical ideas"
(1-2),
the
author continues as follows:
In the absence of such models or
goals,
it follows that there is
no music for
improvisers
to
prepare
for
performance.
Indeed
they
must
perform spontaneously
and
intuitively.
At times, remarks
by
musicians
appear
to
support
this
argument.
"I have no idea what I am
going
to do when I take a
solo,"
Doc Cheatham
says.
"That's the
thing
that I don't
understand
myself,
and I've been asked about it so
many
times. When I
play
a
solo,
I never know
any
more about what I
am
going
to
play
than
you
do."
George
Duvivier also does not
"want to
go
into a solo with
anything preconceived."
He finds
it "best to
go
in with an
open
mind and let it
develop."
Other
veterans advised
Kenny Washington
as a
youngster
"not to
think about
playing -just play."
Faced with authoritative definitions that,
in effect,
describe
improvisation
in terms of what it is not rather than in terms of
what it is, earnest
young performers
are amazed
by
the
abilities of their idols.
They
ruminate over issues as
fundamental as
they
are
intriguing: Precisely
what is the music
that
jazz groups perform,
and where does it come from?
(2; emphases
in
original,
footnote reference omitted)
As is evident in this
passage,
Berliner is
good
at
signalling
narrative shifts of
stance,
at
showing
where he
steps
back from the
presentation
of
primary
data to
theoretical reflection,
or rather from the
furnishing
of
(other)
performers'
reflections to the elucidation of his own. His
style
is
highly approachable
-
this is
an
easy
book to read, despite
the
significant gravitational challenge
it offers to
the hands or
lap
of its reader. Its
openness
to the reader, nonetheless,
has not led
to the
simplification
of its content. On the
contrary,
this is a rich
book, containing
arguments
and
insights
of considerable refinement. A
consequence, however,
of
the
very
richness of musicians' own direct commentaries in this book and the
author's continual
interweaving
of
thoughts
culled from
multiple performers,
is
that we cannot
easily
read this book as a
history
of
jazz
nor as a
summary
of its
main
styles
or
personalities. Clearly,
Berliner has not
attempted
to write such a
book. Rather, my point
is that the relative
familiarity
of
jazz
and
jazz
musicians,
coupled
with the fact that this is an
English-language tradition,
allows the author
to write an
impressively
smooth,
unencumbered text,
and one that remains
open
to
reading by
jazz
musicians themselves. The author of a book on, say,
Yemeni
song
or Korean
drumming
cannot
necessarily replicate
Berliner's
style,
admirable as it is,
in that his or her
ethnomusicological readership
will not
necessarily
come armed with a
pre-existing
basic
working knowledge
of the
tradition and
language
in
question. Comparison
of sections of this book with
STOCK Review
essay:
Berliner -
Thinking
In
jazz:
the Infinite art of
Improvisation
145
Philip Schuyler's impressive paper
on Yemeni musicians' evaluations of
performance practice
and music
theory (1990) would,
I
believe,
illustrate this
point.
Berliner's
topic
of
study, then, is
unusually (though
not
uniquely)
suited to
this kind of treatment,
and his achievement in the book as a whole lies
partly
in
demonstrating
so
convincingly
the effectiveness of this
approach.
Following
this Introduction, Berliner's Part 1 examines the initial
preparations
of musicians
entering
the
jazz
tradition. The author considers the musical
environments into which his informants were born. Recorded sound
appears
to
have
played
a
key
role in
tuning
the sensitivities of
many
future
jazz
players,
whether received
through
radio broadcasts or
gramophone
records:
"operating
the record
player
was one of
Kenny Washington's
first manual skills. He often
spent
the
day by
himself
listening
to
recordings
while his father was at work"
(24). Instruction,
or at least
activity,
in one or more
religious
or secular
traditions
typically provided
initial
performance experience
and a vehicle for
the
development
of technical control.
Furthermore,
as Berliner
notes, these
contexts
provided
further
implications
also. Thus, attendees at African
American churches encountered:
a
complex, integrated
model for
performance
derived from the
testimonial cries of ministers and
worshippers engaged
in
vocal
exchanges, spirited
sermons that stand
tantalizingly
on
the border between
speech
and
song,
and the soulful musical
interludes that enhance the service's emotional
intensity
and
its
message.
Max Roach
explains that,
in
church, young
musicians were
judged
on the basis of "their abilities to stir
the
congregation's feelings"
rather than on the basis of "their
technical
proficiency"
alone...
(29)
The broader social environment of the United States also
played
a
part,
for
instance in
propelling
talented black musicians toward
jazz
rather than Western
classical
music,
which remained hemmed in
by
racial barriers
(33).
Discussion of social environment in Part 1 is counterbalanced
by
an
examination there of the
development
of
mastery by jazz
musicians within the
informal,
but
demanding, setting
of their own
professional community.
The
jazz
community,
Berliner
argues,
forms an institutional infrastructure within which
musicians and audiences interrelate.
Chapter
2
"Hangin'
out and
jammin':
the
jazz community
as an educational
system"
looks at the
ways
in which
incoming
student musicians are
equipped
to sustain and
develop
the
jazz
tradition.
Camaraderie seems a crucial element in this
system, providing young
musicians
the
opportunity
both to
"hang
out" with their more
experienced colleagues,
thereby gaining
the chance to observe them at some considerable
depth,
and
also to hone their
budding
skills in the
sometime-competitive
sometime-
supportive forge
of the
jam
session. Musicians, it
seems, gradually
learnt to
distinguish
sessions of an
appropriate
level for their own
stage
of
development:
"as a matter of
respect [Rufus
Reid
recalls], 'you
didn't even think about
playing
146 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.7 1998
unless
you
knew that
you
could cut the mustard. You didn't even take
your
horn
out of its case unless
you
knew the
repertoire'
"
(43). Similarly, sitting
in at
professional engagements
allowed
rising
newcomers to
gain
essential
experience,
and, very often, crucial
personal
confidence as a
performer. Nonetheless, even the
well-connected and fortunate student musician did not have an
easy
time. Berliner
notes that, "The
jazz community's
traditional educational
system places
its
emphasis
on
learning
rather than on
teaching, shifting
to students the
responsibility
for
determining
what
they
need to
learn, how
they
will
go
about
learning,
and from whom"
(51).
Such an
emphasis
will be familiar to
ethnomusicologists studying
a wide
variety
of musical traditions. Prior to
drawing
a number of
conclusions, Berliner
completes
this
chapter by looking
briefly
at the
increasing
role
played by
formal educational institutions
(55-7).
Presumably,
there
will, in the
future, be much more to be said about these
institutions, particularly
if
changing
circumstances in broader
society
reduce
the access of
incoming
musicians to traditional informal
learning opportunities.
In Part 2
(the largest,
at almost 250
pages)
Berliner focuses on the
performer's
cultivation of solo skills. He shows that the
acquisition
of
improvisatory ability
results,
in
large part,
not from some
mystic process
but from
strikingly
hard
work.
Initially,
in
chapter 3, we are led
through
an
analysis
of
jazz
compositions
as vehicles for
improvisation.
The learner
begins by building up
a
repertory
of
existing
jazz
music. At this
stage, personal
trial-and-error reconstruction of
recordings
seems to be the
primary
means of
learning.
At some
point,
the
musician
begins
to learn to read music
notation, thereby gaining
access to a
wider
repertory
and also to
specialised arrangements (64).
Musicians are
confronted with a
multiplicity
of versions of the same
compositions,
not
only
in
terms of
personal
variations but also in terms of tonal
variety:
"John McNeil
went into a
panic during
an
early jam
session in which
saxophonist
John
Handy
'called the tunes in different
keys.' Afterwards,
McNeil
says,
he 'hid from other
musicians for
months,' until he had made
up
his
deficiency by relearning
his
repertory
'in all twelve
keys'
"
(66). Gradually,
the
jazz player
learns to form
his or her own versions of
compositions,
from the subtlest timbral
adjustments
to
wholly
new
phrases
based on the tune's
underlying
harmonic structure.
As
they gain
more
experience,
musicians learn to
recognise regular (and
transposable)
harmonic
gestures, larger-scale passages
and
song
forms
(79),
a
breakthrough
that allows them to utilise
pre-memorised
chunks in their
performances
and to
envisage
new melodic
possibilities
without
losing
their
place
in the musical structure. A sense of the
malleability
of musical form
replaces
an earlier reliance on
arduously
memorised and reconstructed recorded
or notated models. Inference
during performance
and
detailed,
small-scale
experimentation during practice
and rehearsal leads to the
development
of
further
insights.
As Berliner
emphasises, learning repertory
is at least as much a
case of
memorising
tunes as
learning
to think in new
ways.
Or
rather,
in
learning
to think in a new
way
and then
assimilating
that
knowledge
to the
extent
that, ultimately,
overt theoretical
representation may
become less and
less
necessary:
STOCK Review essay:
Berliner
-
Thinking
In
jazz:
the Infinite art of Improvisation 147
Improvisers
liken this transition to
learning
a new route in the
physical
world
-
for
walking
between home and work,
for
example. Initially,
the walker
gives
full attention to
reading
street
signs, memorizing
turns of
direction,
and
gaining
a
sense of characteristic
pacing
between identifiable landmarks.
Eventually, taking
in such features becomes so routine that it
happens instantaneously,
almost
unconsciously,
as the
legs
alone seem to take over the walk's direction ...
Similarly,
once
improvisers
fix in their memories the features of a
piece's
road
map, they
need no
longer
mark their
changing positions
within
its ... form
by consciously imaging
chord
symbols.
(92)
There is a marked
parallel
here with models of memorisation
taught by
rhetoricians
(see,
for instance, Spence 1985).
More to the
point,
it is almost as
if, having
moved from an initial aural
engagement
with the music, the
jazz
musician must next master the
ways
of
thinking
characteristic of written music
and
finally
reinvent his or her sense of oral tradition.
Chapter
4 is entitled
"Getting your vocabulary straight: learning
models for solo
formulation". Here,
Berliner backs
up
his work in the
previous chapter by
looking
in more detail at the means
through
which
young
musicians assemble
their vocabularies of conventional
phrases
and
phrase components.
Recorded
sound and notated
transcriptions
interrelate in
interesting ways
for
jazz learners,
transcription providing
for
many
both exercise for the ear and the chance to
consider a favoured solo or its constituent
patterns
outside the real-time of the
recorded
performance. However,
observation at live
performances may
also be
crucial. Not
only might
"some
performers
hold back their best material
during
recording
sessions" but also
recording equipment may
not catch all
aspects
of
an ensemble's
performance, particularly
with
regard
to the drummer's sound
(105-6).
There is much
suggestive
information for the cross-cultural
ethnomusicological
reader here. For
instance, according
to at least one of
Berliner's informants and to other sources, young
musicians
may begin
to
dream about
particular phrases
and
fragments (113).
Accounts of
composition
during
dreams are well-established
parts
of the
ethnomusicological literature,
but can seem
foreign
to those of us whose
primary experiences
of music
learning
have been notation-mediated.
The fifth
chapter
examines the move of skilled learners
away
from the
simple
(often, not-so-simple) reproduction
of
early
influences. Students
may begin by
imitating
the
style
of a
single idol, or sometimes of
multiple
idols each handled
separately,
but the most skilful
gradually gain
a sense of the
larger
tradition
within which
they
and their models are located. Musicians' evaluations of the
sounds of one another reveal much of their aesthetics of
performance:
"Charlie
Parker's tone
quality
had a 'hard,
brittle
edge,
rich in
upper partials',
which was
different from the 'sweetness
produced by
older alto
saxophone players
like
Jimmy Hodges
or
Benny
Carter'
"
(125).
The
ability
to imitate famous
players,
148 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.7 1998
although contrary
to the establishment of an
original
musical
personality,
is
useful in that
jazz
musicians
may quote
one another's
styles during performance,
perhaps
in a
spirit
of
homage,
historical
acknowledgement
or
tongue-in-cheek
commentary (136, 138). Ultimately,
the
fusing by
musicians of material derived
from or
inspired by great predecessors
with the
newly
conceived
helps
accustomed
performers
and listeners retain a sense of
jazz
both as a historical
tradition and as a
performance
art that lives
very
much in the creative moment.
"The more
ways you
have of
thinking:
conventional rhythmic
and theoretical
improvisation approaches"
is the title of
Chapter
6. Here,
Berliner treats
jazz
musicians'
conceptualisations
of
improvisatory performance. Rhythmic style
is
considered first of all,
with Berliner
putting
his earlier studies of African musics
to
good
use
(147-8). Building
from this discussion, he
proposes,
for instance,
that
"Imagining
the beat as an
'elliptical figure,'
the drummer or bass
player
can
play
either 'ahead of the beat'
(that is,
on the front
part
of the
elliptical figure),
'behind the beat'
(that is, on the
very
end of the
elliptical figure
or in
varying
degrees
toward the center of the
figure),
or 'on the beat'
(that is,
the center of
the
figure)" (151).
Matters of
phrasing
are
given
due
place,
as is the notion of
swing.
Berliner then looks at musicians' use of chords,
scales and intervals in
planning
and
executing
their
improvisations.
Performers,
it
appears,
retain
contrasting ways
of
conceptualising
these
techniques: "Players constantly
strive
to understand [jazz]
from different
perspectives,
different
angles. Ultimately,
performers
make choices
among
constructs on the basis of their effectiveness as
memory
devices"
(164). Huge
amounts of hard work ensue
-
indeed,
as I
mentioned above, improvisation
is shown in this book to be
very
hard work
indeed
-
as student musicians master new
ways
of
thinking,
as
they try
to
integrate
the
insights
of one model with those of another,
and as
they
reformulate their theoretical models as a result of further aural
experience.
The would-be
jazz
musician
may
make use of a
variety
of routines in
learning
how to
apply
his or her
increasing
theoretical understanding
and
practical
dexterity
in actual
performance. Chapter
7 fills out earlier discussions of this
aspect, being
derived
mostly
from musicians' reflections on what
they
think
they
do as well as Berliner's own observations. Discussion of routines and
technical exercises
gives way
to a
fascinating
and detailed
analysis
of "ideas",
that is,
the transformation of raw models into creative and "live" musical
gestures.
A useful end to the
chapter
is
provided by
Berliner's account of the
role of the
body
in
shaping
musical
improvisations. Many
BJE readers will
already
be familiar with the work of John
Baily
in this field
(for instance, Baily
1977). Nonetheless, among
the broader
readerships
that
Thinking
in
jazz
also
serves there
may
remain notions of
improvisation
as
very
much a mental
activity. (Notions reinforced, incidentally, by insufficiently
researched
commentary
on
improvisation
in certain
publications
in the field of music
psychology,
such as Sloboda
1985.) Indeed, given
a
slightly
different title,
Berliner
might
have
given
a whole
chapter
to this
topic.
There are
certainly
many
further discussions
throughout
the remainder of his book.
STOCK Review
essay:
Berliner -
Thinking
In
Jazz:
the Infinite art of
Improvisation
Chapters
8 and 9 form a
complimentary pair
that
approach
the same
phenomenon
from different
angles.
In the former, Berliner looks at
"Composing
in the moment: the inner
dialogue
and the tale" while in the latter his
heading
is
"Improvisation
and
precomposition:
the eternal
cycle".
We
get
a
good
sense of
what solo musicians are
trying
to achieve in their
respective
solos
-
inner
dialogue,
as it were, with their
ever-increasing grasp
of the tradition
becoming
the basis for "conversation" or
"storytelling"
with other musicians. Berliner
notes that: "In one of the
great
ironies associated with
improvisation,
as soon as
artists
complete
the
rigorous practice required
to
place
a
vocabulary pattern
into
their
larger store, they
must
guard against
its habituated and
uninspired
use"
(206).
Performance errors and other technical constraints, on the other hand,
may
turn out to be useful to the
musician, leading
him toward
previously
unforeseen creative
pathways.
Berliner's
portrait
of the
relationship
between
improvisation
and
precomposition
is
particularly nicely drawn, and worth
quoting
at
length:
There is a
perpetual cycle
between
improvised
and
precomposed components
of the artists'
knowledge
as it
pertains
to the entire
body
of construction materials on
every
and
any
level of solo invention. The
improvised exploration
of
individual
pitch
combinations
produces
new
vocabulary
patterns that,
once entered into the
improviser's store,
take on
the nature of
relatively fixed, precomposed
materials. When
the soloist retrieves them in
performance, however, they
serve
as
improvisational
elements that recombine in
unique ways
in
the construction of
phrases. During
this
process,
invention can
turn back toward
precomposition
when the
exploration
of
relationships among vocabulary patterns produces increasingly
fixed
vocabulary chains, capable
of
being
retrieved as elaborate
construction materials for that or other solos.
(222)
Nicholas Cook's reflections on the
relationship
between
playing
memorised
music and
improvising
seem
pertinent here,
in that Cook's research further
emphasises
the fundamental
creativity
of the former
process,
one that involves
the active recombination of
imagined
sounds with learnt movement
patterns
(1990:112).
If I understand Cook
correctly,
his
point
is that the
replication
of
memorised music is
essentially
different
by degree
from
improvisation,
not
different in kind.
Precomposition
and
improvisation, then, are two sides of the
same musical
phenomenon,
not distinct
activities,
at least when considered
during
the moment of
performance. (Berliner
also
pays
attention to musicians' rehearsal
and
practice strategies.)
This is not to
disregard
the social context
surrounding
improvisation
in
jazz,
within which
improvisation
and
precomposition
do indeed
appear
to be
regarded separately.
It is to note the need for
scholarly investigations,
like that under review
here,
that
go
within and
beyond
the musical
conceptualisations
of "the
people
themselves". Berliner
himself,
armed with a
149
150 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.7 1998
rich
body
of data,
is well
placed
to advance the theoretical
understanding
of the
relationship
between
processes
of musical recall and musical
improvisation.
Chapter
10 rounds off Part 2
by looking
at musicians'
soloing ability
and at
their own evaluations of one another's success in this
regard. Many
sections
pick up
on matters broached in earlier
chapters.
For instance, we are led
through
a discussion of
swing,
which seems to
depend
on
phrasing
as much as
rhythmic
detail, and also on
apposite
insertion of rests, to issues of melodic substance
-
choosing
the
"right"
notes
-
and harmonic content before
meeting again
players'
views on
originality, taste, emotional content, technical
virtuosity,
storytelling ability
and
spontaneity.
To select a
single example,
Berliner's
description
of
players'
attitudes toward musical
change (276-81) provides
useful material for cross-cultural
comparison,
and could be
effectively
abstracted for use as a case
study
in a theoretical seminar on this
topic.
Although
soloistic
performance
is
highly vaunted, jazz
is at heart a collective
performance
tradition. Part 3 of Berliner's
study
considers collective
aspects
of
improvisation,
from
rehearsing
and
arranging
to
interpersonal
conflict and co-
operation.
Given the
length
of this review,
it would be
counter-productive
to
continue with even the condensed level of
descriptive
account
given
above for
Part 2. Let us note, instead, that this section
comprises
five substantial
chapters
entitled
successively: "Arranging pieces:
decisions in
rehearsal"; "Adding
to
arrangements:
conventions
guiding
the
rhythm section"; "Give and take: the
collective conversation and musical
journey";
"When the music's
happening
and
when it's not:
evaluating group performances";
and "The lives of bands: conflict
resolution and artistic
development".
As will be evident even from this
listing,
Berliner revisits
many
of the same areas he has discussed in Part 2. The occasional
reiteration of
points
is not a
problem; indeed,
on the
contrary,
the author's
persistence
in
examining
from numerous
angles
these multi-faceted
parts
of
jazz
performance
is to be
applauded. Naturally,
the
resulting
book is
longer,
but it is also
one that
repays repeated reading
and cross-referral from one section to another.
Part 4 looks
first,
in
Chapter 16, at additional
factors,
such as venue acoustics
and
audience-performer interaction,
and
then,
in an
Epilogue,
at
jazz
as a
way
of life. Berliner's discussion of
acoustics,
to select but one
example, provides
a
wide-ranging
evaluation of the various factors that contribute to successful
musical
performance
in the
many
different locations visited
by touring jazz
players.
I remember
attending
a
Betty
Carter
performance
in which she broke
off her first number to
speak
to the
audience,
in considerable technical
detail,
about her choice of
microphone.
That
provided
and recommended
by
the venue
management,
it
seems,
wasn't
up
to the
job
in
hand,
and a technician was
hurriedly despatched
to fetch a different model. I couldn't
myself
hear a
difference between the first rendition and its
resumption
with the second
microphone
but Ms Carter's satisfaction with the latter was more than
evident,
and her relaxation
upon being
able to achieve her desired sound
palpable.
The
Epilogue,
as will be
expected,
moves
through
much
territory already
traversed in Berliner's account.
Learning jazz,
we are
told,
is not so much a
way
STOCK Review
essay:
Berliner -
Thinking
In Jazz: the Infinite art of
Improvisation
into the tradition, as an
ongoing process
that a
(good) player
lives
throughout
his or her career
(485).
The talented
improviser acquires
a
sensitivity
to
soundscape
and to human interaction that
inspires
further musical
creativity.
Jazz
players,
as Berliner
shows, are sensitive not
only
to their own tradition but
also to other musics: "In the
seventies,
a
recording
of bass zither music from
Burundi, Africa, inspires
Calvin Hill, who
adopts
the zither's variation
techniques
to his own
improvisations" (490; presumably
the
recording
in
question
is Ocora
1988
[1967], featuring
the
striking
sounds of the
inanga zither).
With
regard
to
jazz,
but more
widely applicable also, Berliner
argues
that "the
popular
definitions of
improvisation
that
emphasize only
its
spontaneous,
intuitive
nature
-
characterizing
it as the
'making
of
something
out of
nothing'
-
are
astonishingly incomplete.
This
simplistic understanding
of
improvisation
belies
the
discipline
and
experience
on which
improvisers depend,
and it obscures the
actual
practices
and
processes
that
engage
them"
(492).
A
signal
achievement of Berliner's
study
lies in its detailed
(but
never
painstaking) exposition
of
jazz
musicians'
acquisition
of
discipline
and
experience.
A lifetime of
good improvisation
is
stunningly
difficult cultural
work, and
deserving
of the
highest respect.
In
many senses, improvisation
emerges
as a more
challenging discipline
than written
composition.
Berliner
does not
suggest
that we
place
noted
jazz
musicians on the
pedestals normally
given
to classical
composers,
but his work nonetheless shows that a broader
reassessment of alternative modes of musical
creativity
is
long
overdue. I
recommend this book
very highly
indeed.
References
Baily,
John
(1977)
"Movement
patterns
in
playing
the Herati dutar." In John
Blacking (ed.)
The
anthropology of
the
body, Monograph 15,
275-330.
London: Association of Social
Anthropologists.
Cook,
Nicholas
(1990) Music, imagination,
and culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ocora
(1988)
Burundi.
musiques
traditionelles. Paris: Ocora C559003.
(CD reissue)
Schuyler, Philip (1990)
"Hearts and minds: three attitudes toward
performance
practice
and music
theory
in the Yemen Arab
Republic."
Ethnomusicology
34:1-18.
Sloboda,
John A.
(1985)
The musical mind. the
cognitive psychology of
music.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Spence,
Jonathan D.
(1985)
The
memory palace ofMatteo
Ricci. London: Faber
and Faber.
van
Maanen,
John
(1988)
Tales
of
the
field.
on
writing ethnography. Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Press.
151