Jazz for aficionados

@audio-b-dog 

Well, I’ll admit to not enjoying feeling "lost", especially when it comes to language. 

I don’t mean to come across as unfriendly but the truth is, more you talk about Jazz, the less clear I am about how you define improvisation. 

@mahgister 

interesting. I thought that playing squarely on the beat is more typical of western classically trained musicians -- an approach that in certain African - derived genres is considered decidedly "un-hip". The best musicians are able to feel "the center of the beat" so well that they can "lay back" or "push" the beat according to the desired feel of a particular tune. For example, Muddy Waters demanded his band members be able to play what he called "delay time". 

According to AI: 

In jazz, musicians often play slightly behind the beat, creating a "swing" feel, which is a rhythmic characteristic of the genre. While some instruments, like the bass and ride cymbal, might subtly push the beat slightly ahead, others, like the horns and keys, tend to play behind the beat to enhance the swing. Playing on the beat, ahead of the beat, or behind the beat is a nuanced technique that contributes to the unique groove and character of jazz. 

I deliberately used the Miles Davis quote and the anonymus black musician going in Africa Quote which can be misleading.... "lag behind the beat" is an expression used by Miles which can be misleading...

Then i use the anecdotal encounter between a jazz musician and an African master to dissipate the misleading meaning which may come from the way Miles explain it...The African master say , "Music must roll"...

Now what this means?

To explain it i suggested Furtwangler interpretation versus Toscanini about musical time...

The key point : musical time cannot be written it is an embodied timing...

It can be suggested by the indications in written music for example but cannot be metronomically captured...

musical time must be birth with the music itself and cannot be put on the music by any external gesture or intervention... If we do this we act like Toscanini instead of Furtwangler and the music do not "roll" and it lag behind the beat and by beat here i refer to the heart of the playing musician, his gesture, not to a measuring metronomical time which can be imposed on the music...

I thought that playing squarely on the beat is more typical of western classically trained musicians -- an approach that in certain African - derived genres is considered decidedly "un-hip".

Then nevermind if we speak of Yoruba drum or Schumann, or about  J.J. Johnson playing trombone, the music "roll", "do not lag behind" because the musical time and the beating beats are not metronomically written but felt as pure expression born with the musical gesture not imposed on it...

The genre here, African drum, Jazz, Classical matter not; musical time  roll or do not roll from the music itself...

I refer then to a universal sense of the musical time independent of any culture or genres or styles... Some Indian master playing Sarod  or sitar "roll" and are recognized as master precisely because of this timing sense of improvisation with the flow of music...

but it can be true even of a piece of written music as the Schumann fourth by Furtwangler where a miracle occur, the music birth his own time as his central meaning thanks to Furtwangler direction who understood this music like God himself or like an African master speaking with his drum...

Music any music is rythm, not as a metronome beat but as a heart beat, the timing flow must roll and must not lag behind. If not there is a duality between the music flow and the time dimension... the musician produce a gesture which do not synchonise all the musical parts into one WHOLE....

It is difficult to explain...

Remember  that i am not as frogman a musician nor as you either stuartk...

I apologize for my difficulty to explain it clearly...

I tried...

According to AI: 

In jazz, musicians often play slightly behind the beat, creating a "swing" feel, which is a rhythmic characteristic of the genre.

I forget to say that the way A.I. said sometimes the musician deliberately "play behind the beat" this gesture do not contradict my explanation because we speak of musical time as synchonized with the music as a whole or  not, then only externally linked to the music...  the genre does not matter ... Because we play  with a heart beat or with a "measured by numbers" beat, nevermind the styles....Musical time is independent of any genre or style, it differ in all genre but must be in all genre felt as a heart beat of the whole music piece and not appearing as something imposed on the music piece ...

I apologize for my explanation which is not clear as crystal...I am not a musiciaqn at all ....

stuartk, you're not understanding me at all. When I hear a jazz group I can hear what is planned and when a musician goes into improvisation. That's a no brainer. Coltrane on "My Favorite Things" plays with his band the setup going through the melody a few times. Then he goes off on his own and flies high above the band who is just trying to keep up with him. I think I understand jazz a lot better than you think I do. 

When L.A. had a commercial jazz station they would play what they called "soft" jazz. Sade, Diana Krall, maybe Davis playing "Some Day My Prince Will Come," and Trane playing something off his album "Ballads." I have an extremely abstract ear from listening to "modern" abstract classical. Shostakovich, Bartok, Stravinsky. In modern classical music the beat can be all over the place. Listen to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. 

I think in the jazz you're talking about nobody is on the beat yet it is implied and they all know where it is. And I know where it is. Coltrane often plays like that. And Davis on some of his later stuff. Bebop has syncopation. 

In classical music, there is light classical, early classical with composers like Bach, and even up to Mozart. Then the Romantic Era begins with Beethoven and people see that as a more serious classical. And more difficult classical comes with 20th century and 21st century classical.

It would be so difficult for me to explain to you my understanding of music, but it begins in the Upper Paleolithic with people who lived in caves. I know nobody knows what that music sounded like, but I think I know why they made music. It was a spititual thing. Just like Coltrane, Sanders, and Davis felt their music was spiritual. And I believe the shamans and creative artists were women. But that's another argument.

I'll stop with this. But I think you're really underestimating my understanding of jazz.

To be clear: the essence of music (Jazz or not) is not improvisation as such but it is rythm (an embodied gesture) .

The reason it is such is because the line between what is improvisation or not matter less than the difference between a felt rythm grounded in the musician gesture or a rythm metronomically imposed or used as an habit...