[Anglo]

A friend on mine, a music critic, once told me that "back in the day," whenever that was, the oldtimers would improvise a solo and once they had developed it, use it again and again with some minor variations, so that in a sense it was no longer improv. I've never been able to listen to enough versions of the same tune by the same musician to tell. Was he right, and is it still true today?

Discuss.

 

[Martinman]

A friend on mine, a music critic, once told me that "back in the day," whenever that was, the oldtimers would improvised a solo and once they had developed it, use it again and again with some minor variations, so that in a sense it was no longer improv. I've never been able to listen to enough versions of the same tune by the same musician to tell. Was he right, and is it still true today?

Discuss.

The old swing guys back in the heyday of big band would sometimes, if not always play the exact same solo over and over again. That was what the people wanted to hear. I heard a story about a bandleader who fired his clarinet player because the guy played a different solo on one of the gigs.

 

[Al Stevens]

It's sometimes true. I cut my teeth on a Bobby Hackett album that included trombonist Jack Teagarden. One of the tunes was Basin Street Blues. I knew the side note for note. Several years later I heard Teagarden play Basin Street in concert. He played the exact same solo he played on the record.

 

[gary]

I had a friend who played in the Lawerence Welk band and he said Welk got PO'd at him one day because his improvised solo on the TV show wasn't the same as what he had played earlier in rehearsal.

 

[wersax]

If it's a popular tune and a popluar solo, it's best not to change it much---this is still true today.
Is it improv? Well the lines are fuzzy. I think a lot of solos, whether they were repeated verbatim later or not, were created in a mement of inspiration, and essentially improvised to begin with. Since they work so well, why change it, particularly if you have listeners expecting to hear it? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Besides, the most basic way to tmprovise is elaborating on a melody anyway.

 

[Frank D]

Along those lines, when playing a song people are familiar with, maybe something they heard on the radio, they expect to hear something like the solo that they're used to hearing. I find that if you use the same opening phrase, you can do just about anything after that and it satisfies them. Granted this isn't a pure jazz example, but I think the strategy is used in several different genres.

 

[Bunny Stewart]

Of course it's not improvising if you plsy the same solo over and over, even if you are revising it slightly each time. This doesn't mean it isn't musically valid, but it's not improvising.

Tricky question, because if you use a vocabulary you have developed in the practice room or on the stand when you ARE supposedly imprivising, then really all you are doing is regurgitating or reproducing already stated material.

To my ears, most jazz players do have a standard vocabulary they have developed, some larger than others, and they use it in a conversational manner when they play. The true improvisational nature of the music comes in the way they string their ideas together and "dialog" with other members of the band.

 

[vonbraig]

I've never played a solo good enough to repeat verbatum so when i do I'll let you know.

 

[wersax]

Along those lines, when playing a song people are familiar with, maybe something they heard on the radio, they expect to hear something like the solo that they're used to hearing. I find that if you use the same opening phrase, you can do just about anything after that and it satisfies them. Granted this isn't a pure jazz example, but I think the strategy is used in several different genres.

To me with jazz, all bets are off. I don't play exactly the same thing twice, ever. You work in a quote from a famous solo, (the opening to Miles' solo on "So What" or "Straight No Chaser", for example), and go from there, like you're saying. With pop or rock it's different.

 

[clarnibass]

When someone is improvising it's improv and when someone is playing something written (doesn't matter if it's actually writeen on paper) it's not improv. Whehter something sounds like improv or not, that is IMO absolutely doesn't matter! Improv or not are just ways to make music, the result of how this music sounds is what's important!

 

[Al Stevens]

Most of Art Tatum's renditions are repetitions of how he played the tune before. You can hear his "arrangements" mature over the years by listening to subsequent recordings of the same tunes.

 

[cann0nba11]

Improvisation is usually the spontanteous composition based on chord symbols. However, even the greats start to repeat themselves. Listen to Miles live recordings from the 50s, or listen to any series of bootlegs of Brecker from the same album tour. While each solo was different, they were often constructed in the same manner/form, and many of the licks are identical. If I can make some time I'll post an example at ibrecker.com.

 

[milandro]

Musical Improvisation, like any form of language , has a base in patterns and schemes which an individual would use more or less consciously as the fundament upon which he can elaborate applying his language to a given situation.

So, most of us, while talking, will use, groups of words, idioms and verbs in a sequence that can be recognized in almost anything we say because that is unique to each individual, a sort of fingerprint (the police forces nowadays use a lot of this analysis).

You can tell where a person comes from, what level of studies he has done, you can tell the town, the quarter, the street, the family he grew up, from his language.

The same happens to music.

We will put in our music all the things we have heard before, all the things which worked in similar situations before, all the things we've studied.....and a little bit more, hopefully, which is unique to that time and that place, but the impro will be based on elements which anybody tends to use repeatedly, because they are our own specific way to express ourselvels....... even when they come from somebody or something else.

So you will find and recognize typical elements and more or less the same components in any impro although the way they are arragend can be absolutely unique, yet elements of it will be recognizeable, because they are our fingerprint.

 

[playitfunky]

I've never played a solo good enough to repeat verbatum so when i do I'll let you know.

Me either lol, let's start a club!

 

[tubbycub]

I guess it's a must to play the default solo for really popular saxophone pop songs like "Just the way you are", "Fallen" etc. Failure to do so would convey to the general audience (non-musicians) that the saxophonist can't play no matter how great his improvization is.

 

[cann0nba11]

At cover gigs I usually start the solo out the way it was on the recording, especially the Phil Woods solo on "Just the Way You Are.". Then once I've established my street cred with the audience I do what I want. If I'm feeling particularly generous I'll give them the whole solo. Besides, soloing in B isn't much fun yet Phil made it sound so easy.

 

[Tom Hall]

That's easy! It's always improv.

Every human performance of music is improvisation.

The difference between various styles and genres lies not in whether the music is improvised or not, but in what boundaries are placed on the improvisation that occurs.

When a classical performer plays a piece, it is the improvised part that gives it life, that makes one performance different from another, and very different from a computer playing the same piece. The actual process of improvisation is the same as in any other type of music, but there are fairly strict boundaries placed on where and how this improvisation can occur. (I believe this type of improvising is called "interpretation").

Thinking about it this way gives improvisation it's proper importance in our overall understanding of how we create. It makes it easier to separate the process of improvisation from the product; to see the process of improvisation for what it really is - an innate human ability, as distinct and as important to us as other innate human abilities such as memory or logical thought.

It's not improvisation itself that makes jazz what it is (improv is nothing special- we all do it all day long in countless ways) it's the WAY in which the improvisation occurs. Bebop has a different set of styleistic boundaries than free jazz or noise or classical music etc. etc.

But it's all improvisation!

 

[Bunny Stewart]

I don't think you can really equate improvisation with interpretation, but I agree that improvisation does not define jazz. What does is another question.

If improvisation is the act of spontaneous composition than how interpreting written material be considered improvising? It is true that there are always boundaries or parameters placed on improvisors, whether they are playing free music or big band/swing era, but I still don't agree that improvising and interpreting are the same.

 

[Tom Hall]

I don't think of improvisation only as the act of spontaneous composition, (although spontaneous composition is improvisation).

It is a much bigger deal than that!!!

I define improvisation as the process of combining the knowledge and skills we possess with the possibilities and materials available in the moment and spontaneously creating.

A classical player is spontaneously creating something that is not part of the written material. It is a direct expression of the person playing. S/he does this differently each time.

How is this not improvisation?

 

[Bunny Stewart]

Interesting, Tom. I'll have to think about it. I'm not for a second suggesting that nothing is created when someone interprets written music, I'm just not sure that it fits my definition of improvising.

Anytime music is created it is a response to the situation, personnel, audience, or materials at hand. But I don't think any musical situation is improvisational until the written note is abandoned or altered.

This may be a semantic argument, however, and I certainly don't want to invalidate your idea. I need to think about it.