Louis Armstrong

[NJ Joe]

Monk's scores were notated.

Mingus's as well if I'm not mistaken.

[Karl Henning]

Mingus's as well if I'm not mistaken.

Aye, I believe you're right.

[Jubal Slate]

Hey, this isn't the Jazz board! 

[Purusha]

I think it fair to say that some jazz exists in score, some exists as recordings.

I don't see it that way. Jazz music exists in performance or it doesn't exist at all. The performance IS the music. There's nothing really apart from it. A performer playing a composition written by another musician is basically making his own original composition using someone else's material as a mere basis or starting point.

I mean, theoretically speaking, all jazz music could exist in score if somebody put the effort to transcribe it but that doesn't really mean the music was "composed" the same way classical music is composed, and what self respecting jazz performer would dare to attempt to play some's else written down improvisation anyway?

And to be fair, i like that there is this fundamental distinction between the two genres. And the difference isn't just that in classical the music is "composed" where as in jazz it is improvised. There's just a very fundamental difference in mentality. The artist in western culture has always been a kind of philosopher. A Bach or a Michelangelo are the artistic equivalent to an Aristotle. One listens to Bach the same way one reads a Platonic dialogue. There's a specific logic to the structure of the music, and to attempt to chance any part of it is to risk to undermine the whole. But jazz musicians aren't really philosophers. They aren't trying to make order of the cosmos, they are trying to channel its creative energies within themselves. The western mind is fixed on the formal world, while other cultures, including that of Africa of course, see the universe as an unfolding of potentialities and possibilities, as an act of pure creativity as opposed to an harmony derived from an overarching order. It is a completely different way of looking at things, and to me there really isn't any conflict between those two mentalities because each is merely focusing on a different aspect of the infinite.

[San Antone]

Two great tribute albums:

[Purusha]

Perfect example of what happens when three jazz musicians attempt to play the same piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufvOSpP3L7o

[Karl Henning]

I don't see it that way. Jazz music exists in performance or it doesn't exist at all.

And that differs from Classical music . . . how, exactly?

[Purusha]

Well, consider this. The music of individual classical composers exists whether anybody performs it. The same cannot be said for the music of most jazz artists. You can destroy every existing classical recording but unless you also destroy the scores the music will live on. Destroy all existing recordings of a given jazz musician and you have erased that musician from history. I mean, it is in the nature of an "improvisation" that the performance is synonymous with the composition. I don't see why this should be such a troublesome notion.

[Jubal Slate]

Louis wrote dozens of songs but, yeah, you can't replicate the talent of the greatest jazz artist of all time.

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, consider this. The music of individual classical composers exists whether anybody performs it. The same cannot be said for the music of most jazz artists. You can destroy every existing classical recording but unless you also destroy the scores the music will live on. Destroy all existing recordings of a given jazz musician and you have erased that musician from history. I mean, it is in the nature of an "improvisation" that the performance is synonymous with the composition. I don't see why this should be such a troublesome notion.

It is troublesome because you are discounting recordings as a way of preserving the music. By your standards, if I go out to a club in the evening, something I used to do a lot when I lived in the Metropolis, then as soon as the last bit of sound died away, the music ceased to exist. But if I recorded it, then it is exactly the same thing as the concession you make for a written score, in that it can be reproduced by a trained musician, exactly what it would take to revive classical music if only a score existed. You apply 1 set of rules for 1 type and a different set for another type, when the difference is unwarranted.

I understand all about the improvisational quality of jazz. In the 18th century, 'classical' music had a huge improvisational aspect to it. Not like today where modern musicians are afraid to add to or change a note of it. The score was just a skeleton outline. The only difference is that jazz musicians aren't playing by the same set of rules. In the 16th century when modern notation was devised, recording was, of course, impossible. And so they did what they could within the technological limits imposed on them to make the music "realizable". But jazz really came of age during the recording era, and so they never needed written music to preserve their ideas. By the rules you are applying, no piece of music could ever be played twice, which is not realistic. It may not be played identically twice, but it is the same piece of music. I would bet you $$$$ that when Mozart played one of his keyboard concertos, it was never the same twice either. It was only over time that the music became fossilized by less talented people who were afraid to impose their own thoughts on the music.

[Jubal Slate]

Armstrong also took a lot of cheesy pop songs and turned them into art.

[Purusha]

I don't think improvisation in classical music really compares to improvisation in jazz, and i very much doubt Mozart came up with a new concerto every time he performed live, or that Bach could have come up with a different version of the Art of Fugue at the drop of a hat every time he sat down to play on his organ or harpsichord. There's a fundamental difference between music that is composed and music that is improvised that goes being the method used for transmission. And i mean, does anybody really believe that Mozart would have ceased to write scores if he had access to the technology for recording music (have modern composers ceased to write scores now that we have had this technology for more than a century?), and conversely, i don't think jazz musicians would have started to use scores if this technology didn't exist (i think a system of discipleship and transmission by means of a master directly teaching pupils would have been a more likely solution).

With that said, let's not forget that the argument is based on things as they are now, and not on anything hypothetical. The fact of the matter is that in jazz, there is no music apart from the recordings, so it wouldn't make sense to devote two difference spaces to discuss what in essence are one and the same thing, unlike classical music, where interpreting and performing the music out of a musical score is almost an art form in and of itself which exists "apart" from the music as such.

[Purusha]

I think all music is an oral tradition transmitted from one generation to the next.  In jazz this is obvious, but it is also true for classical performance from teacher to student, and so on.  The recorded technology is an artificial overlay to this process of transmission, which has in some ways stifled the dynamism of the tradition and fetishisized recorded performances.

I think in traditions where music is transmitted orally there never was much of a space for the type of extreme "individual" creativity found in jazz, mostly because those cultures knew nothing of individualism in the first place and there was no cult of "originality". But since there is such a thing in jazz then we can say that there is no Coltrane without Coltrane, while African music for instance exists as a tradition that transcends individualism of any kind and has no need to capture a particular individual genius "in time". I think the Renaissance really did a disservice to art when it introduced this notion of the individual being the entire center of the art form, but possibly this was necessary since, at least in my view, the art in itself was devoid of any real value, and if you take the genius of the individual artist out of the mix you have deprived the art of any reason for being (who really needs "realistic" depictions of nature?), while such was not the case with the art of traditional cultures, where the whole art form was in itself a "work of genius", shared equally by all artists, whether they were gifted or not.

But as i said, i was arguing taking into account the current reality of things.

[Gurn Blanston]

I don't think improvisation in classical music really compares to improvisation in jazz, and i very much doubt Mozart came up with a new concerto every time he performed live, or that Bach could have come up with a different version of the Art of Fugue at the drop of a hat every time he sat down to play on his organ or harpsichord. There's a fundamental difference between music that is composed and music that is improvised that goes being the method used for transmission. And i mean, does anybody really believe that Mozart would have ceased to write scores if he had access to the technology for recording music (have modern composers ceased to write scores now that we have had this technology for more than a century?), and conversely, i don't think jazz musicians would have started to use scores if this technology didn't exist (i think i system of discipleship and transmission by means of a master directly teaching pupils would have been a more likely solution).

With that said, let's not forget that the argument is based on things as they are now, and not on anything hypothetical. The fact of the matter is that in jazz, there is no music apart from the recordings, so it wouldn't make sense to devote two difference spaces to discuss what in essence are one and the same thing, unlike classical music, where interpreting and performing the music out of a musical score is almost an art form in and of itself which exists "apart" from the music as such.

You thinking so or not thinking so doesn't make it true or false. When Coltrane played 'Lazy Bird', it was different every time he played it, but it was still 'Lazy Bird'. You are saying that 'Lazy Bird' was a new and different piece of music every time it was played. It may have had variations but it was not a new and different piece every time it was played. And even if it was never written down, anyone who heard it and could play the sax, could play a new realization of 'Lazy Bird' whenever he wanted to.

Bach wouldn't have changed Art of Fugue because it was a teaching piece. He may well have never played it again after its initial run-through. You should read about Mozart, it's too complicated to get into here, but in performance, he played things differently every time. And yes, he (and Beethoven and countless others) would improvise on the keyboard for an audience for hours at a time. Sometimes it got written down, usually it didn't. It was lost forever. 

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun... 

[Purusha]

I wasn't talking about jazz as a whole, but the music of specific individual artists. Where is Coltrane without Coltrane? That was the root of the original argument.

[Karl Henning]

I wasn't talking about jazz as a whole, but the music of specific individual artists. Where is Coltrane without Coltrane?

There is a combo here in Boston who perform the Coltrane œuvre;  so in part, there is Coltrane.

[Purusha]

Bach wouldn't have changed Art of Fugue because it was a teaching piece. He may well have never played it again after its initial run-through.

I'm sorry, but i really have to object this point. You are completely misunderstanding what pedagogy meant as Bach conceived of it if you truly believe that. This is really a crazy suggestion here, bordering on some kind of absolute relativism.

[Purusha]

There is a combo here in Boston who perform the Coltrane œuvre;  so in part, there is Coltrane.

But not the real Coltrane.

On the other hand, what we have of Beethoven is the real Beethoven.

[Karl Henning]

But not the real Coltrane.

On the other hand, what we have of Beethoven is the real Beethoven.

Why, exactly?

[Karl Henning]

If that is true, then, no, we cannot have the real Beethoven.  Because no one improvises cadenzas in piano concerti just as Beethoven did.

Nor does any of us today hear the symphonies as Beethoven himself heard them.  None of us today hears the Op.125 as Beethoven conducted it.