The Dialogue of Improvisation

           Coming into this course, I was excited to learn more about jazz's history and those who made it what it is today. For the last 8 years, in the various jazz bands I performed and competed with, a main focus was always on improvisation for me. As a lead tenor saxophonist, my directors always had me listening to bebop musicians. Artists like Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie who were known for their improvisational skills and the way they communicated with the rest of the band their their solos. Because of my own musical background, improvisation and jazz were synonymous. This class had reinforced this opinion when it came to the bebop era, but also brought to my attention dialogue does not only exist between members of a band, but also between the artists and the audience/community.

            Improvisation is an essential part of jazz music. This was always very clear to me. This class reinforced this and also added the role importance it played in the history of the music. Improvisation was not only a way to show off one's musical talents and knowledge of chord progressions, but rather a way to convey a specific message to an audience. In the 1940's it served to provide individualism to the artists that were being pulled by the conformity brought on by the war (Gioia, 236).

Improvisation was something taught only in my jazz bands, never in classical or marching training. Although it was never taught, improving as a jazz musician meant improving as a classical performer and vice versa. This was because jazz has so many roots in classical music, along with many other genres.

            There has been a constant relationship between jazz and the society it was performed in. When it originated, there were strong horn sections because of the surplus in military instruments and horn players when the war was over. The music was a way to express one's identity as not a slave, but as a human being. The genre grew as black people were given more rights, and it spread through the nation.

          When jazz grew and adapted all it could take from New Orleans, such as it's Spanish and French influences, it moved to Chicago (Gioia, 42). Chicago was modern city, with sky scrapers and many jobs for the people moving away from the south. This caused jazz to take a modern turn and become more of a dance music, for all the workers that wanted a release after their shifts in the factories (Gioia, 59).

            Following the flow to modern cities, jazz moved to New York and took in everything the state had to offer. People first needed music that could include all the different cultures, so stride piano was born (Gioia, 97). Dance halls were a huge social event, and clubs began to integrate. Although the band and patrons were separated, the music adapted to entertain the new audience, paying white customers. Swing was born for to serve this purpose (Gioia, 171).

             All these adaptations jazz experienced led to the creation of modern jazz. Through these adaptations and the demand for individualism among the conformist culture America was experiencing at the time of World War II (Miles, 72). It is easy to see the dialogue that jazz had with the culture shifts that America went through as society grew. Jazz made the necessary changes that would provide a source of respect and identity for it's artists. As the demand for jazz grew, as did it's diversity in music styles. Jazz had a constant dialogue with the community.