At 7:55 PM -0700 6/22/07, Chuck Israels wrote:
On Jun 22, 2007, at 6:37 PM, Williams, Jim wrote:
There may indeed be some real "teachable moments" in this...would
make students more aware of good performance practice and also
might make for less mundane MIDI renderings as well! Has anyone
authored a "jazz performance practice" text as has been done for
other types of music?
Jim
No one has written that book, though I have some things that touch
on the subject - especially accompanying, on the "articles" page of
my web site. You are welcome to have a look. They are printable as
pdfs.
Dave Berger is the guy to write the part of such a book that applies
to the winds, and he and I could write the rhythm section part
together. All in all, it would suggest contradictions to a lot of
contemporary school learned practice.
As most know, jazz is not my primary interest, but as someone who is
heavily involved in medieval-renaissance-baroque performance
practice, here are some thoughts.
I think we are both too close to and too far away from the question
of jazz performance practice to do a good job at this time. But I
have to qualify that. Certainly mainstream, early C21 performance
practice can be described, and described well, by those who are
practicing it, but there is no single jazz style and no single jazz
performance practice. Just think of the differences between Bix or
Louis ragging a tune in the early days, Miles mumbling through it so
very creatively, and Doc or Sandoval approaching it with impeccable
technique and chops. And how do you explain Maynard?!! Same thing
for generations of tenor players, every one individual in approach,
sound, and results. In fact individuality was always a big goal.
And styles were metastisizing all over the place, first the split
between big band and bebop in the '40s, then between East Coast and
West Coast jazz in the 60s, and not much later the split between
acoustic and electric and fusion and 'all that jazz'!
And yes, I agree with whoever said that active performance practice
is going to differ from what's taught in "Jazz Studies" courses,
which seem to me mostly to concentrate on the ritual adoration of the
be-boppers complete with transcriptions and imitations. (If I'm
wrong, tell me so, but isn't that the whole Berklee approach?)
In approaching baroque performance practice, there's first the basic
training. No, the dots don't mean the same thing as they do today.
Yes, there are tempo hints that are different from today's. Yes,
you're expected to improvise either ornaments or ornamentation, in
either the French or Italian styles, and sometimes (but only
sometimes!) to add the lilt or swing of notes inegales. Yes, trills
are ornamented appoggiaturas and their speed fits the speed of the
movement. No there was no standard pitch; no, not just a DIFFERENT
standard pitch, NO standard pitch; yes pitch was lower in Paris and
higher in Venice, and that changes the sound of the music, and
different pitches in every town and church and castle.
Then comes the advanced stuff. Pure tuning--none of this equal
tempered crap. Dealing with keyboard temperaments and harmonic vs.
melodic tuning. Straight tone with vibrato used as an ornament
(sound familiar?). A range of articulations much wider than the
limited skill set that came out of C19 conservatories. Creative
improvisation and improvised cadenzas rather than book-learned
ornaments. And so on.
Different yet for renaissance music, where much was left to the band
leader or choir director, but where church or court musicians tended
to work together for years at a time. And even moreso in medieval
music, where Tom Binkley firmly believed that no two performances of
a given tune were EVER the same!
Seems to me the same kinds of things are true in jazz. There's
certainly the basic training, which separates the potential jazz
players from the straight ones, but then there's advanced training in
every different style and substyle. And the almost certain guarantee
that by the time the book is written, someone somewhere is going to
be doing things in a new and different way. But then that's true of
every living and growing art, isn't it?
John
--
Prof. John R. Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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