Outside Music, Inside Voices: Dialogues on Improvisation and the Spirit of Creative Music

FOREWORD

There have been many books of interviews with improvisers, but none quite like this one. Mostly, interviews are conducted for historical purposes—to find out who did what and when. Sometimes the focus of a Q&A is shoptalk—how to compose music, how to hustle gigs, how to execute particular instrumental techniques. With a few notable exceptions, such as drummer Art Taylor’s Notes and Tones and bassist William Parker’s Conversations, journalists or scholars conduct them. But guitarist-composer Garrison Fewell’s Outside Music, Inside Voices occupies a unique place in the oral history literature; it’s a book of musician-to-musician dialogues focused (mainly) on a single topic—the ways in which spiritual values inform the lives and art of improvisers.

There’s been a roughly fifty-year evolution in the public discussion of improvised music that laid the groundwork for a book such as this one. Prior to the 1960s, spirituality was usually equated with organized religion. Tainted by association with conservative, middle-class squares, it got short shrift from liberal hipsters who wrote about the music. John Coltrane’s openness about his spirituality and its prominence in his music opened the door to greater public acknowledgment of the topic, and other artists in the jazz avant-garde grew more vocal about their beliefs as well. Influenced by the countercultural and black consciousness ideas that permeated the ’60s avant-garde jazz milieu, these musicians rejected organized religion, such as the traditional Christian beliefs that inspired Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams, and embraced a more eclectic spirituality that drew on African and Eastern belief systems. This legacy of defining a personal spirituality outside the bounds of organized religion—with its obvious parallels to finding a personal sound on one’s instrument—persists today. Joe McPhee speaks for many musicians in this book when he says, The ‘spirit’ is a kind of a force that is the center of what drives the music, where it comes from, the source of it. I don’t think of it so much in a religious sense. . . . It could include a religious aspect if that’s where someone wants to go with it, but not necessarily that.

Given the prevalence of personally evolved beliefs, it’s not surprising that there is a wide range of ways in which improvisers see the relationship between spirituality and improvisation. For some, the music is just one of many manifestations of their personal spiritual odyssey. I’m not writing or performing music specifically to be spiritual, says Steve Swell. My ‘self’ comes first and then I’m just expressing what that is through music. For others, the act of making music has a devotional quality. I always looked at playing the saxophone and playing music as a way of going to church, says Oliver Lake. For Roy Campbell, improvisation is sort of like prayer and meditation.

Several, such as Wadada Leo Smith, Ahmed Abdullah, and Matthew Shipp, have thought through the implications of their spirituality for all aspects of their lives. Abdullah draws a direct line between his acknowledgment of the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent reality that some call God, others call Buddha, some call Jesus, others call Allah, etc. and the intent on the part of the artist and the art of transforming humanity. This transformation needs to happen on political, social, and spiritual levels. And these examples barely scratch the surface of the richness of this book’s contents.

It would be hard to imagine a better guide through this multiplicity of beliefs and the five decades of music represented in this volume than its conceptualizer and guiding voice—Garrison Fewell. In addition to a deep discographical knowledge of avant-garde jazz and free improvisation,

Garrison possesses spiritual insight developed over his thirty years of the study and practice of Nichiren Buddhism. It is rare indeed to find someone who can discuss Baikida Carroll’s Orange Fish Tears with the same depth of understanding as Autobiography of a Yogi—and who can bring a practitioner’s knowledge of improvisation and education to the table as well. His enthusiasm for both musical and spiritual matters leads these dialogues down many paths, including historical discussions of careers and educational philosophy. For instance, Dave Burrell’s reminiscence of his first record date with Marion Brown or Joe McPhee’s story about Clifford Thornton’s valve trombone are priceless stories that also say something about the people telling them.

Some of the players whom Garrison engages in dialogue—Han Bennink and Irène Schweizer, for instance—downplay the role of spirituality in their music. But whether or not artists see a spiritual dimension to their music, all of them speak about the power of music to connect. Some talk of making music as a way to connect to a higher spirit or consciousness; others talk about the connection music forges among musicians, or between musician and audience. Perhaps it is this communion, this deep fulfillment of our need for connection, that is the true spirit of the music.

— Ed Hazell

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I sincerely thank the musicians and poets who generously shared their thoughts and experiences in these dialogues. Their voices are the heart of this book.

Thanks to Luciano Rossetti for his friendship and his brilliant photography, which truly captures the spirit of creative music.

I thank my editors and designers for their invaluable contributions: Ed Hazell for editing the first draft and for his thoughtful foreword; Evelyn Rosenthal for editing and preparing the book for publication; Bill Brinkley for book design and page layout; and artist Alfio Domenghini for the cover design.

I am grateful to the many friends who read and offered valuable feedback throughout the various stages of this project: Fred Cohen (New York Jazz Record Center), Bobbie Austin, Eric Hofbauer, Elizabeth Bouchard, and Adam Gamble.

Thanks to Benedetto Guitars, Bob and Cindy Benedetto and Howard Paul, for the guitars I play and the beautiful Benedetto Bravo Elite in my biography photo.

I extend heartfelt gratitude to my mentor, Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai International president, Buddhist scholar, and educator, for his writings on spirituality, music, art, and culture, and for the inspiration to conduct my research through dialogue. My development as an educator, musician, and author has been shaped by his profoundly humanistic view of life.

Finally, I am endlessly grateful to my wife Emy for her unlimited strength, support, and love.

Outside Music, Inside Voices was supported in part by a Berklee College of Music Faculty Fellowship grant.

— Garrison Fewell

Garrison Fewell, Roy Campbell, and Steve Swell, with the Variable Density Sound Orchestra at Players Theatre, New York, 2010.

INTRODUCTION

"We all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."

—Albert Einstein

"I added another link to the chain, and they called it freedom."

—Morton Feldman

Outside Music, Inside Voices is an exploration of the outer realm of music and the inner voices of creative musicians. The title obviously plays on the term outside music, also called free jazz or free music, but more appropriately referred to as creative improvised music. None of these labels accurately describe the music played by the artists who have contributed their thoughts to these dialogues. Duke Ellington, whose music has been described as beyond category, said, Jazz is only a word and really has no meaning. We stopped using it in 1943. To keep the whole thing clear, once and for all, I don’t believe in categories of any kind.

The motivation for this book comes from my own experience as a jazz musician turned creative free improviser and my desire to illuminate the metaphysical or spiritual aspects of creative improvised music. My personal spiritual journey has taught me that music and spirituality are intrinsically related. Talking informally with fellow musicians, I discovered the same underlying feeling was true for many of them, so I set out to explore and document the variety of musical-spiritual experiences of a wide range of musicians in the form of dialogues.

Spirituality

The initial question I most frequently asked is, What is the importance of spirituality in your music, and how has it influenced your skills as a creative artist? It seemed like an obvious question to me, having contemplated its meaning for years, but for some it proved more difficult to answer than I expected. Articulating what is essentially the intangible nature of both life and creative music is a very different challenge from playing music. I agree with pianist Cecil Taylor, who said, Part of what this music is about is not to be delineated exactly. It’s about magic, capturing spirits. Saxophonist Steve Lacy said that music is the result of the musician’s encounter with the spirit, in space and time. The saxophonist-composer Anthony Braxton offers a lucid description of music and creativity in Graham Lock’s Forces in Motion. Lock, referring to Braxton’s Tri-Axium Writings, says, Music, sculpture, dance and painting are connected to ‘cosmic zones’ and have to do with ‘cosmic matters,’ and he quotes directly from Braxton’s work: Creativity can be viewed as a manifestation of a given cosmic, social, and vibrational (cultural) alignment . . . and is related to spiritual, mystical, and functional considerations with regards to what I call higher forces.

Like other forms of jazz, creative improvised music is indebted to the innovations of the African American creative music tradition. In Lock’s view, African American music is a spiritually based music that is misdefined, misrepresented, and misunderstood by a Western society that ignores its spiritual essence. I think it’s fair to say that much criticism of free and creative improvised music has overlooked this spiritual essence, or, as author John Szwed says in The Future of Jazz, some have displayed a willingness to dismiss the music without serious consideration of its assumptions and aspirations. In my conversation with saxophonist-composer Henry Threadgill, he said that the definition of spirituality depends on what you believe in, and for him it was about spiritual intent.

The selection of musicians participating in these dialogues was based not on preconceived ideas of the spiritual nature of their music but on their contributions to creative music. I knew before beginning this project that not all creative artists think in spiritual terms about their music or creativity, but that doesn’t mean their music is lacking a spiritual intent or effect on listeners. Beyond the obvious references to spirituality in the titles of many compositions or in statements by musicians in writings and interviews, the listener may often be unaware of the composer-improviser’s intent. Yet in a way similar to how we project our thoughts and emotions onto a work of abstract art, we perceive a cosmic connection to music through our ability to be in tune with our own higher forces—forces that are intricately connected to our experience and perception of music.

Spirituality is a realm beyond what we perceive through our physical senses or reasoning and often describes a process of inner development, a seeking to discover and strengthen the essence of one’s being. Eastern philosophy, especially Buddhism, describes matter and spirit as being interconnected on the most fundamental level of life; one can’t exist without the other. Like the two sides of a coin, they are two, but not two. In ancient Greek mythology, the Muses, goddesses of literature, science, and arts, inspired music. Because of the spectrum of emotions music inspires within us, we respond to it not with our intellect but with our hearts. At the heart of the word spirituality is the word spirit, just as the words inspire and the Latin word spiritus, meaning breath, are also related to spirit. Spirituality exists in many forms and might simply be an individual’s personal muse or source of inspiration.

My own view is that spirituality is not dependent on religion, and although spirituality is often interpreted as religiosity, it’s not the principal focus of my question. Many people agree that a spiritual feeling or transcendence occurs when listening to certain music. John Coltrane’s recordings A Love Supreme and Ascension are cited several times in these dialogues as having transcendent or spiritual qualities, and to me, Coltrane’s repeated chanting of A Love Supreme is a kind of musical-spiritual mantra. Nature is another widely accepted source of spiritual energy and inspiration, which, depending on one’s view, may or may not be connected to religion. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright said, I believe in God, only I spell it Nature, and Henry David Thoreau saw the power of nature and light as something divine when he wrote, There is no ill which may not be dissipated, like the dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it. Steve Lacy referred to the influence of nature on his music when he said, Every time it rains, I have the chance of studying the rain for its musical qualities; that adds to my information, so I can perform the music better.

Composer Igor Stravinsky made several poignant observations about the spiritual intent of music in Poetics of Music, six lectures he presented for the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University. He wrote, In the pure state, music is free speculation . . . in terms of sound and time. Stravinsky preferred the title inventor of music to composer and said of his work, I cannot separate the spiritual effort from the psychological and physical effort; they confront me on the same level and without any hierarchy. He also believed that the profound meaning and essential aim of music is to promote a communion, a union of man with his fellow man and with the Supreme Being.

Improvisation

Improvisation is a process of discovery, a conversation or dialogue through spontaneous generation of sound that involves our entire being in an act that reveals the inherent connectivity between the inner microcosm and the outer macrocosm and creates unity between the inner self and the cosmic universe. When I was young and had not yet learned the right notes to play, improvisation was natural and joyful, and playing an instrument represented a passageway into the universe of sound where I experienced something of the eternal in my daily life. Later, when I went to school to study jazz, improvisation became more of a technique for applying the correct scales to chord changes. I almost failed my improv class when I couldn’t play the sharp one diminished seventh chord-scale sharp (#Idim7), with its eight notes instead of seven! I eventually became an accomplished jazz guitarist and won many critical awards for my playing, but after more than twenty years of performing and recording, I turned the corner on mainstream jazz and devoted myself to creative improvised music. It was not a conscious decision to adopt a new musical style, but an evolution—a change of heart about the way I heard music and the way I wanted to express myself. I haven’t abandoned my affection for straight-ahead jazz, but I find in creative improvised music and the players I work with the kind of freedom of expression and excitement that originally attracted me to music.

Improvisation is a way of life that involves all the senses and requires a total surrender to the moment. It’s similar to what yoga master Amrit Desai often says about letting go, coming down from your thinking center and into your heart center. Musician and author Stephen Nachmanovitch, in his book Free Play, says, Improvisation is acceptance, in a single breath, of both transience and eternity. Surrender means cultivating a comfortable attitude towards not knowing, being nurtured by the mystery of moments that are dependably surprising, ever fresh. I often use the French expression l’instant du moment to describe being in the moment—literally an instant within a moment.

Developing a comfortable attitude toward not knowing is a theme I explore in my discussions with improvising musicians. In an interview from the book Conversations, Steve Lacy captured the spirit of improvisation, characterizing it as a progressive appetite for wanting to take the leap, because unless you do, you’re really not alive. If you’re not secure enough to take the plunge, then you’re really in trouble, and you’d better go back and practice until you are secure enough to drop the security. In his book Give My Regards to Eighth Street, composer Morton Feldman gives one of my favorite descriptions of the nature of creativity and art: Art is a crucial, dangerous operation we perform on ourselves. Unless we take a chance, we die in art.

Guitarist Derek Bailey made a significant contribution to the discussion of improvisation in his highly regarded book Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music. Bailey begins by saying, Improvisation enjoys the curious distinction of being both the most widely practiced of all musical activities and the least acknowledged and understood, and any attempt to define it must result in some form of misrepresentation because the spirit of improvisation contradicts the idea of documentation. He says, improvisation has no existence outside of its practice, and notes that musicians who improvise freely choose to describe what they do in abstract terms. My conversations with creative improvisers confirm that to be quite accurate, and I would add that many abstract descriptions of improvisation intersect with the metaphysical, in that an activity so deep and complex requires indirect approaches such as those implied by words and phrases like mystery, letting go, and a leap into the unknown. Improvisation requires a thorough study of the fundamentals of music—harmony, melody, and rhythm—but for it to happen successfully, the improviser has to stop controlling the process and get out of the way.

Sound and Vibration

Many philosophies and religions, as well as modern physics, view the primary nature of the universe as sound, or vibration. This is one meaning of the word kyo in the Buddhist phrase Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, which indicates the fundamental rhythm or sound of the universe. The thirteenth-century Buddhist Nichiren Daishonin regarded Nam-myoho-renge-kyo as the Mystic Law, the natural principle governing the workings of life in the universe and the true aspect of our own lives. Joachim-Ernst Berendt explores the power of sound and mantras in his book The World Is Sound: Nada Brahma, and makes a strong connection between Indian music, spirituality, and jazz. The Sufi mystic and musician Inayat Khan describes Nada Brahma as Sound the Creator, Sound the Creative Spirit, saying that all things are made by the power of sound, of vibration and the whole manifestation being the phenomenon of sound, the knowledge of sound is the key to the mystery. Khan concludes that Music is life itself.

In a series of dialogues titled The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra, Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda also talks about the power of sound and mantras: Everything produces sound, from the smallest atom to the planets and the universe itself. Since everything is based on vibrations or oscillations, words have power. Positive words can heal while negative words can leave a lasting effect. Even words you can’t understand have power based on their vibrations. Mantras are empowered with healing sounds that vibrate from within one’s being.

I have been practicing Nichiren Buddhism for over thirty-seven years, and I experience the power of positive vibrations every day when I chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to harmonize my life with the cosmic life force inherent in my own life, all living beings, and the universe. I chant to bring forth wisdom and compassion, to listen deeply and respond to the musicians I’m playing with, and to connect with the audience in a mutual effort to transform the moment into a positive experience for everyone. I have also at times practiced yoga, meditation, chi-gong, and Reiki, receiving benefits from each. I rely on shiatsu and acupuncture for healing whenever my physical condition calls for it, with remarkable results. Perhaps my sensitivity to alternative forms of healing and awareness has led me inevitably to this moment, and to the opportunity to openly discuss these ideas with my colleagues.

Music, Art, and Philosophy

Music, art, and philosophy have been intricately connected since ancient times, and their spiritual reflections are equally important for us to consider. Music today has become the object of commercial pursuit primarily for the purpose of entertainment and financial profit, but it originally belonged to ritual and the healing arts. As bassist William Parker writes in his book Who Owns Music?, Art should be looked upon as sacred. Each concert is a communal gathering, each work is a prayer. Saxophonist John Tchicai strongly believed that music is part of our spiritual life, and we should take it seriously. Before the use of written language, music and art were a means to convey the deeper realms of humanity and sought to answer questions about life and the cosmos that have intrigued us since the earliest times. Evidence of this exists where musical instruments were included in ancient burials, indicating the importance of music in whatever spiritual afterlife was believed to exist.

Over 2,500 years ago Shakyamuni Buddha’s ultimate teaching, the Lotus Sutra, included numerous passages about the power of music. The Wonderful Sound Chapter features a Bodhisattva named Wonderful Sound who was proficient at performing on innumerable instruments and played music as an offering to the Buddha and the Mystic Law. In The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra, Ikeda describes the musical nature of this sutra: The Lotus Sutra encompasses the great sound of the universe. It contains the fundamental rhythm, the melody, and the chords of the universe. In the Lotus Sutra, music fills the universe and serves as a bridge between the finite self and the infinite universe. He explains that Buddhist practice involves purifying all the senses and therefore has a deep, underlying appreciation for music. He makes this point with a quote from the Lotus Sutra: Jeweled trees abound in flowers and fruit / where living beings enjoy themselves at ease / the gods strike heavenly drums / constantly making many kinds of music / Mandara blossoms rain down. The image of gods playing drums, making many kinds of music and causing beautiful white mandara flowers to rain down from heaven, inspired me to write a composition called U Mandara Ke (Japanese for Mandara Flower). The blossoms are not lasting; they wilt and die quickly, signifying the transient nature of life—and of improvisation.

Music and arts are integral to the desire for self-improvement and serve the spirit of contribution to the well-being of others. Social justice issues, many of which are discussed in these dialogues, often inspire creative composition and performance. Ikeda emphasizes this point, saying, The spread of music and the arts prepares the way for and helps promote positive social ideals and philosophical truths. Music and the rest of the arts can exert a very powerful influence on both the individual and society. A single piece of great music or a masterpiece painting has the power to elevate the human spirit of both the individual and society. The presence of spirit in creative music and art is an essential tool that empowers artists to raise people’s awareness of their own positive potential and to contribute to the betterment of society. Pianist-composer and Arkestra leader Sun Ra exemplified this belief as the core of his life’s work: If you can’t involve your spirit in the creative process, you can’t defeat the destructive elements on earth. And while the intention of every piece of music or every work of art may not be to transform life and society, the potential is always there. Just as every sunrise has the power to transform life, depending on how we view it or the inspiration we draw from it, every work of art has the potential to transform the performer-creator and the listener-observer, as well as the society. William Parker writes, Not every improvisation works, and not every notated piece of music is successful. What is the measurement for success? When the music procreates during performance to create a living entity, it is successful.

Many believe that creative consciousness exists within each of us and all around us. Improvising musicians often talk about being a channel through which creative energy flows, becoming manifested in sound, and that it works best when we step back and get out of the way. According to Parker, We do not create the music, the music comes through us. Art is life, projected by its finest point to reach the inner soul. And Steve Lacy describes the metaphysical sensation of music existing beyond thought: If the music is good enough, you’re not thinking. You’re just hearing it, taking part in it. If it’s real and good enough for a particular time-space situation, you’re not thinking how it came to be. It’s better than any thought about it, when it’s like it’s supposed to be. That’s why you hear [musicians] talk about ‘receiving’ their music, as if they were not there, as if it were almost involuntary. When asked if he thought that musicians in the creative act feel that their minds are a blank, he responded, Not exactly a blank—more like a blink. You try and stay out of the way. It’s not you that does it—it’s IT that wants to be done.

What Is Dialogue?

In The Inner Philosopher, a dialogue between professor, musician, and philosopher Lou Marinoff and Daisaku Ikeda, Marinoff describes dialogue as a reflective space, one where we relate to each other as equals, aspiring to understand and learn from each other. Ikeda says that dialogue is a dynamic exchange between one human being and another, one mind and another. Through dialogue we reinforce one another’s positive mental states, deepen mutual understanding, and forge bonds of trust. In The Power of Dialogue, Scott London, former host of the NPR radio program Insight and Outlook, writes, Dialogue is a form of discussion aimed at fostering mutual insight and common purpose. The process involves listening with empathy, searching for common ground, exploring new ideas and perspectives, and bringing unexamined assumptions into the open. . . . The trouble with much of what passes for communication today is that it’s all crosstalk. It’s a din, not a dialogue. We fire salvos of information across the Internet, or shoot each other text messages, or blog or Twitter about ourselves. But is anyone paying attention? And if they are, do they catch our drift?

These statements offer positive views of dialogue as a means to explore the contemplative and reflective nature of creative music and its contribution to society. Improvised music, when played by multiple musicians (known as group, or collective, improvisation), is itself a form of dialogue. Thus, a dialogue of words between musicians is a natural extension of creative music. I approached the conversations in this book in a spirit of mutual trust, allowing the artists’ own words to convey their thoughts on improvisation and the spirit of creative music. Musicians who have been interviewed by journalists and critics soliciting information for articles or reviews of recordings are often understandably wary, having been misquoted or, worse, having had their words intentionally twisted to achieve the opposite effect of their intent, only to reveal the critic’s biased views or hidden agenda. For this reason, some of the musicians preferred to contribute their thoughts by answering questions in written form. Where I was able to follow up with a conversation, and with their permission, I included those remarks as well. Throughout, instead of acting as an interviewer interrogating a subject, I took the stance of a partner in dialogue, using the modern tools of recorded phone conversations, computer technology via Skype, and email exchanges in the service of this ancient method for working one’s way toward new insights and truth. The resulting dialogues have been lightly condensed and edited for the purpose of maintaining narrative flow.

Education and Creative Improvised Music

In addition to being a guitarist performing and composing creative improvised music, I have been a full-time professor at Berklee College of Music since 1977. One of the challenges of teaching creative improvised music is the intangible nature, or spirit, of free improvisation, which can seem almost out of place in an academic institution accustomed to evaluating students through more standardized or traditional methods. Even though the music we study and teach (not only jazz) has a wealth of spirituality behind it, spirituality itself is not often a subject dealt with in academic institutions, perhaps because it is too easy to become entangled in a web of various spiritual paths or personal preferences. But how can we study great music and musicians—someone like John Coltrane, for example—without mentioning the spirit that inspired his musical journey and transformation as a human being? The time may be ripe for such discussions in academic settings, especially now that spiritual disciplines such as yoga, meditation, chi-gong, and tai chi are being offered at Berklee and other music schools as a way of helping musicians to be more in tune with their instincts, perform better, and enjoy more productive lives.

The musical and life experiences revealed in these dialogues offer profound insights for musicians studying in schools where academic curriculums can easily emphasize the technical facility of musical expression over the development of one’s inner self. An academic environment may not always be the ideal place to learn spontaneity, but children possess natural spontaneity, and music improvisation encourages many other areas of their education and development. Their lack of inhibition stems from not having learned the rules yet, and this free spirit can be potent fuel for creativity, the idea being that mistakes are made from which new ideas are born. Mistakes are not signs of failure, but simply part of the process of learning. Sun Ra said in one of his lyrics, Make another mistake, and do something right! And Ra encouraged percussionist James Jacson, telling him, Jacson, play all the things you don’t know. There’s an infinity of what you don’t know. As saxophonist Marshall Allen said, Sun Ra taught me to translate spirit into music. The spirit makes no mistakes. At Bennington College, percussionist Milford Graves instructed his students by performing with them and being an example of an improvising musician. He stimulated a seeking mind in his students by refusing to give them traditional assignments, encouraging them instead to create their own assignments.

In improvised music, the creative process—learning to nurture and trust the creative spirit—is more important than playing the right notes. As a professor of ear training, the most satisfying results I experienced this past year came from an approach to teaching and learning that relied on mutual exploration as I moved away from tests toward quests, something I learned from Training Transformational Teachers, a course offered for Berklee faculty. Instead of me transferring knowledge to my students, our collective inquiry, or quests, enabled learning to emerge through group projects and interactive exploration, allowing each individual personality to manifest in the most appropriate way. I witnessed many breakthroughs and was encouraged by my students’ discovery of new musical abilities that were far superior in quality and were achieved with much greater enthusiasm. As Stephen Nachmanovitch aptly puts it, If the art is created within the whole person, then the work will come out whole. Education must teach, reach, and vibrate the whole person rather than merely transfer knowledge.

As a music educator and author of four improvisation method books, I certainly appreciate the value of traditional training on one’s instrument and, as you will discover in these dialogues, the majority of musicians I spoke with readily agree. But it’s when the physical and mental training of music is balanced by training of the spirit that the student’s unique sound emerges and creative improvisation truly develops. Saxophonist David S. Ware addresses the issue of education and improvised music, saying, The creative spirit, what improvisation is, is . . . a lost art. When I say that, it doesn’t mean people are not improvising. It means the meaning behind it is lost. Because what it really is, it’s something connected with our existence. . . . Life itself is improvisation. But that’s been lost, that understanding. That’s why you get everything sounding the same in music, because of the way it’s taught.

The last chapter of The Future of Jazz contains an interesting discussion on jazz education and improvisation. In it, Ted Gioia claims that jazz as a series of institutions and enterprises is flourishing, while jazz as a contemporary form of music is suffering from exceptional neglect. He makes the point that jazz should not be codified or treated only as a certain type of musical vocabulary, and says, Jazz is defined by an attitude that rejects closed systems and firm barriers by seeking after the fresh and vital. . . . this is a music that is built around improvisation, on spontaneous creation. If we can remain aware of the tendency to look at where jazz has been rather than where it’s going, and instead emphasize genuine creativity over re-creativity (or retreading the same old ground), we can achieve a better balance. Including creative music in jazz education programs is an important opportunity to open new pathways. One of my goals as an educator, and an impetus for my work on these dialogues, is to introduce the music of significant composer-improvisers to my students and colleagues. Given the general lack of recognition of creative improvised music in educational institutions, I’m not surprised when I meet recent graduates of jazz music programs at major universities—acclaimed musicians performing at festivals and clubs—who haven’t heard the names David S. Ware, Charles Tyler, Billy Bang, or Derek Bailey. Many of their teachers aren’t familiar with these artists either, and that’s a reality I hope to change. While some of the musicians with whom I have conducted dialogues for this book are not household names in the world of music, they all deserve to be better known based on their musical achievements and contributions. For some, their lack of wider recognition demonstrates an outright neglect of creative music culture.

A Legacy of Freedom

Creative improvised music represents a small segment of the musical world—and an even smaller portion of the world