Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

III. Jazz.

1. Introduction.

2. Solo and collective improvisation.

3. Improvisation and form.

4. Techniques and procedures.

5. Intangible elements.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Improvisation, §III: Jazz.

1. Introduction.

Improvisation is generally regarded as the principal element of jazz since it offers the possibilities of spontaneity, surprise, experiment and discovery, without which most jazz would be devoid of interest. Almost all styles of jazz leave some room for improvisation – whether a single chorus or other short passage during which a soloist may improvise over an accompaniment, a sequence of choruses for different soloists, or the entire piece after the statement of a theme – and some jazz is spontaneously created without the use of a predetermined framework (see §3 below). Improvisation is the defining characteristic of much of New Orleans jazz and its related styles, some big-band music, nearly all small-group swing, most bop, modal jazz, free jazz and some jazz-rock.

It is, however, demonstrably untrue that all jazz must involve improvisation. Many pieces that are unquestionably classifiable as jazz are entirely composed before a performance, and take the form of an arrangement, either fixed in notation or thoroughly memorized by the players; this approach to jazz is characteristic of much music for big band, notably that of Duke Ellington, extended works that combine elements of jazz and Western art music (see Progressive jazz and Third stream), and much jazz-rock.

Since improvisation is by nature evanescent, its study poses certain obvious difficulties. The principal medium for the preservation of jazz is the recording, and most of the observations made about jazz improvisation result from repeated listening to recorded performances. In many cases, however, scholars and musicians have made transcriptions from recordings in order the better to be able to examine or reproduce jazz works.

Improvisation, §III: Jazz.

2. Solo and collective improvisation.

The element of improvisation in jazz is sometimes described in terms of the relationship between the members of the ensemble. Generally speaking, attention is concentrated on individual musicians, who, in the succession of choruses (statements of and variations on a theme) that make up the most common form of jazz performance, play (or ‘take’) solos; a solo normally consists of a single chorus or a continuous succession of choruses during which the player improvises on the harmonies (maybe also to a greater or lesser degree the melody) of the theme, while some or all of the other musicians provide an accompaniment. The terms ‘solo’, ‘to play a solo’, and ‘soloist’ are therefore often used as synonyms for ‘improvisation’, ‘to improvise’, and ‘improviser’. This conflation of meanings can, however, be misleading: not all solos are improvised and not all improvisations are played by soloists. For example, the accompaniment played by some or all of the ensemble while a soloist improvises may itself to some extent be improvised: in jazz that contains no element of written arrangement the musicians are restricted, if at all, only by the fixed chord sequence and metric structure of the theme, and each may elaborate the harmonies and rhythms at will, as is appropriate to each performer’s role within the ensemble. In such a context it is the nature of the improvisation – the freedom of invention, virtuosity and ornamental elaboration allowed by the player’s function – and not the mere fact of improvising that distinguishes the soloist from the accompanists.

The degree to which an accompaniment is improvised increases as the framework on which a piece is based becomes less and less rigidly fixed. In a performance by a big band, for example, the accompanists often play from written arrangements and only the soloist is free to improvise; in a bop quartet, playing without music but working on an existing theme, the members of the ensemble have considerable freedom in the choice of harmonies and rhythms; in modal jazz the confines are those of a scale or a general tonal area; in free jazz the restrictions are fewer still, the style being characterized chiefly by the lack of fixed elements such as tonality, chord sequences and metre.

The use of the term ‘collective improvisation’ is related to the concepts of soloist and accompanists. Where these functions are sharply differentiated the term is not normally used, even though all or most of the players may be improvising more or less freely. It is commonly applied in contexts where some or all members of a group participate in simultaneous improvisation of equal or comparable ‘weight’, for example New Orleans jazz (in which it is used chiefly of reeds and brass) and its related styles, and free jazz; it does not preclude the presence of a soloist but it implies a degree of equality between all the players in the ensemble.

Improvisation, §III: Jazz.

3. Improvisation and form.

The interaction of fixed and free elements in jazz may be examined not only in terms of the functions of different players but also in terms of structures or forms. Almost all jazz consists of a combination of predetermined and improvised elements, though the proportion of one to the other differs markedly.

In all periods of jazz history there may be found examples of pieces in which improvisation is allowed only a minor role; commonly a soloist improvises a brief interlude or a single chorus in an otherwise rigidly fixed context. The majority of instances are found among performances by those big bands of the swing era that had few or no distinguished improvisers and which therefore favoured a repertory of written arrangements; the improvisations allowed in these scores are short passages, which are not the main attraction of the performance. For example, in the second chorus of Charlie Barnet’s Cherokee (1939, Bb 10373) the pianist Bill Miller improvises softly beneath the ensemble, but the only principal soloist in the piece is Barnet himself, playing tenor saxophone. After presenting, in the first chorus, a slightly ornamented version of the first half of the 64-bar theme in AABA form, he improvises during the second a section of the second chorus a rhythmically stiff melody, which consists of a simple blues riff, slightly altered in the repetitions, a quotation of the military call ‘reveille’ and a variation on it, and a brief variation on a riff familiar from Count Basie’s One o’Clock Jump. Barnet’s improvisation here is much less interesting than the complex melody composed by Billy May for the trumpet section at the end of the first chorus of the piece, which has more of the character of an improvised swing melody; nor does it rival the main attraction of the performance – the delicate riffs traded among sections of the band. The reason why Barnet takes a solo is partly because he is the bandleader but more importantly because, as a result of Coleman Hawkins’s overwhelming influence, big bands of the swing era mostly included an improvising tenor saxophone soloist who imitated Hawkins’s sound (as Barnet did).

By far the majority of pieces of jazz involve variations on an existing theme, such as a popular song, the blues progression or a newly composed piece. Two statements of the theme in a more or less fixed form customarily frame a series of variations, several or all of which involve improvisation by a soloist or soloists over an accompaniment supplied by the ensemble. The freedom with which the theme is treated varies from piece to piece and according to the style of the players; indeed, the main reason for the popularity of this form is that it offers so adaptable a scheme within which improvisatory skills can be explored.

The fertility of invention of the greatest improvisers may be gauged by the variety of possibilities they find in a single theme chosen again and again as the basis for a performance. For example, the popular song What is this thing called love?, a 32-bar theme in AABA form, has served as the basis for numerous improvisations by distinguished players. A version for solo piano by James P. Johnson (1930, Bruns. 4712) in the stride style includes sharp contrasts between thundering bass notes and tinkling treble melodies, and incorporates passages of boogie-woogie playing. Norman Granz’s Jam Session no.2 (1952, Clef 4002) presents a performance that consists of an informal succession of 26 choruses of individual swing and bop improvisations by Oscar Peterson, Flip Phillips, Charlie Shavers, Johnny Hodges, Barney Kessel, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Charlie Parker, Peterson again, and Ray Brown, followed by three choruses during which the soloists ‘trade fours’ (take turns at playing four-bar solo phrases). The rendering by the trio of Bill Evans on the album Portrait in Jazz (1959, Riv. 1162) is devoted primarily to Evans’s bop piano playing, but also includes improvisations by the double bass player Scott LaFaro (one and a half choruses) and the drummer Paul Motian (half a chorus). A lengthy, radically altered version, retitled What Love, on the album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (1960, Candid 9005) includes improvisations by Ted Curson and Eric Dolphy (who both combine characteristics of bop and free-jazz playing), an unaccompanied solo by Mingus, and a hilarious improvised ‘conversation’ between Mingus’s double bass and Dolphy’s bass clarinet. A much later performance is recorded by the singer Bobby McFerrin accompanied on piano by Herbie Hancock on the album The Other Side of Round Midnight (1985, BN 85135).

The completely spontaneous creation of new forms by means of free improvisation, independent of an existing framework, is rarer in jazz than might be expected, not least because where two or more musicians play together, no matter how intimately they know one another’s work, some agreed decisions about the progress of a piece are normally necessary. Free jazz often gives the impression that musicians follow their inspiration and invention, reacting to and interacting with one another from moment to moment; but, as Eberhard Jost has demonstrated by means of detailed analyses of recordings, free-jazz performances may be as dependent on themes as other styles of jazz, though the themes and the way they are treated are often of unusual character. Even where no theme is used, certain prearranged schemes, such as the sequence in which soloists should play and the signals by which players will communicate decisions, are usually followed.

Two of Jost’s analyses provide good examples of the kinds of formal determinant present in free-jazz performances. In discussing Cecil Taylor’s difficult and largely spontaneously created piece Unit Structures on the album of the same name (1966, BN 84237) Jost supplies a running commentary, detailing textural contrasts, delineating whenever possible the roles of the instruments (e.g. ‘one double bass player plays pizzicato in the low register, the other arco in the high register’), transcribing brief themes and motifs, and noting the ‘soloists’ who in turn come to the fore during the collective improvisation that is central to the piece. On the two takes of John Coltrane’s Ascension (1965, both issued, at different times, as Imp. 95) Jost identifies the succession of soloists whose improvisations alternate with passages of collective improvisation; he describes several recurring modal areas, which provide a loose underpinning for each solo, and exposes Coltrane's technique of holding pitches to signal a movement from one modal area to another. Such factors do not compromise the extraordinary originality and creativity of free-jazz performances; rather they call attention to the necessary limits of spontaneity. An entirely spontaneous improvisation might well be incoherent.

Improvisation, §III: Jazz.

4. Techniques and procedures.

Although no two jazz improvisations ever evolve in exactly the same way, certain techniques and procedures may be identified as common or even standard. For the purposes of description they may be regarded as falling roughly into three categories, though in practice a player may use several or even all in the course of a single improvisation, often overlaying one with another. Paraphrase improvisation is the ornamental variation of a theme or some part of it, which remains recognizable. Formulaic improvisation is the building of new material from a diverse body of fragmentary ideas. And motivic improvisation is the building of new material through the development of a single fragmentary idea. The last two types may be developed either in response to or independently of a theme.

(i) Paraphrase improvisation.

This may be melodic or harmonic. Melodic paraphrase is a crucial procedure in jazz. It is heard in any piece based on a tuneful theme, especially in early jazz, swing, jazz-rock and performances in any style based on ballads, but regularly in other contexts as well. The paraphrasing of the melody may be no more complex than the introduction of a few ornamental flourishes into an otherwise faithful repetition of the original tune, but at its most inventive it may involve a highly imaginative reworking of the melody, which remains recognizable only by its outline or the preservation of certain distinctive turns of phrase or figure. The underlying harmonic structure, which in jazz is the element that chiefly identifies a theme, remains essentially unchanged, though that too may be subjected to local alteration and embellishment. This may be termed harmonic paraphrase, the ornamentation of the harmony of the theme or some part of it. The chord progressions of American popular songs are not immutably fixed: the copyrighted version of a song is usually simplified, and versions transcribed in fake books (collections of scores used by performers: some are published and distributed ‘informally’ and illegally break restrictions on copyrighted material) normally disagree in numerous cases about the identity of individual chords.

(ii) Use of motifs and formulae.

Where paraphrase improvisation is not used, attention is commonly focussed on musical fragments used in various ways. The fragments may be called variously and often interchangeably ‘ideas’, ‘figures’, ‘gestures’, ‘formulae’, ‘motifs’, and so on; in jazz parlance they are often referred to as ‘licks’ and in early jazz specifically as ‘hot licks’. Substantial differences of technique and procedure lie not in the structure or character of the fragments as they stand alone but rather in the ways in which they are combined and manipulated in improvisation. For the sake of clarity the word ‘motif’ is used here in the discussion of motivic improvisation, and ‘formula’ in the discussion of formulaic improvisation.

The fragmentary ideas used in jazz are usually distinguished by rhythmic and intervallic shape and can seldom be described as melodic in the tuneful sense, though they provide the material on which most of the players in the ensemble improvise; their tempo, outline, tonal implications and so on are determined by stylistic conventions, so that an idea used in free jazz will be different in nature from one used in jazz-rock. The introduction of a new fragment or new stages in its development occur in response to a particular context (a certain tempo or key change, for example), determined by the players in advance or enshrined in the conventions of the style. In some types of jazz in which the form of the piece is built up from fragments, most notably jazz-rock, a foundation is often supplied by an ostinato, a short phrase strongly stating (on chordal instruments) or implying (on melodic ones) a sequence of harmonies, which is repeated virtually unchanged by the bass instrument.

(iii) Formulaic improvisation.

The principal manifestation of the fragmentary idea in jazz is in formulaic improvisation. This is the most common kind of improvisation in jazz, spanning all styles. In formulaic improvisation (a concept borrowed from studies of epic poetry and Western ecclesiastical chant) many diverse formulae intertwine and combine within continuous lines; particular musicians and groups often create a repertory of formulae (their ‘licks’) and draw on it in many different pieces. The essence of formulaic improvisation is that the formulae used do not call attention to themselves, but are artfully hidden, through variation, in the improvised lines; the challenge presented by this type of improvisation is to mould diverse fragments into a coherent whole.

Formulaic improvisation may be based on a theme, the rhythmic and harmonic structure of which remains inviolate in terms of metre, phrase lengths, tonal relationships and principal harmonic goals. But the way in which the theme is treated is altogether freer than melodic paraphrase; the harmonies are often considerably varied, by the use of altered and substituted chords and extended harmonies, while above the repetitions of the harmonic structure new lines are improvised.

The greatest formulaic improviser in jazz was undoubtedly Charlie Parker. Owens has identified a central repertory of about 100 fragments which Parker works and reworks with astonishing facility. In a piece such as Koko (1945, Savoy 597), based on the theme Cherokee, a surprising amount of formulaic material recurs within the brief solo; given the great speed at which the solo proceeds and the artful way in which Parker re-uses material the repetitions are hardly noticeable.

Where formulaic improvisation is not linked to a theme it may be founded on the imitation of established performers, on the collective invention of members of a group working together, or on the individual’s own explorations. The procedure may be detected in music as difficult as Albert Ayler’s free-jazz improvisations from 1964, in which recurring formulae – leaps over wide intervals, rapid, unmeasured, sweeping lines of undistinguished pitches, freely placed, vocalistic exclamations in extreme high or low registers – provide a basis for improvised lines. By comparison with the types of formula that are normally played in response to a familiar theme, such gestures as Ayler’s may seem highly distinctive and hardly in accord with the idea that the essence of formulaic improvisation is to disguise the presence of the formulae: however, in the context of a free-jazz performance such sounds are characteristic rather than distinctive, and the formulae are both difficult to hear precisely and sometimes impossible to transcribe. Hence in formulaic improvisation, regardless of the style, sustained accomplishment may be measured in terms of the improviser’s ability to avoid turning formulae into clichés.

(iv) Motivic improvisation.

In motivic improvisation one or more motifs (but never more than a few) form the basis for a section of a piece, an entire piece, or a group of related pieces. The motif is developed or varied through such processes as ornamentation, transposition, rhythmic displacement, diminution, augmentation and inversion. Unlike those used in formulaic improvisation, musical ideas in this type of improvisation call attention to themselves by the way in which they are treated, and indeed they must be recognized and followed through a piece or section if the music is to be properly appreciated; the difficulty here lies not in disguising the motif but in avoiding both trivial restatement and variations that effectively obscure its character. The most commonly occurring form of motivic improvisation is that in which a single motif forms the basis of a piece or section, but sometimes two or three motifs are used simultaneously, and elsewhere one motif follows another by a process of chain reaction, each being varied until it is transformed into the next. Fine examples occur in Coltrane’s solo on So What from Miles Davis’s album Kind of Blue (1959, Col. CL1355) and on the title track (1961) of Coltrane’s album Impressions (1961–3, Imp. 42).

In some pieces motivic procedures are applied not to freely invented material but to a motif or series of motifs drawn from a theme stated at the outset; this subcategory of motivic improvisation may be termed thematic improvisation, though the derivation of a motif from the theme is generally incidental and merely convenient rather than structurally significant. Thematic improvisation is regularly mentioned in jazz literature in connection with the music of Sonny Rollins, but it has scarcely any meaning for Rollins's work (for further discussion see Rollins, Sonny). It is a more appropriate concept in some free jazz, where musicians develop fragments of thematic material in ways that cannot be construed as melodic paraphrase. Examples include Albert Ayler’s deconstruction of the theme in early versions of Ghosts recorded in 1964 (on the albums Spiritual Unity, ESP 1002, and Ghosts, Debut 144) and Don Cherry’s and Gato Barbieri’s improvisations on Cherry’s album Complete Communion (1965, BN 84226).

Before the late 1950s, motivic improvisation occurred in jazz far less often than either paraphrase or formulaic improvisation. The reasons are clear: until that time a jazz improvisation was expected to accord with an underlying theme; the given theme usually involves a functional progression, which moves at the rate of one, two or four chords per bar; the improvisation itself often moves along quickly. Given these conditions it is extremely difficult to develop a motif systematically without stumbling. Hence among the greatest improvisers in early, swing and bop styles, perhaps only three players consistently utilized motivic techniques: Benny Carter, Count Basie and Thelonious Monk (see also Lewis, John).

From the late 1950s new styles have provided a more suitable framework within which motivic improvisation can occur, and it has become more regularly used, rivalling paraphrase and formulaic improvisation in importance. On the one hand free jazz has discarded the characteristic themes of previous styles in favour of ad hoc structures, and, on the other, modal jazz, jazz-rock and other fusions of jazz and popular music have discarded them in favour of simple drones or ostinatos. In all cases improvisers, freed from the need to follow a fast-moving chord progression, have been able to give greater attention to motivic improvisation. Furthermore the repetition and development of motifs provides an element of coherence and stability, which in a sense fill the same role as a conventional theme.

(v) Interrelated techniques.

The ways in which the different procedures of improvisation are combined can be complex and constantly changing. Different members of an ensemble may simultaneously employ several improvisatory techniques, or a keyboard player may employ one in the right hand and another in the left (as Wilson does). In a bop quartet's performance of a popular song, for example, the saxophonist might paraphrase the theme and then invent a new, fast-moving formulaic melody, while the pianist maintains the harmonic structure, though with his own local variations, the double bass player creates a formulaic walking bass line from the given harmony, moving in crotchets, from chordal root to chordal root, and the drummer plays strings of rhythmic patterns, including variations on swinging cymbal rhythms and irregularly placed bass-drum beats (or bombs). At a higher level an improvisation that was originally generated by motivic or formulaic procedures may be adopted as a pre-existing theme and subjected to melodic paraphrase in its turn; such an approach is characteristic of Louis Armstrong (see §5(ii) below) and of Miles Davis’s blues playing.

(vi) Modal improvisation.

Performances may also be analysed in terms that cut across the categories already drawn and which may employ variously the techniques of paraphrase, formulaic or motivic improvisation. For example, an improvisation may be described in terms of pitch – not so much how the pitches are put together as what pitches are selected – and indeed much of the conceptual discussion of improvisation in the realm of jazz education has been directed towards this issue. The use of tonal or atonal vocabulary, though it deeply affects the character of the music, has no bearing on the improvisatory techniques used, each of which applies to all or many styles of jazz. However, in one important case, improvisation based on modal scales, the controlled, systematic approach to pitch selection gives the music a sufficiently distinct identity to warrant separate discussion.

The defining characteristic of modal improvisation is that it explores the melodic and harmonic possibilities of a collection of pitches, often corresponding to one of the ecclesiastical modes or to a non-diatonic scale from traditional or non-Western music. The mode is expressed harmonically through drones or through two or more chords that oscillate beneath melodic lines using the same pitches; a typical feature of modal improvisation is therefore harmonic stasis and consequently an absence of incident and progression in the short term. Modal improvisation is not conterminous with Modal jazz, a style in which improvisers regularly select pitches in a loose, perhaps free, perhaps chromatically complex relation to underlying modes. It is much more likely to be found in jazz-rock and other fusions, which not only involve a simple, static harmonic underpinning, but in which the soloist is expected to improvise in close accord with such an underpinning.

A fine example of modal improvisation is in Gardens of Babylon, from Jean-Luc Ponty’s album Imaginary Voyage (1976, Atl. 19136). Ponty plays for the most part within a six-note scale (F–G–A–B–C–E); his occasional use of D and its recurrence as an element in the ostinato bass line identify the mode as Aeolian on F. It should not be presumed that such a single-minded procedure as modal improvisation necessarily yields an uninteresting result. In this example Ponty enriches the limited collection of pitches with an abundance of blue notes, bends and glissandos; he achieves these effects not only by exploiting the possibilities for pitch variation inherent in the violin but also by using a wah-wah pedal.

Improvisation, §III: Jazz.

5. Intangible elements.

(i) Extra-musical meaning.

As with any form of music, the extent to which jazz performers succeed in communicating ideas or images through their music depends not only on their own approach but also on that of the listener. Indeed, the listener may make his or her own subjective interpretations of the music, whether representational or abstract, which the player would entirely repudiate. A straightforward extra-musical meaning, of course, attaches to pieces that have lyrics; purely instrumental improvisation may form part of this connection, especially where the singer engages in an exchange with an improvising player (as in the call-and-response passages of pieces in which Billie Holiday is accompanied by Lester Young, the two having an extraordinary rapport and quickness of reaction to each other's music). A similar conversational impression, often with humorous overtones, is created by the dialogues between the double bass player Charles Mingus and the bass clarinettist Eric Dolphy (see §3 above), the unison singing and double bass playing in improvisations by Slam Stewart, and the hilarious mumbling discussions with himself that colour Clark Terry’s playing. Soul-jazz musicians may convey the effect of black gospel preaching, seeming to translate the preacher's typical formulaic phrases into formulaic melody. The instrumental howls and exclamatory noises of free-jazz players have been interpreted by some as protests against racism in the USA, but for the most part such interpretations of improvisation are of little importance except to those who feel the need to make them.

(ii) Risk and repetition.

The essence of improvisation in jazz is the delicate balance between spontaneous invention, carrying with it both the danger of loss of control and the opportunity for creativity of a high order, and reference to the familiar, without which, paradoxically, creativity cannot be truly valued. Improvisation allows a musician to experiment and, in the process of exploring timbres and techniques, to redefine conventional standards of virtuosity. Musicians learn to transform accidents, instantaneously adjusting the direction of a line to accommodate an unintended, but perhaps refreshing, ‘mistake’. The element of risk in improvisation is the source of great vitality in jazz, but many improvisers do not take risks constantly. Repetition may permeate not only general improvisatory procedures to a greater or lesser degree but also specific solos, which from performance to performance may change only gradually if at all.

Widely recognized as the two greatest jazz improvisers, Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong best illustrate the extremes of risk and repetition. Parker never repeated an entire solo, and successive performances based on the same tune are sometimes startlingly different (as, for example, in the two takes of Embraceable you, recorded on 28 October 1947 and issued on Dial 1024). By contrast, Armstrong, once having arrived at a successful approach, might repeat the contour and many details of a solo in different performances (as on two recordings of the same tune made on 13 and 14 May 1927 and released as S.O.L. Blues, Col. 35661, and Gully Low Blues, OK 8474). In inventing his ideas Armstrong was no less creative or original an improviser than Parker; moreover, his well-rehearsed reiterations of many of his solos convey, if not surprise, at least all other qualities of great improvisation.

Improvisation, §III: Jazz.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

theory and analysis

GroveJ (B. Kernfeld) [incl. further discussion and examples]

J.-E. Berendt: Das Jazzbuch: Entwicklung und Bedeutung der Jazzmusik (Frankfurt, 1953, 2/1959 as Das neue Jazzbuch, Eng. trans., 1962; enlarged 5/1981 as Das grosse Jazzbuch: von New Orleans bis Jazz Rock, Eng. trans., 1982, as The Jazz Book: from New Orleans to Fusion and Beyond)

A. Hodeir: Hommes et problèmes du jazz, suivi de La religion du jazz (Paris, 1954; Eng. trans., rev., 1956/R, as Jazz: its Evolution and Essence)

G. Schuller: Early Jazz: its Roots and Musical Development (New York, 1968)

A.M. Dauer: ‘Improvisation: zur Technik der spontanen Gestaltung im Jazz’, Jazzforschung, i (1969), 113–32

F. Waidacher: ‘Freiheit in der Beschränkung: zur schöpferischen Arbeit am Grazer Jazz-Institut’, Jazzforschung, i (1969), 140–47

M.L. Stewart: ‘Structural Development in the Jazz Improvisational Technique of Clifford Brown’, Jazzforschung, vi–vii (1974–5), 141–273

E. Jost: Free Jazz (Graz, 1974)

T. Owens: Charlie Parker: Techniques of Improvisation (diss., UCLA, 1974)

L.O. Koch: ‘Ornithology: a Study of Charlie Parker's Music’, Journal of Jazz Studies, ii (1974–5), no.1, pp.61–87; no.2, pp.61–95

J. Patrick: ‘Charlie Parker and Harmonic Sources of Bebop Composition: Thoughts on the Repertory of New Jazz in the 1940s’, Journal of Jazz Studies, ii/2 (1974–5), 3–23

R. Byrnside: ‘The Performer as Creator: Jazz Improvisation’, in C. Hamm, B. Nettl and R. Byrnside: Contemporary Music and Music Cultures (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1975), 223–51

L. Gushee: ‘Lester Young's “Shoeshine Boy”’, IMSCR XII: Berkeley 1977, 151–69

D.J. Noll: Zur Improvisation im deutschen Free Jazz: Untersuchungen zur Ästhetik frei improvisierter Klangflächen (Hamburg, 1977)

M.L. Stewart: ‘Some Characteristics of Clifford Brown’s Improvisational Style’, Jazzforschung/Jazz Research, xi (1979), 135–64

D. Bailey: Improvisation: its Nature and Practice in Music (Ashbourne, 1980, 2/1991)

D.B. Zinn: The Structure and Analysis of the Modern Improvised Line, i: Theory (New York and Bryn Mawr, PA, 1981)

M. Berger, E. Berger and J. Patrick: Benny Carter: a Life in American Music (Metuchen, NJ, 1982)

J. Pressing: ‘Pitch Class Set Structures in Contemporary Jazz’, Jazzforschung, xiv (1982), 133–72

W.A. Fraser: Jazzology: a Study of the Tradition in which Jazz Musicians Learn to Improvise (diss., U. of Pennsylvania, 1983)

B. Kernfeld: ‘Two Coltranes’, Annual Review of Jazz Studies, ii (1983), 7–61

L. Porter: John Coltrane’s Music of 1960 through 1967: Jazz Improvisation as Composition (diss., Brandeis U., 1983)

P. Rinzler: ‘McCoy Tyner: Style and Syntax’, Annual Review of Jazz Studies, ii (1983), 109–49

D.L. Moorman: An Analytic Study of Jazz Improvisation: with Suggestions for Performance (diss., New York U., 1984)

L. Porter: ‘John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme: Jazz Improvisation as Composition’, JAMS, xxxviii (1985), 593–621

L. Porter: Lester Young (Boston, 1985)

R.T. Dean: New Structures in Jazz and Improvised Music since 1960 (Milton Keynes, 1992)

H. Martin: Charlie Parker and Thematic Improvisation (Lanham, MD, and London, 1996)

R.T. Dean and H. Smith: Improvisation, Hypermedia and the Arts since 1945 (Amsterdam, 1997)

pedagogical texts

J. Mehegan: Jazz Improvisation (New York, 1959–65)

J. Coker: Improvising Jazz (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1964)

J. LaPorta: A Guide to Improvisation (Boston, 1968)

D. Baker: Jazz Improvisation: a Comprehensive Method of Study for all Players (Chicago, 1969, 2/1983)

D. Baker: Advanced Improvisation (Chicago, 1971)

A. Jaffe: Jazz Theory (Dubuque, IA, 1983)

B. Benward and J. Wildman: Jazz Improvisation in Theory and Practice (Dubuque, IA, 1984)

P.F. Berliner: Thinking in Jazz: the Infinite Art of Improvisation (Chicago and London, 1994)

B. Kernfeld: What to Listen for in Jazz (New Haven, CT, and London, 1995)

I.T. Monson: Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction (Chicago, 1996)