Interaction in Jazz

Interaction

Goethe once wrote that listening to a string quartet was like listening to ‘four intelligent people conversing among themselves’.[1] I wonder what Goethe would make of a jazz quartet in full flow? 

A great communicator must be eloquent and empathetic, and above all, they must have something to say. In a memorable conversation, who says what and in what order they say it should feel spontaneous. It should be vibrant, vivid, intense and maybe even life changing. 

Scripted 

When a string quartet plays something composed by any of the greats, and when non-improvising performers from the classical music world approach any repertoire, their essential role (beyond getting to grips with the technical difficulties of performing the dots) is to bring the dots to life. In bringing it to life, it should feel like a moment of creation occurring there and then in front of the audience. 

In this respect, it’s useful to extend Goethe’s analogy. It may be a conversation between four intelligent people, but in fact they’re actors and they’ve rehearsed a brilliant script in advance of the performance. The composer has planned out how the work will unfold and who will say what and when they will say it. The voice of the composer speaks through the interpretation of the quartet, the subtle changes in tempo, the approach to dynamics and so on. Deep down we know that this conversation is scripted, and yet it is so well delivered that it feels real. It maybe even feels more memorable and vivid than real life, because the real world can often be so mundane.

Unscripted

With a jazz quartet, there is no script. The conversation is happening, and yet there has been a very different process for the actors to learn their lines. Jazz musicians in this context are more like improvising comedians. There is perhaps an outline of the conversation. There are familiar tropes, and the musicians all speak the same language (it’s much harder to have a conversation if you don’t speak the same language), but there are no notated lines. The voice of the composer may be present as the quartet perform a standard, but there are so many ways to interpret a tune and reinvent through arrangement and improvisation that it’s most likely the original composer wouldn’t recognise the work if they were able to hear it performed in this new incarnation. 

Jazz is all about interaction. 

How do jazz musicians interact? 

Once you know what to listen out for when listening to a jazz quartet, this is a little easier to spot. Yes there is a soloist, lets say a saxophonist (as it so often is) who stands at the front and takes the lead. But the accompanying musicians, let's say piano, bass and drums (as it so often is) are not merely an expensive backing track. 

For example, the drummer may react to rhythmic ideas in what the saxophonist plays (and in what the pianist and bassist play) and in turn may interject with new ideas that the soloist can develop. The piano player may mould the harmony in such a way as to support the saxophonist or even conversely to paint them into a corner, as if playing devil’s advocate in an increasingly heated debate. The bassist, with a dual role fundamental to both the harmonic and rhythmic elements of the performance, may make small changes in their approach that change the approach of all the other players in the band in turn. They might decide to play two in a bar instead of four, they might drop out entirely, and they might play inversions and reharmonizations of the usual harmonic routine or introduce a pedal point. Any such harmonic modifications from the bass are like an earthquake, the tremors resounding up the tower of harmony that sits on top of their line (in which tower the pianist and saxophonist humbly reside). 

Every player has a role and a voice within the quartet’s conversation. They need to have command of the language and an impressive aural perception to be able to process what’s going on around them, taking in the language and content of each sentence, but somehow also able to react in real time, often simultaneously to the meaning of each word, sentence and paragraph. The soloist tells a story, and that narrative develops in tandem with the interjections and suggestions of the rest of the band. This is a conversation happening in multiple dimensions. 

Three’s a crowd?

So how many people can have a conversation at one time? How big can the band be to maintain this interactive spirit and avoid chaos? Do we need to have a conch to pass around? 

It depends on the musicians involved and their ability to listen and react without ego – on the group's ability to be greater than the sum of its parts. In much jazz and improvised music for larger ensembles there is a conductor, and the detail of what is being performed has been planned and rehearsed in a way that feels less spontaneous than in small group jazz. 

The composer and arranger take on a whole new role in large ensemble jazz – and a great arranger is somehow present in the music, but they also leave enough space for the other voices of the ensemble to express themselves.

Interaction in self-isolation

So what about solo performances? Is there interaction if there’s only one performer? 

Perhaps the answer here is in the fifth member of any quartet. The silence in the room.

At the start and end of any performance, there is silence. This is the frame around the music. But there is silence also within the piece – a different sort of silence, or perhaps as Cage would prefer, a different sort of music? 

Actors give monologues of course – and in this sense a solo performance can still contain moments of interaction, it’s just less obvious to identify. There may be multiple voices in this monologue, multiple musical personalities realised by one performer. In a jazz solo performance, rather than an actor giving a monologue, it would be better to think of a comedian doing stand-up. But then, a comedian feeds off the laughter and applause of the audience. In so many great solo performances, the energy in the room is not generated by laughter or applause, if anything it’s an inversion of this. It’s an intensity of listening, a deafening silence into which the voice of the soloist is perceived with utmost clarity, the interaction is the meaning that echoes around the space. 

[1] https://www.thestrad.com/playing-and-teaching/string-quartets-were-likened-to-refined-conversation-during-the-18th-and-19th-centuries/5161.article