Conference Abstracts

INVITED LECTURES

The Right Changes: How Fake Books Have Altered

Jazz
Barry Kernfeld
State College, USA
Formal analysis of the pianist Art Tatum's treatment of harmony has provided perhaps the
best scholarly documentation of one of the bedrock principles of professional jazz performance: that the notion of a "correct" harmonization of a standard jazz tune--or (to put
it in jazz parlance) the notion of playing the "right" changes--is patently absurd. Tatum
instead made the process of ever-changing re-harmonization into one of the highest possible expressions of musical art. For him, and for countless other masters of jazz, there is
simply no such thing as the "right" changes. And yet in recent decades, as the genre has
altered to admit a huge new demographic category of musicians who are learning to play
jazz from books, the idea of the "right" changes has acquired some substantial meaning,
particularly as a consequence of the dissemination of The Real Book, a notated collection
of shorthand scores (a "fake book") which serves as a guide to performance.
Kernfeld offers a brief and casual survey of a few photocopied examples illustrating
the principal types of fake books, the history of their emergence, and the musical qualities
which made The Real Book special for its time. The historical aspect of this narrative remains heavily shrouded, owing to the understandable unwillingness of witnesses and
participants to discuss the book's origins as a bootleg product.
Recorded excerpts provide examples of divergent approaches to three especially simple and straightforward phrases: one from the popular song On a Clear Day, whereby different versions of the "right" changes happily coexist; another from Herbie Hancock's
jazz standard Dolphin Dance, which arguably exemplifies a contrast between the "right"
changes (a sustained note which Hancock obviously intended) and the "wrong" changes
(a distinctly different sustained note mis-transcribed into The Real Book); and another
from Eddie Cleanhead Vinson's Four, in which the widespread acceptance of a mistranscribed regularization of the tune's opening harmonies (as recorded by Miles Davis)
has caused many fake-book oriented players to feel that the "wrong" changes sound better
than the "right" ones. From these minutely focused examples, Kernfeld leaps into broad

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speculations regarding (a) the opposing paths of jazz and classical genres in dealing with
conceptions of the definitive in music, and (b) the implications for professionals and students, whereby the splendor of the democratization of jazz performance is perhaps
clouded by the threat of its fossilization.

Structural Development in the Improvisational

Technique of Miles Davis
Franz Kerschbaumer
University of Music and Dramatic Arts Graz
Graz, Austria
From 1947 to 1991 Miles Davis, both in terms of his personal style and the style of his
ensem bles, occupied the foremost position in the development of jazz as initiator of cool
jazz and, to a smaller extent, of hard bop, the modal style (modal playing) and fusion
music. His first two years in New York (1945/46) showed a Davis who was anxious to
learn and whose style was influenced by the most important modern jazz musicians of
bebop. Around the middle of 1947, Davis first arrived at his own "cool" personal style
and expression. This style period witnessed the rise of the Miles Davis Capitol Orchestra
which was significant for the entire history of jazz. The compositional innovations of the
Capitol Orchestra were introduced by three members of the band. In the early fifties,
Davis turned to a simple, melodious improvisation style which served as a model for the
West-Coast jazz. In 1954 Davis developed his second distinct personal style of
improvisation which was characterized by his use of contrasting vital stylistic elements of
hard bop and cool jazz. Like the preceding periods, this style tonally conformed to the
bebop style. While Davis continued to adhere to the rhythms and the phrasing technique
of that style, the year 1958 marked the initial replacement of the permanent pure
interpretations of the functional harmonic models by scales that were used as the
foundations of both the improvisations and the written themes, and/or by Davis'
simultaneous use of harmonic and scale improvisation. Davis was the first to be
consistent in his use of the so-called modal style (modal playing), which relied
exclusively upon scales and which other musicians had occasionally utilized in some of
their pieces. This principle, together with the blues tonality, constituted the tonal basis of
Davis' music that reached well into the late sixties. The advanced emancipation of
dissonance which characte rized the Davis ensembles during the mid-sixties was followed
by a recording made in 1968 which included a triadic, "more consonant" tonality and
rhythmic elements from rock- and pop-music which lead to fusion music. Both
components were further developed during the seventies when Davis expanded his
specific ensemble style which formerly had formed a unified whole by integrating
electrically amplified instruments, African percussion rhythms, free jazz elements,

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elements from Third World music and avant-garde chord-planes. Chromatic and dense
rhythmic lines in his improvisations and (partially) themes are typical in the seventies (up
to 1975) and furthermore in the eighties. In this periode the musical structures and the
playing of the rhythm section consisted of more musical elements from modern popmusic, soul-music, funk, reggae, zouk, and hip-hop. Davis last recordings contain and
unite traditional (vocal) blues recordings and/or rap interpretations with his specific
improvisational technique.

An Alternative Approach to Teaching Improvisation:

The Trans-stylistic Method
Edward W. Sarath
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, USA
At The University of Michigan, I have developed a system of improvisation study which
differs considerably from the typical approaches, which are usually confined to jazz,
which tend to prevail. I call my method a "trans-stylistic approach", since it is rooted in
processes which can manifest in a variety of stylistic expressions.
The essential characteristics of this approach are as follows:
First, its sequential structure is rooted in the idea that the generation of materials must
preceed analytical/theoretical considerations. Alfred North Whitehead stated that "A
stage of precision is barren without a prior stage of romance". We begin with the creative
act, and then refine the resultant ideas which begin to emerge. Therefore, the system begins with improvisations with elements such as density, dynamics, register, silence, motivic development, pulse, timbre, texture. These improvisations can manifest in a wide
array of tonal/modal/atonal pitch structures.
The second phase of the system involves modal improvising, beginning with the minor pentatonic scale, and then moving into the diatonic modes (e.g. dorian, phrygian,
etc.).
The third phase of the system deals with tonality, in which case I use standard jazz
progressions and rhythmic time-feels.
Concepts from phase one are combined with phases two and three, so for example, on
modal and tonal progressions, musicians are also utilizing concepts such as density, motivic development, registral shifts, etc.
I have found this approach to be useful in two ways. First, it is an ideal entryway for
classical musicians who have never improvised. Often, when classical musicians finally
muster the courage to try improvising, they are thrust into a format where they confront
jazz chords and scales and time feels. Combined with the challenges of actually generating musical ideas without notated music, these musicians are often simply overwhelmed
by the task.

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A second benefit of this approach is that the very same exercises which serve to initiate classical musicians in improvising also serve to expand the boundaries of advanced
jazz improvisers.
I use these techniques in both sorts of formats. I believe this sort of method is important given today's very eclectic musical landscape, where boundaries between styles are
increasingly dissolving, and musicians need to be able to integrate and adapt to a wide
array of influences.

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PAPERS

Interdisiplinary Perspectives on Improvisation.

Do not fear mistakes. There are none. Miles Davis
Bjrn Alterhaug
University of Trondheim, NTNU
Dragvoll, Norway
To the extent that we are unpredictable, we improvise. Improvisation is thus central to the
formation of new ideas in all areas of human endeavour. Improvisation reachs far beyond
the territory of music, and it is always present where people meet. It can be argued that
improvisation is one of the fields of knowledge and experience which all culture share.
This project seeks adequate forms of descriptions, which reflect the richness of the
prosesses that are active during improvisation. One of the main purposes for this project
will be to investigate a perspective in which the intellectual and the emotional are interactive in different social contexts. This would build on the early and varied development
of the individual. With that perspective improvisation becomes an important factor in the
development of the person, adding to an active process of creating consciousness; a process where the the individual is made aware of his own potentialities and sees these in relation to the connection they are part of.
These studies could illuminate creative understanding of "the other" within a context
of creating consciousness. One important spin-off of this project will be the production of
pedagogic material to encourage better environments of learning and personal growth.

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Historical and Conceptual Aspects of Free Jazz

Performance & Composition with Focus on
Relationships to Preceding Jazz Styles
Jay CJ Chiarito Mazzarella
University of Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany
This paper demonstrates the significance of conceptual aspects of free jazz in relation to
preceding jazz styles focusing on how free jazz musicians modified them and used them
as a basis for performance and composition. As a frame of reference, the discussion is
based upon the intentions and beliefs of free jazz musicians as they articulated them in
their own words and supported by analysis and comparison of musical examples.
The term "free jazz," used synonymously with "avant-garde," "the New Thing," "experimental," and "anti-jazz," was defined by critics in reference to a developing jazz style
that appeared publicly around 1958, and gained widespread usage with the release of
Coleman's recording "Free Jazz" [Atlantic, 1364] in 1960. Throughout the years, these
terms have typically been used incorrectly, suggesting a lack of understanding of the free
jazz style. For example, many scholars, critics and musicians adhere to a definition of
free jazz similar to one used by ethnomusicologist Paul F. Berliner: "a phase of the late
fifties and early sixties reflecting the ideological rejection of former jazz conventions"
[Berliner, 1994: p.122].
This definition is inadequate as it fails to recognize many historical and conceptual
aspects of the free jazz style. Some, if not most of the conventions of bebop were rejected. However, free jazz musicians did adopt conventions of earlier, pre-bop styles and
modified them or created new ones based upon them.
To better understand the free jazz style and how it is related to preceding styles, it is
necessary to put critics and criticism aside and deal with free jazz and free jazz musicians
on their own terms--in words and music. It is perhaps one of the few ways that we can
better understand what Ornette Coleman meant when he stated "I think basically that I try
to stay with the traditional concept of being an improviser without having to rely upon
Tin Pan Alley structure," Albert Ayler's notion "we're trying to do for now what people
like Louis Armstrong did at the beginning," and what Archie Schepp meant by "The new
music [free jazz] reaches back to the roots of what jazz was originally."

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Solveigs Other Songs: the Jazz Worldss

Indebtedness to Edward Grieg
James W. Dickenson
University of Salford
Sr-Fron, Norway

1 Historical Scenario:
Prior to about 1950, the stylistic development of Scandinavian jazz was steered almost
exclusively from the United States, with contributions from Great Britain and France.
Musicians in Europe listened to gramophone recordings made in the States, visited New
York by working as musicians on the transatlantic liners, and attented concerts in their
home countries given by visiting American artists. The decline in fashion of the swing
movement, overlapped by a wave of bebop, and a change in the principal function of jazz
away from music for dancing towards music for listening was synonymous with a socalled intellectualising of jazz. The last-named trend stemmed partly from (1) the type
of musician, often conservatoire-trained and technically accomplished, coming on to the
jazz scene in the late 40s and early 50s and (2) an interest in musical form and structure
which neither slavishly followed the earlier patterns of 12- and 16-bar blues and 32-bar
ballad sequences nor employed a preponderance of 4/4 and 12/8 time. Form and structure
played increasingly important roles in jazz composition, and the colour-palettes of individual instruments were increasingly exploited.

2 Dear Old Stockholm melting-pot for a new direction

in jazz:
Sweden assumed the role of leader in the North European school of jazz. Economic, social and historical conditions were right for the establishing of a centre of exellence in
Stockholm which raised the citys jazz status to a level which came to rival Los Angeles
as a performing and recording centre. The 50s came to be labelled the golden age of
Swedish jazz, and among its main actors was a hard core of indigenous jazz musicians
schooled principally in swing and bebop but havingtheir roots in the rich Scandinavian
folk music tradition. The latter served as the wellspring for the establishing of an indigenous school of arranging and performing which history has shown to have owed more to
Griegs classical example - principally harmonically through his reworking of folk music
than to any previously existing jazz tradition. These musicians included (inter alia) the
Swedes Arne Domnrus, Bengt-Arne Wallin, Lars Gullin, Bengt Hallberg, Jan Johansson, Rune Gustafsson and Georg Riedel, and visiting Americans Quincy Jones, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Stan Getz, Don Cherry and others whose influence has established itself
via recordings. It is of some historical interest that Griegs own homeland was hardly represented in this circle to begin with, but some years later would come to make important
contributions to the genre.
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The presentation will be illustrated by the author humself at the piano, and the instrumental content will be illustarted by CD recordings, with the starting point Bltoner fra
Troldhaugen freely after Edvard Grieg by Arne Domnrus Quartet (1986).

Forms of Improvisation in Norwegian Jazz

a Presentation of a Post-Doctoral Project in
Musicology
Tor Dybo
The Centre for Northern Norwegian Folk Music Research
Nesna College
Nesna, Norway
Jazz improvisation is at the starting point open and can develop in different directions
with its corresponding variables. Within each jazz style there has to be a development of
its own improvisation practice. In short we know little about the starting point for jazz
improvisation.
With this working hypothesis as a point of departure this project focuses on improvisation in music as a particular form by investigating different jazz styles in Norway. In
order to gain more knowledge about particular forms in improvisational music, a selection of jazz styles such as free jazz, jazz rock, standard jazz, and ethnic jazz are
examined in a comparative study. The selections are taken from contemporary jazz life in
Norway. Through an exploratory research process several case studies are described and
analyzed in terms of the particular innovations found within each improvisational style in
various Norwegian jazz musicians and groups like Terje Rypdal, Karin Krog, Arild Andersen, Egil Kapstad, Bjrn Johansen, Bjrn Alterhaug, Bjarne Nerem, Einar Iversen,
Blow Out, Moose Loose and others. Within each improvisational form the project focused on questions of communication processes, strategical choices during improvisation,
sound and new music technology.

Jazz Music Research within the Paradigm of

Understanding
ke W. Edfeldt
Stocholms University
Enskede, Sweden

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Generally speaking musicology is a science for specialists more than most other scientific
undertakings. Layman are definitely kept outsiders by their lack of basic knowledge in
accoustics, rhytmics, harmony and/or musical form.
In a stricter sense human interest aspects of the musical sciences has so far been covered by behavioural applications such as music sociology and music anthropology. These
cross-disciplinary academic efforts, however, have never seemed to gain much support
nor acclaim from orthodox musicologists. And besides - they both totally miss the central
point of human interest in musicology, i.e. how human beings experience music or expressed in a more every day way What does people want music for?
Here, it is of utmost importance immediately to state that this question does not only
concern individuals listening to music as distinguished from the performers. This kind of
roll analysis has already been accomplished by music sociologists.
What I wish behavioural scientists to set about studying is how both listeners and performers experience music - and in this connection of course specifically jazz music. Behavioural scientists have the methods for such research and some of us the real interest in
it as well. So now let us see how this kind of musical research might be performed within
the specific field of jazz musicology. I will develop this suggestion by working my way
through a series of methodological questions.
1:o

It is possible to perform inductive studies in the true sense of this concept concerning individual experiences of jazz music?
Answer:
Yes, on condition that we work within the paradigm of understanding and
not within the one of explanation.
Within the paradigm of understanding we are allowed to study strategic instead of representative, random samples. This of course goes together with the fact that we are not at
all interested in making prognoses for population traits of any kind but in understanding
what interview subjects say about their experiences of jazz music and why they say so.
2:o

In which ways is it possible to obtain information about an individuals

experiences generally and here especially about his or her experiences of jazz
music?
Answer:
In methodological substudies, primarily during the nineteen seventies, it
has been proven that in research work based on written statements not only the
tenor of the answers but also the very content might be highly influenced by the
ideas and wordings of the questioner. Written questionnaires are thus inappropriate.
But also in conventional interview situations the interviewers general perception and understanding within a subject area and specifically concerning an interview object might
without the interviewers knowing or even willing it render the outcome of an interview
partly or totally misleading.
Non-directive and not even semi-structured interviews are thus required, i.e. free conversations in which the interview leader is not supposed to put any direct questions to the

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interviewers. He and she is only allowed to go back anew to statements or thoughts which
an interviewee already has brought into the conversation.
3:o

Is it possible to collect and document both musicians and laymens experiences as phenomenographic descriptions?
Answer:
Yes. With most laymen this is not a problem since that is the most natural
way for a layman to refer to musical experiences what so ever. But when it comes
to the musicians descriptions it depends upon the interview leader to secure both
the - most often than not primarily given technical description and a parallel phenomenographic answer.
This is even more necessary and interesting as such a double reference material will make
it possible for the researcher to bring clarity not only into the laymens reported experiences of jazz music but also to the significance of the expert language used amongst jazz
musicians.
4:o

Is it also possible to communicate this kind of research material to other

individuals, both experts and laymen?
Answer:
Yes but then we must once again go back to the general assumptions
which functions as a general basis within the paradigm of understanding.
According to these the behavioural researcher does not possess a professional methodology to organize and interpret the reports collected from any group of subjects. Instead he
or she is fully aware of the fact that only within the reporting individuals structure of
knowledge or expressed in a more generalized way only when knowing the reporting
individuals earlier experiences in widest possible meaning, it is conceivable for the researcher properly to understand the sayings and doings of any other individual.
Looking at the same problem from an other individuals point of view, an experts
stated interpretation does not make the intended sense, except for the very unlikely case
that the expert and the reading or listening individual share an almost identical set of earlier experiences.
Every expert interpretation of a given research material ought to be followed or preceded by a full citation of the material thus interpreted. And that is exactly what we are
doing within the Swedish Jazz Documentation Project which started January 1, 1999 on
research grants from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and with a Governmental grant for our music productions.
All relevant material from our research work will thus be issued as CD-ROMs to the
general public in parallel with the periodically spaced CD-albums of Swedish jazz music
from the 1947 through 1967.
Experts and interested laymen alike will not have to accept the project experts interpretations. They are forced - or if you so wish allowed to procure their own versions
concerning both the original actors sayings and doings and the project experts interpre-

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11

tations. They are thus given opportunity to produce a much deeper understanding of any
given material than otherwise would be possible.
This might by the way be fully in line with old Nordic ideas about democratic society information, a state of things which does not make such a type of behavioural research1 methodology one bit less valuable.

Processes of Cross-Fertilisation in Jazz at the End of

the Millenium
Espen Eriksen
University of Oslo
Oslo, Norway
Defining jazz stylistically has never been without its difficulties; this is because jazz
functions as a generic term for a series of different styles and idioms. One of the reasons
accounting for this is located in the changing role of jazz within its relationship to popular
music. In fact, its acceleration into other forms since the 1960s has reached a peak in the
past decade, such as acid jazz, club dance, drum 'n bass, garage, speed.
This paper attempts to investigate the processes of cross-fertilisation that occur between jazz and popular music styles. Since this study embraces such an extensive field
geographically, historically, and stylistically, I have restricted my research to the Norwegian jazz scene of the1990s. This is particularly in reference to dominant trends within
the crossover tendencies of jazz and popular music in Norway, which has led to a fragmentation of modes of expression, aesthetics and definitions. A central problematic revolves around the question of what constitutes jazz at the end of the 20th century, and
which stylistic directions might be pursued in the future.
My argument here is that the development of jazz in the 1990s needs to be seen within
a broad context. Such a context is identified for the sake of this paper by three strands:
historical, stylistic, and technological. Within this framework I will present examples of
earlier instances of cross-fertilisation in Miles Davis. In addition, I will provide an analysis, which reveals the effects of these processes from a stylistic point of view.
The content of this analysis highlights a couple of trends in cross-fertilisation, including
reference to Bugge Wesseltofts New Conception of Jazz. This is situated within the ongoing debates concerning issues of production and studio processing.
The main aim of this research study is to demonstrate the implications of crossfertilisation as a pathway through to redefining the meaning of jazz as a serious area of
1

A representative example of this kind of behavioural research, applied to another subject outside
psychology is Brand Visibility, Helsingfors 1998, Caroline Stenbackas doctors dissertaion in Economy
from The Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsingfors.

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study. My intention here is to throw some light on the ever-changing role of jazz from a
critical perspective. The results emanating from this project thus intend to stimulate further debates surrounding the meaning of jazz on the various levels I have described
above.

Understanding Jazz by Statistics and Models?

Case: The History of Jazz Tenor Saxophone
Black Artists the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s
with Emphasis on 1945-1949
Jan Evensmo
Norwegian Jazz Archives
Oslo, Norway
The paper is based on the current work on identifying all existing recorded material of
historical jazz tenor saxophone, using my well-known solography approach for critical
evaluations. The three first decades of jazz have been searched, and close to 10 000 solo
performances have been found.
The point of my paper is to show that this database can be used for many purposes
highlighting aspects of jazz in new, illustartives manners. Examples are:
- Statistics showing the actual development of jazz tenorsax soloing, ex the difference in
solo playing time between musicians and between time periods.
-Multivariate methods, such as Multidimensional scaling, Cluster analysis and Factor
analysis, applied to similarity and quality evaluations.

Improvisation and Quasi-Improvisation

The Alteration of Chord-based and Scale-based
Techniques in George Harrison's Guitar Solos
Based on the 12-bar Blues Progression
Yrj Heinonen
University of Jyvskyl
Jyvskyl, FINLAND

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13

The aim of the paper is to explore strategies used in performing a guitar solo based on the
12-bar blues progression. A distinction is made between improvised and quasiimprovised solos. Here the term 'improvised solo' refers to the immediate creation of an
entire solo as it is performed, whereas the term 'quasi-improvised solo' refers to the act of
performing a beforehand-learned solo with or without elaboration or variation. Cognitive
schema theory forms the theoretical foundation of the study. A schema is assumed to activate in two stages: in the first stage a general outline is activated and in the second stage
this outline is elaborated. Similar two-stage activation of a schema is also assumed to be
apparent in improvisation: first the notes belonging to the underlying chord are activated,
whereas the other notes of the scale are activated only later, that is, as the improvisation
unfolds in time.
Seven improvised and seven quasi-improvised guitar solos based on the 12-bar blues
progression, played by George Harrison, were examined. The frequency of each note of
the chromatic scale was counted separately for each 1+12 bar (an upbeat + the 12-bar
progression) of each solo. These frequencies were compared on the one hand to a model
representing the underlying chord (major triad + minor 7th) and on the other to two models representing the so-called blues scale. One of the blues scale models was taken to represent the pentatonic blues scale (1, 3b, 4, 5, 7b), whereas the other was taken to represent
a variant of the chromatic blues scale (1, 2, 3b, 3, 4, 5b, 5, 6, 7b). The playing technique
was regarded as chord-based, if the data (the frequencies of the notes) correlated best
with the underlying chord model. Correspondingly, if the data correlated best with one of
the blues scale models, it was regarded as scale-based.
In the improvised solos Harrison clearly prefers the pentatonic blues scale. Correlation values between the data and the pentatonic model were indeed quite high for each
bar of the 12-bar progression. There were, however, a few exceptions to the dominance of
the pentatonic scale: (1) the very beginning (upbeat) correlated best with the tonic chord,
(2) the ending of the first phrase (bar 4) correlated best with the chromatic blues scale,
and (3) the beginning of the second phrase (bars 5-6) correlated best with the underlying
chord (IV7b). From bar 7 up to the end of the solo Harrison relies again on the pentatonic
blues scale. In the beginning of the third phrase (bars 9-10) the correlation between the
data and the underlying chord model was at the lowest but increased towards the end of
the phrase. In the quasi-improvised solos a highly consistent alteration between chordbased and scale-based techniques was found. In the beginning of each phrase (bars 1, 5-6,
and 9-10) Harrison prefers the chord-based technique, whereas in the end of the phrases
he relies on the scale-based technique (pentatonic blues scale). In the beginning of the
third phrase (bar 9) the correlation between the data and the pentatonic blues scale model
was at the lowest (in fact, it was negative) but increased again towards the end of the
phrase. The chromatic blues scale do not play any significant role in the quasi-improvised
solos, although there is a slight peak in the end of the second phrase (bar 8).
The tendency to prefer the chord-based technique in the beginning and the scale-based
technique in the end of each phrase, which is characteristic of the quasi-improvised solos,
fits well to the notion of schema activation in two stages. It also implies that in these solos the schema activation is cyclical, each cycle lasting one phrase of 4 bars. The case of

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the improvised solos is more complicated, although also here a similar four-bar cycle is
evident. In the first phrase of the improvised solos there is a three-stage progression from
the use of the underlying chord via the use of the pentatonic blues scale to the use of the
chromatic blues scale as the basis of the improvisation. As to these solos, the schema of
the first phrase tends to activate in three stages instead of two. In the second phrase a
two-stage schema activation similar to the one found in the quasi-improvised solos, involving a change from chord-based to scale-based technique, is evident. In the third
phrase the improvisation is based mainly on the pentatonic blues scale. However, the end
of the phrase implies a reverse order of the schema activation compared to the quasiimprovised solos and the first two phrases of the improvised solos: what is activated first
is the scale and only then the activation of the underlying chord begins to increase.
It may be concluded that Harrison's quasi-improvised solos are more rigid more
schematic, as it were than his improvised solos, which are evidently more sketchy. In
spite of this sketchiness, also the improvised solos show a cyclical schema activation
similar to the one evident in the quasi-improvised solos. The main difference between
these two kinds of solos seems to be largely in the fact that in quasi-improvised solos
each cycle is in principle identical (involving a change from chord-based to scalebased technique), whereas in improvised solos each cycle is different from the others.
Cognitive schema theory proves to be a relevant framework in studying both quasiimprovised and improvised solos based on the 12-bar blues progression.

Functional Theory and Jazz Analysis

Juha Henriksson
Finish Jazz & Pop Arhive
Helsinki, Finland
The purpose of my presentation is to give an overview of a new method for the harmonic
and melodic analysis of jazz, which I developed in my PhD dissertation "Chasing the
Bird. The Functional Harmony in Charlie Parker's Bebop Themes", and to discuss the
benefits and shortcoming of the new method.
The analytical method is based on the theory of harmonic function which was originally developed by Hugo Rieman. I have mainly used Diether de la Motte's notation, but
the chord notes are numbered in accordance with common jazz practice (i.e., numbers 9,
11 and 13 are used). I have also introduced new functional symbol for the various dominant substitute chords (DE) and for the second degree of the minor mode (sg).
The major benefit of the functional method, when compared to the Roman numeral
system, is the labelling of substitute chords, especially the dominant substitutes, since
Roman numerals do not necessarily reveal the function performed by the various harmonies. The analytical thinking of the scholar is clearly visible when he uses the functional
symbols because he must always decide which functional category the chord presents.

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Other benefits of the method are the notation of third-related chords (i.e., the parallel
chords and the opposite parallel chords) and the flexible notation of secondary chords,
such as secondary dominants. The functional symbols for third-related chords are especially useful for analysing tuned which are based on different tonal centres separated by a
third, such as "Giant Steps".
The functional method turned out to be somewhat problematic for analysing parallel
chord sequences. In addition, it was sometimes difficult to decide what chords the melody
line implies. Nevertheless, in most cases the functional theory proved very useful for
analysing bebop.
I should though be noted that no analytical method can be total, that is, capable of
covering all aspects of a certain musical style. The functional method is harmonyoriented. For the analysis of rhythmic aspects or the curvilinear designs of melody, the
functional methoshould be complemented with other analytical methods.

Getting Sheiked
Female Sexuality and Jazz in Twenties Australia.
Bruce Johnson
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia
This paper emerges from research for forthcoming books, one on Australia's transition to
modernity, and the other including a study of diasporic jazz in several countries. The argument in this instance is that women were able to use examples of low culture specifically jazz and film to become active and significant producers of modernity in their negotiations with more conservative social forces. Through 'jazzing', modern women emancipated themselves from Victorian constraints and became in many senses more active
than men as producers of jazz. This discussion will examine the role of women in diasporic jazz in the twenties using Australian case studies. The presentation will include the
earliest surviving film footage of an Australian jazz band.
There are two stages in this paper:
1. It is argued that the character of both jazz and silent film in the twenties enabled
women to interact with them as producers rather than just consumers. In the first place,
more women performed in jazz or related improvisational practices than at any time
since. In addition, the meaning of the word jazz has profoundly altered since the twenties.
'The Jazz' was imagined and practised as a dance a process in which active participation
is the actual condition of its consumption. Dancing, and specifically 'producing' jazz in
the twenties was thus not only a more active and democratic experience than other embodiments of mass culture such as film, (the object of relatively passive spectacle), but it
was especially open to women. In addition, however, its convergence with film strength-

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ened the feminised connection, since women represented the great majority of audiences,
as well as being prominent in the mechanisms of silent film presentation.
2. The paper concludes with a case study which articulates this convergence, a 1926
silent film called Greenhide in which, a young woman tries to 'jazz' her way out of the the
past and into the possibilities of the future. Her appropriation of musical and cinematic
(inter) texts reminds us of ambiguities in the constellation of mass culture, gender politics, and jazz. Mass and popular culture like film and jazz are significant sites for the articulation of emancipated modernity in Australia. in the negotiations between women's
emancipation and a conservative patriarchy, mass culture, jazz is the site of modernity,
the means through which a liberated future is imagined and acted out.
This paper is developed at much greater length in the book by Bruce Johnson, The
Inaudible Music, scheduled for publication in 1999 by Currence Press, Sydney.

Outside Or Beyond?
Characteristics of Paul Bleys Piano Playing
Franz Krieger
University for Music And Dramatic Arts Graz
Graz, Austria
"Totally free time, harmony & melody was too radical, even for me, & I was searching
for a way to relate free playing to a steady rhythm section when one night Ornette Coleman & Don Cherry sat in with my band at the Hillcrest Club. I recognized, instantly that
A A B A was over, to be replaced by A to Z." (Paul Bley)
The Pianist Paul Bley, who was born in Montreal in 1932, is mainly a melodist. His
playing is logical and economical, it is principally the expressive touching-mode of his
right hand that is really acting.
In 1950 Bley moved to New York for his studies at the Juillard School of Music from
1950 to 1954. In New York he met with Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Lee Konitz and
Lennie Tristano. It was predominantly the latter who influenced Bley through his outstandingly harmonic-melodic modernity. (If you look back in jazz history you will recognize Tristano as the starting point and the basis of what in todays jazz playing mode is
called "outgoing" or "outside": outside the conventional scale, the conventional chord
changes, the conventional rhythmic framework a playing mode that reached one climax
with Keith Jarrett.)
Paul Bleys first released recordings from the year 1953 still show a pianist that is bebop-oriented and whose play is, for the most part, retarded. In the second half of the fifties, however, he extends the harmonic-melodic possibilities of his play more and more
(dissonance-emancipation). This occurs mainly from the time of his co-operation with
Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry (1958) and later with Jimmy Giuffre (since 1961).
From the point of view of jazz history, Bley thus formed one of the two essential devel-

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opmental directions leading to Free Jazz of the sixties, and subsequently he co-shaped the
lyrical main course in Free Jazz.
The investigation on hand concentrates on the question, which means of playing Bley
uses in his "outgoing". At the beginning of this musical analysis stood a selection of more
than 900 recordings by Paul Bley. A number of them have been chosen for transcriptions,
which are now the basis for the analysis and for the presentation of this research. These
recordings are musical peculiarities by Paul Bley, which characterize his prominence in
jazz history more closely.

Prez An Original Hip Cat

Seppo Lemponen
University of Jyvskyl
Vaasa, Finland
Tenor saxophone player Lester Willis Young (1909-1959) was a unique and original musician. His style was an important link between Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker, and
his revolutionary way of playing added an extra dimension to language of jazz. For example, the searing, probing lines of John Coltraine and Ornette Coleman are directly descended from his rhythmically liberated solos. Miles Davis is also likely to have been influenced by Youngs use of space and the length he left between his improvised phrases.
He used to express his philosophy of music and life with expressions like to each his
own, gotta be original, and you just fight your life. And his advice to young musicians was to learn the lyrics of the song they paly to tell a story.
Young represented a new kind of person in the American community, which later
evolved as something called cool or hip. Like his music, he expressed himself with a
minimum of gestures and words, some of which are still the common property of all jazz
musicians and recur as model formulas in their communication. He spoke his own variation of the most innovative argot of the urban ghetto peppered with personal and musical
references. Even though much of Youngs coded language has vanished, it has been a
model for insiders, the boppers and hipsters of the 1940s, the beatniks and hippies of the
following decades, and even the devotees of rap and hip-hop culture with its varied forms
of today.

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On the Meaning of Africa in Contemporary Jazz Research

Kjell Oversand
Norwegian University of Technology and Science, NTNU
Dragvoll, Norway
The present paper takes as its starting point both my own fieldwork in Gambian Mandinka, Wollof and Fulla musical cultures focussed on the improvisational practise of the
Griot, as well as new research in West African oracy, dance, theatre, literature and popular music. This interdisciplinary body of research afiliated to historiography, literary criticism, cultural studies, anthropology and ethnomusicology is both deconstructive of colonial and eurocentric representations and empowering to African, African-American and
European performers and researchers. The intention of taking the practice of the WestAfrican Griot as point of reference instead of the Parry/ Lord bard (formulaic improvisation), is both to get a better model for understanding African forms of improvisational
technique and a better cultural context for evaluating the ethic and esthetic importance of
improvisation. Through some detailed analysis of performances of improvised praise
lyrics accompanied with the talking drum (Tama) and improvised narration performced
with Cora music, the paper suggests some analytical models which might enrich
Gatessignifyinparadigm of improvisational practice inherited from Africa.

Towards a Perceptual Theory of Bebop Harmony

Richard Parncutt
University of Graz
Graz, Austria
Like classical harmony, bebop is based on root progressions in tonal contexts; but the basic sonority is the tetrad (not the triad), and functional but unresolved dissonances are
commonplace. A theory of harmonic perception is proposed that covers both classical and
bebop harmony. It is based on a pitch model developed by an electronic engineer and
psychoacoustician who is also an accomplished bebop pianist (Terhardt et al., 1982). The
theory applies to any tone simultaneity, whether musical or not.
A musical adaptation of Terhardt's theory (Parncutt, 1988) classifies the intervals
above a root candidate into "root supports" (P1, P5, M3, m7, M2) and "root detractors"
(the other 7 chromatic intervals). Root candidates are then weighted relative to each other
to predict the sonority's root, as well as its scale compatibility. Effects of voicing and tonal context are treated separately (Parncutt, 1997): the bass is usually a more likely root
candidate than the other notes, unless the listener "knows" that it has deliberately been

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omitted (pianist's left hand in a bebop trio); and stable notes in a given tonality (tonic,
dominant, etc.) are more likely to function (or be perceived) as roots than other notes.
The theory is consistent with the idea of additive harmony and rhythm. But perceptual
analysis of "bitonal" chords typically reveals more than two possible roots, just as jazz
polyrhythms can generate more than two possible underlying pulses. A perceptual theory
that explains preferences for specific chord voicings in specific styles does not yet exist.
Such a theory could incorporate a musical adaptation of Terhardt's theory in which different octave registers are treated separately, rather than as octave-equivalent (Parncutt,
1989), and may also need to account for roughness perception (e.g., Plomp & Levelt,
1965) and other effects of pitch proximity.
The theory of pitch-class sets (Forte, 1973) allows for all possible chords in the chromatic scale to be enumerated. Using models such as thosee described, these many possibilities may then be weighted relative to each other according to specific perceptual
and/or stylistic criteria, so as to predict their frequency of occurrence in music.

Sociological Research of the Contemporary Jazz

Scene in the Czech Republic
Jaroslav Pasmik
Charles University
Prague, the Czech Republic
After so called "velvet revolution" in the Czech Republic in 1989, when the communist
regime had collapsed, a free development of the society was made possible. In decade
1989 - 99 the society have got through significant changes which, of course, have had a
big influence on the jazz scene in the Czech Republic.
My paper is based on an empirical survey and analyses of the jazz scene in that last
decade. I have focused on following problems:
institutional changes and its influence on the Czech jazz scene, The Czech Jazz Society,
new and old record labels
change of he social status of jazz musicians, before and after 1989
conflict of generations on the czech jazz scene, drive of young generation of jazz musicians
relation of a centre and a periphery, Prague and then the others
typology of jazz clubs in the Czech Republic, status, owners, places
typology of jazz groups in the Czech Republic, repertoire, instruments
boom of jazz in Prague after 1989
specifics of the "Czech jazz", the term as a pejorative, neutral or meliorative?
question of originality of the Czech jazz production, mainly in 1989-99

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Sponsors: The Czech Music Found Foundation

Music Club U Malho Glena Karmelick 23, Prague 1, Mal Strana

Brecker and Patterns:

An Analysis of Michael Brecker's Melodic and
Instrumental Devices.
Ari Poutiainen
Sibelius Academi
Helsinki, Finland
Only few scientific studies or articles exist on Michael Brecker's improvisational style. I
have approached Michael Brecker's style through a detailed analysis of his solos in the
compositions Straphangin, Nothing Personal, and Peep. The approach to the analysis is
similar to that which jazz musicians use themselves. The analysis is based on selected
audio material and transcriptions. David Baker's "Giants of Jazz" series was applied as a
model for the form of the study. The applied theoretical framework of contemporary jazz
improvisation is based on David Liebman's "A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony
and Melody", and various other resources.
In my study, the aim has been to define and describe certain melodic and instrumental
devices which are characteristic of Brecker's expression. In the analysis, I have given the
attention to the melodic devices which are based on the diminished, altered, pentatonic,
and augmented scales, and on the superimposed "Giant Steps" chord progressions. For
the instrumental devices, the focus of the analysis is on alternate fingerings, multiphonics,
and the fingering mannerisms. The use of these devices was divided into functional and
non-functional. The three solos did not offer the opportunity to discuss some of the devices and their usage deeply enough, and therefore, I have traced further examples from
Brecker's other performances. Through the analysis I have discovered that most of the
chosen devices appear as patterns. The patterns which are based on the aforementioned
melodic and instrumental devices define a characteristic part of Michael Brecker's melodic vocabulary. In addition to the discussion of such devices, I have made some additional comments about Brecker's chromaticism and his playing inside the changes.

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Teaching Improvisation: a Case Study.

Bertil Sundin
Malm Academy of Music
Lund University
Stockholm, Sweden
When discussing improvisation the emphasis is usually on some musical genre, like jazz,
rock or "free improvisation". The late Swedish piano player and educator Jan Wallgren
worked out a different approach in using improvisation in music education. For him improvisation was a quality not confined to jazz or some other genre but a long multifaceted
tradition in different musical styles, from the music of the middle ages, over the baroque
and classicism to jazz and related musics, from ethnic/folk music to art music. In reestablishing the improvisational traditions of Europe, and the other continents he worked
out a study material to be used also by others. The embryo to it was used for the first time
in an international seminar in Stockholm 1979, "Ad Lib 79" with some 40 musicians
from different countries participating. The success of that seminar spurred Wallgren's
educational interests and he taught since then in different contexts, among them the Royal
Opera in Stockholm, different educational institutions and since the beginning of the 90s
at the Malm Academy of Music.
During the Spring Semester in 1996, Wallgren had for the first time the opportunity to
present his pedagogical ideas in full for students at the Malm Academy of Music. It was
also, regrettably, for the last time, as he passed away only a few weeks after the end of
the course. Fortunately some of the proceedings during the week were videotaped. Originally the study was designed as an evaluation study using interviews with the students (n
= 14). Because of a long period of the illness of the author that approach had to be tuned
down Instead "the Wallgren approach" will be studied through analyses and interpretations of written material by Wallgren himself and by interviews with students, musicians
and educators involved.
During the paper presentation an excerpt of the video recording will be shown. Different methodological problems, especially in generalizing results from teaching improvisation will be discussed.

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Jyvskyl Summer Jazz Conference 1999