JAZZ IN CROATIA: ANALYZING IMPROVISATORY TECHNIQUES FROM STUDENT TO MASTER
Date
2020-05
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
During the summer of 2019, adult jazz students and professors from Israel and
America gathered for a week of performances, jam sessions, and masterclasses as part
of the first annual University of Delaware Jazz in Istria Festival. During the week, I
video recorded students on six jazz standards of varying styles, including a blues, a
ballad, and a fast swing, to document the theoretical knowledge and stylistic qualities
among developing student improvisers. I compared all recordings to those of famous
jazz musicians on historically significant recordings, such as Clifford Brown on
“Sandu” and Stan Getz on “Wave.” Understanding how student jazz improvisers
compare to masters will help students incorporate more qualities of professional
musicians into their playing and demonstrate the natural evolution of improvisational
development through transcription analysis. Assembling this framework can also
improve the pedagogical approaches of jazz educators and assist them in more easily
identifying areas that need improvement in their students’ improvisation.
The analysis process included transcribing portions of the solos, analyzing how
the notes interact with the chord changes in terms of guide/chord tones, alterations,
common gestures, scalar motives, and rhythmic variation, and measuring stylistic
concepts based on methods from Paul Berliner’s Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of
Improvisation. The results from my completed transcriptions show that the students
emulate some, but not all of the theoretical understanding and technical capability
displayed in the famous recordings. Some of the biggest aspects missing from the
student solos on a theoretical level were a limited use of alterations, chromaticism,
tension and release, and rhythmic variety. In terms of stylistic concepts, some of the
student recordings seemed to lack a solid sense of time, melodic inevitability, and
storytelling ability through rhythmic and harmonic cohesion.
Description
Keywords
music, jazz, Croatia