Illuminating the Compositional Process in Jazz: A Study of the Compositional Methods of Jerry Bergonzi, Miguel Zenón, and Donny McCaslin

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Musical Arts

New England Conservatory Dr. Brian Levy, Advisor

By Joel Linscheid

May 2020

Abstract

This thesis is an examination of the music of Jerry Bergonzi, Miguel Zenón and Donny McCaslin which aims to provide insight into each artist’s compositional process and identify connections between their compositional and improvisational methods. Analysis of the artists’ compositions and improvisations is augmented by information from interviews with the artists.

Each musician offers a different model of the compositional process and the relationship between composition and improvisation. The study of Bergonzi’s music illustrates connections to his improvisational concepts (such as intervallics, metric superimposition, and symmetric scales) in his compositions “Bafandine,” “Awake,”

“Bob Berg,” and “Creature Feature.” Analysis of Zenón’s music focuses on his use of rhythmic motives in “Academia,” text to music translation in “Morelliana,” and conceptual approaches in “Oyela” and “Villa Coope.” The study of McCaslin’s music examines cross-genre influences in “L.Z.C.M,” use of rhythmic claves in “Fast Future” and considers the implications of a shift in McCaslin’s musical style, as exhibited in compositions like “What About the Body.”

Through analysis of improvised solos and examination of pedagogical approaches to improvisation, the thesis illustrates the reciprocal relationship between the artists’ compositional and improvisational methods. While the primary emphasis is on the analysis of the artists’ music and methods, this study also serves a broader pedagogical purpose by presenting models of the compositional process that readers can use to expand and amplify their own compositional work.

2 Table of Contents

Abstract ...... 2 Table of Contents ...... 3 Table of Musical Examples ...... 4 Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 6 Composition in Jazz ...... 8 Subjects of the Study ...... 12 State of Research ...... 14 Chapter 2: Jerry Bergonzi ...... 17 Compositional Approach and Philosophy ...... 17 Use of Contrafacts ...... 19 Similarities in Improvisational and Compositional Methods ...... 22 Intervallics and Rhythmic Displacement in “Bafandine” ...... 23 Metric Superimposition in “Bob Berg” ...... 26 12-Tone Techniques on “Awake” ...... 28 Use of “9-Note” Symmetric Scale on “Creature Feature” ...... 31 Chapter 3: Miguel Zenón ...... 43 Compositional Approach and Philosophy ...... 43 Use of Rhythmic Subdivisions in “Academia” ...... 45 Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” ...... 50 Use of Non-Musical Material in Composition ...... 55 Text to music translation in “Morelliana” ...... 56 Conceptual Approach in Music from Esta Plena ...... 60 Chapter 4: Donny McCaslin ...... 64 Compositional Philosophy and Process ...... 64 Cross-Genre Influence in “L.Z.C.M.” ...... 66 Use of Rhythmic Clave in “Fast Future” ...... 71 Shift in compositional style ...... 76 Chapter 5: Conclusion ...... 82 Pedagogical Implications ...... 82 Compositional Advice ...... 83 Possibilities for Further Research ...... 85 Bibliography ...... 87 Appendix A: Interview Transcripts ...... 89 Interview with Jerry Bergonzi (October 27, 2019) ...... 89 Interview with Miguel Zenón (November 22, 2019) ...... 97 Interviews with Donny McCaslin (December 2019 and March 2020) ...... 109 Appendix B: Music/Leadsheets/Transcriptions ...... 118

3 Table of Musical Examples

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1: List of Contrafacts Composed by Jerry Bergonzi ...... 19 Figure 2.2: "Bafandine" by Jerry Bergonzi (mm. 1-4) ...... 23 Figure 2.3: Bridge to “Bafandine” by Jerry Bergonzi (mm. 17-24) ...... 25 Figure 2.4: “Bob Berg” by Jerry Bergonzi ...... 27 Figure 2.5: Tone Row from “Awake” by Jerry Bergonzi ...... 29 Figure 2.6: “Awake” by Jerry Bergonzi ...... 30 Figure 2.7: “9-Note Scales” with Applicable Chords ...... 32 Figure 2.8: Bergonzi’s “Hybrid Scale” ...... 33 Figure 2.9: “Creature Feature” by Jerry Bergonzi ...... 34 Figure 2.10: 6-Note Augmented Scale and 9-Note Scale ...... 36 Figure 2.11: “Creature Feature” by Jerry Bergonzi (mm. 1-2.) ...... 36 Figure 2.12: Jerry Bergonzi’s Solo on “Creature Feature” (Tenorist 2007) ...... 38 Figure 2.13: Jerry Bergonzi’s Solo on “Creature Feature” (mm. 10-12) ...... 40 Figure 2.14: Jerry Bergonzi’s Solo on “Creature Feature” (mm. 21-22) ...... 41 Figure 2.15: Augmented Scale Pattern ...... 41 Figure 2.16: 9-Note Scale Pattern ...... 42

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1: Two rhythmic subdivisions in “Academia” by Miguel Zenón ...... 46 Figure 3.2: Excerpt of Alto Saxophone Part to “Academia” by Miguel Zenón ...... 47 Figure 3.3: C Harmonic Major and Modes ...... 48 Figure 3.4: Excerpt of Alto Saxophone Part to “Academia” (mm. 5-11) ...... 49 Figure 3.5: Excerpt of Drum Part to “Academia” by Miguel Zenón (mm. 79-92) ...... 50 Figure 3.6: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 1- 12) ...... 51 Figure 3.7: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 19-22) ...... 51 Figure 3.8: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 31-33) ...... 52 Figure 3.9: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 1-8) ...... 53 Figure 3.10: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 17-30) ...... 54 Figure 3.11: Zenón’s Letter to Pitch Translation Key ...... 56 Figure 3.12: Translation of Rayuela Text ...... 57 Figure 3.13: “Morelliana” by Miguel Zenón (mm.1-2) ...... 58 Figure 3.14: Chapter Guide for Rayuela by Julio Cortezar ...... 59 Figure 3.15: Melody to “Morelliana” by Miguel Zenón (mm. 1-4) ...... 59 Figure 3.16: Solo Chord Changes on “Oyelo” ...... 61 Figure 3.17: Bass line of “Villa Coope” ...... 62 Figure 3.18: Polyrhythms in “Villa Coope” by Miguel Zenón (mm. 3-15) ...... 63

4 Chapter 4

Figure 4.1: Cross-Genre Influence in Donny McCaslin’s Compositions ...... 65 Figure 4.2: Comparison of Bass Lines in “Technicolor Nightmare” and “L.Z.C.M.” .... 66 Figure 4.3: Comparison of Melodic Content from “Black Dog” and “L.Z.C.M.” ...... 67 Figure 4.4: Section D of “L.Z.C.M.” by Donny McCaslin (mm. 36-55) ...... 69 Figure 4.5: First Chorus of McCaslin’s Solo on “L.Z.C.M” (Perpetual Motion, 2011) .. 70 Figure 4.6: McCaslin Rhythmic Clave Exercises ...... 72 Figure 4.7: “Fast Future” by Donny McCaslin (mm.1-5) ...... 73 Figure 4.8: Excerpts of B Section of “Fast Future” by Donny McCaslin ...... 74 Figure 4.9: “Fast Future” by Donny McCaslin (mm. 34-39) ...... 75 Figure 4.10: McCaslin’s Solo from “What About the Body” (Blow 2018) ...... 79

5 Chapter 1:

Introduction

Jazz saxophonist, composer, and pedagogue Jerry Bergonzi offered the following advice regarding the importance of composition in jazz:

You should be composing tunes, because when you write tunes you have a direction…You want to find your voice, your sound, your thing. Like Donny McCaslin, he’s got his thing—sounds like Donny—writes tunes that accommodate his improvisational style… When you have your own sound, there’s nobody better than you, cause nobody plays you as good as you do.1

Bergonzi’s words underscore two ideas. First, they emphasize the significant role that composition plays in the development of an original musical voice. Second, they suggest a close connection between a player’s improvisational style and their compositional approach.

This study aims to expand upon these ideas by examining the compositional methods of three influential contemporary jazz musicians: Jerry Bergonzi, Miguel

Zenón, and Donny McCaslin. By analyzing their compositional styles and methods, a central goal in this thesis is to offer readers detailed insight into these musicians’ creative processes. Furthermore, the study aims to identify and elucidate connections between these artists’ compositional and improvisational processes, illustrating the reciprocal relationship between the two. Finally, this thesis is intended to provide jazz performers with compositional models that they can use to help strengthen and expand their own compositional abilities.

1 Jerry Bergonzi, personal communication with author, April 16, 2018.

6 Jazz players’ compositional methods have typically received less attention than their improvisational approaches. Performers and listeners alike often consider the act of improvising to be the most compelling part of a jazz performance. Jazz players spend hours in the practice room developing their improvisational skills and listeners are drawn in by jazz musicians’ ability to effortlessly extemporize new musical content. Often, this imbalance also extends to jazz scholarship and pedagogy, where an emphasis is typically put on analyzing and understanding players’ improvisational processes and methods.2

However, while improvisation is central to jazz music, composition also plays an integral role in shaping the performance. In his study on jazz improvisation, Paul

Berliner notes, “composed pieces or tunes, consisting of a melody and an accompanying harmonic progressions, have provided structure for improvisations throughout most of the history of jazz.”5 As Berliner’s comments suggest, compositions often serve as vehicles for improvisation, providing a cohesive framework for the musicians to work within. Furthermore, the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and formal elements of a composition affect how players improvise over it.

Given the important role composition plays in jazz, it is worth examining the compositional process in greater detail. In doing so, and in highlighting the connections between improvisation and composition, this project offers insight into

2 In his 2006 research guide, Jazz Scholarship and Pedagogy, Eddie Meadows lists only 8 resources related to small-group jazz composition and 89 devoted to jazz improvisation. In his bibliography of “Theses and Dissertations,” fewer than 20 of the over 200 studies listed relate to compositional style or process. Eddie S. Meadows, Jazz Scholarship and Pedagogy, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 359- 484. 5 Paul Berliner, Thinking in Jazz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 63.

7 new ways jazz performers can think of the compositional process and its relationship to their own improvisational style. More broadly, the findings can help to inform a new pedagogy that bridges the gap between improvisation and composition and better integrates the two.

Composition in Jazz

Defining terms like “the composition” or “compositional process” in jazz can be a difficult task. Examples of jazz compositions range from popular song form

“standards,” which often serve as vehicles for improvisation, to complex, through- composed, “extended works” by musicians like Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus.

The wide range of forms and styles represented within the category makes it difficult to arrive at a singular genre-specific definition. Furthermore, the improvisational element in jazz complicates the question from an ontological perspective. In performance, musicians may alter the statement of the composed melody, making it difficult to determine what defines “the composition.” This problem has been acknowledged and addressed by a number of scholars, including

Keith Waters, who writes in the preface to his book on Miles Davis,

I am aware of problems of ontology that arise from the idea of “the composition,” that the notion of “the composition” itself suggests a fixed or idealized entity at odds with the ways in which players freely and flexibly construct head statements. Rather than tend to those particular and interesting philosophical problems, I will use the term composition (or, as jazz musicians typically say, the head or tune) in the way that jazz musicians generally do—that the head relies on flexibly constructed statements of melody, harmony, bass, and rhythm, and subsequent statements may preserve certain contours but may alter others.6

6 Keith Waters, The Studio Recordings of Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68 (New York: Oxford University, 2011), xi.

8 As Waters suggests, defining “the composition” can prove challenging, especially when evaluating the characteristics of the piece in a performance. The same is true when discussing the “compositional process” more broadly. On one level, it can refer to the pre-performance creative process of writing a piece of music. However, numerous critics and scholars have also pointed out the ways that jazz musicians have utilized structural and compositional elements in their improvisations, thus arguing that the improvisational process itself can be viewed as a real-time “compositional process.”7

Like Waters, I acknowledge the potential complications surrounding terms like “composition” and “compositional process.” While these philosophical and ontological considerations are certainly thought-provoking, they are not the central focus of this study.8 Within the context of this thesis, I am defining “composition” as a set, notated musical structure that the artist creates prior to the performance.

Moreover, “compositional process” can be understood as the creative process that results in a notated musical piece, which is replicable (with the exception of improvised sections) in future performances. This definition is in part influenced by the work of jazz theorist Henry Martin, who has previously defined a “jazz

7 See for example, Gunther Schuller, “Sonny Rollins and the Challenge of Thematic Improvisation,” in Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 86-97; Frank Tirro,“Constructive Elements in Jazz Improvisation,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 27 no. 2 (Summer, 1974), 285-305; Lewis Porter, “John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’: Jazz Improvisation as Composition.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 38 no. 3 (Autumn, 1985), 593-621. 8 These ideas have been examined in depth by a number of authors, including:, Andrew Kania, “All Play and No Work: An Ontology of Jazz” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69 no.4 (Fall 2011): 391-403; Charles Keil, “Motion and Feeling Through Music,” in Music Grooves, ed. Steven Feld and Charles Keil (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 53-77.

9 composition” as “a distinct musical piece by one or more musicians (its

‘composers’), created for or during a jazz setting, and intended for future performance or realization or later becoming available for such future performance or realization.”9

Role of “the composition” in Performance

Since becoming prevalent during the bebop era, the “theme-solo-theme” pattern has come to dominate jazz performance. As Berliner describes, “It has become the convention for musicians to perform the melody and its accompaniment at the opening and closing of a piece’s performance. In between, they take turns improvising solos within the piece’s cyclical rhythmic form.”10 This pattern is apparent in countless live performances as well as recordings. Figure 1.1 shows a timeline of the recording of John Coltrane’s famous composition “Giant Steps.”

Figure 1.1: Timeline of "Giant Steps" by John Coltrane (Giant Steps, 1959)

0:00-0:13 0:00-0:26 0:27-2:52 2:53-3:44 3:45-4:09 4:10-4:22 4:23-4:35

Melody Repetition Coltrane’s Flanagan’s Coltrane’s Melody Repetition of Melody Solo Solo 2nd Solo of Melody

As the timeline indicates, the statement of the melody accounts for less than a quarter of the total duration of the track. In live jazz performances, the discrepancy may be much greater. For example, in Coltrane’s live 1961 performance

9 Henry Martin, “Four Studies of Charlie Parker’s Compositional Processes,” Music Theory Online 24 no. 2 (July 2018). http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.18.24.2/mto.18.24.2.martin.html. 10 Berliner, 63.

10 of “Impressions,” the statement of the melody takes up approximately one minute of the 15-minute performance. However, despite playing a smaller role in terms of elapsed time, in each instance the composition plays an important role in shaping the performance. For example, Coltrane’s improvised solo over “Giant Steps” is explicitly shaped by the specific harmonic progression of the song. Therefore, even though it is Coltrane’s solo that often is the focus of attention and analysis,

Coltrane’s work in crafting the composition prior to the performance also had a significant effect on the end product.

This example serves to reemphasize the importance of the composition in shaping the jazz performance. The composed melody is typically the first and last thing the audience hears, framing the performance and giving it outsized importance. It is the melody that typically contains the most recognizable musical material. Furthermore, as in the “Giant Steps” example above, the composition’s specific chord progression, form, and tempo all inform the improvised solo. Berliner emphasizes this point, saying “Just as the progression’s varied timbral colors provide a rich setting for the head, they also highlight the features of solos.

Moreover, the chord’s pattern of change and its undulating scheme of harmonic tension and release create constant rhythmic motion, adding momentum to the performance.”12

12 Ibid.

11 Subjects of the Study

The three subjects of this study, Jerry Bergonzi, Miguel Zenón, and Donny

McCaslin, all maintain a prominent place in the contemporary jazz world. All three are important and influential as both improvisers and composers.

Bergonzi has long been regarded as a leading voice in jazz and on the saxophone. Since first garnering fame as a member of the Dave Brubeck quartet in the 1970s, Bergonzi has recorded more than 60 albums and has written over 200 original compositions. He is also highly regarded as a pedagogue. Bergonzi has taught at New England Conservatory for over 20 years and has authored a 7-volume set of improvisational method books.13 Zenón has consistently been recognized for his unique and innovative musical and compositional voice. He is a recipient of a

MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship and has been nominated for multiple

Grammy awards. McCaslin has received a Doris Duke Grant for jazz composition and has been nominated for multiple Grammy awards. In addition to his own solo career, McCaslin has recently received praise for his cross-genre collaborations, most notably with David Bowie on the 2015 album Blackstar.

Another characteristic that Bergonzi, McCaslin, and Zenón have in common is the fact that they are all saxophonists. While their compositional methods are not necessarily specific to this fact, it is necessary to note it and consider the

13 Jerry Bergonzi, Inside Improvisation Volume 1: Melodic Structures,Rottenburg: Advance Music, 1992; Jerry Bergonzi Volume 2: Pentatonics, Rottenburg: Advance Music, 1994; Jerry Bergonzi Volume 3: Jazz Line, Rottenburg: Advance Music, 1996; Jerry Bergonzi Volume 4: Melodic Rhythms, Rottenburg: Advance Music, 1998; Jerry Bergonzi Volume 5: Thesaurus of Intervallic Melodies, Rottenburg: Advance Music, 2000; Jerry Bergonzi Volume 6: Developing a Jazz Line, Rottenburg: Advance Music, 2002; Jerry Bergonzi Volume 7: Hexatonics, Rottenburg: Advance Music, 2004.

12 implications. The saxophone as an instrument is significant in jazz history and

Bergonzi, McCaslin, and Zenón are part of a long list of saxophonists who have played important roles both as improvisers and composers. In this regard, this thesis builds on several existing studies of the compositional styles and approaches of saxophonist-composers such as Charlie Parker, Wayne Shorter, and John

Coltrane.14 Furthermore, like the aforementioned musicians, Bergonzi, McCaslin, and Zenón all typically compose for and perform in “small-group” settings (typically either a quartet or quintet). As this is the case, it is important to note that this study is focused on a specific realm of composition: music being written by saxophonists for performance in a small-group setting.

Finally, it is worth noting that all three musicians are on the faculty at New

England Conservatory. It is somewhat unique, I believe, to have three saxophonists of such a high caliber teaching at the same institution. Their presence at NEC and the opportunity to take lessons with all three and gain direct access to them has helped make this study possible.

14 Henry Martin, “Four Studies of Charlie Parker’s Compositional Processes,” Music Theory Online 24 no. 2 (July 2018). http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.18.24.2/mto.18.24.2.martin.html; Steven Strunk, “Notes on Harmony in Wayne Shorter’s Compositions, 1964-1967.” Journal of Music Theory 49 no.2 (2005), 301-332; Henry, Martin. “Expanding Jazz Tonality: The Compositions of John Coltrane,” Theory and Practice 37/38 (2012), 185-219.

13 State of Research

This study fits into a broader body of research on jazz composition in a number of ways. First, in presenting analysis of Bergonzi, Zenón and McCaslin’s compositional methods, it serves a pedagogical purpose, presenting readers with models that they can draw on to help expand their own compositional abilities. The addition of information from interviews with the artists provides readers with first- person insight into their compositional process, adding depth and context to the analysis. Second, in examining compositions by the three artists, the study adds to scholarly resources focused on jazz musicians’ compositional styles. This thesis goes beyond many other analytical studies by also identifying connections between the musicians’ improvisational and compositional approaches.

As a pedagogical tool, this study adds to a number of existing resources related to small-group jazz composition.15 While this study is not structured as a

“method book,” in discussing compositional models and approaches, it is broadly related to these types of books. The most closely related resource is Jaffe’s

Something Borrowed, Something Blue: Principles of Jazz Composition. Jaffe notes that his book is rooted in “the study of the repertoire itself” and primarily focuses on

15 The most recent and relevant books on small-group composition are: Andrew Jaffe, Something Borrowed, Something Blue: Principles of Jazz Composition (Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 2011); Ron Miller, Modal Jazz Composition and Harmony Volume 1 and 2 (Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 1996); Ted Pease, Jazz Composition: Theory and Practice (Boston: Berklee Press, 2003); Gil Goldstein, Jazz Composer’s Companion (Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 1993).

14 analysis of compositional models. The book examines the works of many composers throughout jazz history, making it a useful method book as well as an interesting survey of the history of jazz composition. Like Jaffe, this study draws on analysis of repertoire to provide insights into different compositional methods.

This thesis also adds to the existing analytical research on jazz musicians’ compositional styles and methods. Within this category, there are two subcategories: resources that draw on interviews with composers about their compositional process and resources that are analytical studies of musicians’ compositional styles. Two resources in the first category provided partial inspiration for this project. The first is Gil Goldstein’s Jazz Composer’s Companion. In addition to the content discussed above, Goldstein includes transcripts of short interviews with 16 jazz composers, including Bill Evans, Pat Metheny and Herbie

Hancock, discussing their compositional processes.20 This study draws on

Goldstein’s model, but also expands on it by providing more in-depth, concrete examples of Bergonzi, McCaslin, and Zenón’s compositional processes and connecting these processes to their improvisational approaches.

Another interview-based resource that serves as a model for this project is

Bob Brookmeyer in Conversation with Dave Rivello, which includes transcripts of the

Rivello’s conversations with trombonist and composer Bob Brookmeyer.21 A significant portion of the book relates to Brookmeyer’s compositional process,

20 Goldstein, 81-111. 21 Dave Rivello, Bob Brookmeyer in Conversation with Dave Rivello (New York, Artist Share, 2019).

15 including discussing the compositional exercises that Brookmeyer had students engage in. The emphasis on pedagogy makes this source particularly relevant.

Additionally, there are a number of recent analytical studies on the compositional styles of jazz musicians. Dickinson 2017 focuses on the compositional style of Dave Douglas and provides an excellent model for in-depth study of a contemporary musician’s compositional approach.22 Dickinson analyzes a wide variety of Douglas’s music, including small-ensemble and large-ensemble works as well as those for non-traditional instrumentations (such as his Brass Ecstasy group).

In his analysis of Charlie Parker’s compositional processes, Martin 2019 shows how

Parker’s compositions closely mirror his improvisational vocabulary.23 As he makes clear at the outset, his study relies on inference and analysis of manuscripts and recordings, as direct input on the subject from Parker does not exist. Martin 2018 provides primarily harmonic and formal analysis of Wayne Shorter’s compositional style, pointing out overarching trends in his compositions, but not addressing the composer’s process or broader compositional philosophy.24 This thesis adds to these existing studies, offering insight into the compositional process, style, and philosophies of three important contemporary jazz musicians.

22 Scott Carter Dickinson, “The Compositional Style of Dave Douglas: Analysis of Select Pieces from a Spectrum of the Composer’s Ensembles,” DMA diss. University of Miami, 2017. 23 Henry Martin, “Four Studies of Charlie Parker’s Compositional Processes,” Music Theory Online 24 no. 2 (July 2018), Accessed October 28, 2019, http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.18.24.2/mto.18.24.2.martin.html. 24 Henry Martin, “Prolongation and its limits: The Compositions of Wayne Shorter,” Music Theory Spectrum: The Journal of the Society for Music Theory 40 no. 1, Spring 2018, 84-105.

16 Chapter 2:

Jerry Bergonzi

Compositional Approach and Philosophy

Jerry Bergonzi is widely recognized as one of the leading voices on the tenor saxophone. While he is known primarily as a player and pedagogue, Bergonzi is also an accomplished composer. His compositional approach is closely tied to his improvisation methods, making it possible to identify numerous connections between the two fields in his music.

Bergonzi’s approach to composition is widely varied. Asked about his compositional method, Bergonzi noted that every one of his compositions developed in a slightly different way. While this may be true, there are clear patterns in Bergonzi’s compositional approach. Often, he draws inspiration from a specific musical element, such as a particular chord voicing, rhythmic motive, scale, or improvisational concept. While Bergonzi has his own unique compositional voice, he noted that he sometimes deliberately writes in the style of other musicians, citing

Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, and Joe Henderson as major compositional influences.

In general, Bergonzi’s compositional process reflects a philosophy that in many ways puts greater emphasis on the process than the end product. Bergonzi notes, “I’ll be in my hotel room and I’ll sit there and write a whole bunch of tunes, and I’ll do them quickly because…every one of them is a little improvisation. I’m not

17 trying to write the greatest tune in the world.”25 He often encourages his students to take the same approach, assigning them to write a tune and adding “it should take fifteen minutes or less.” However, while the compositional process may take place quickly, Bergonzi often continues to reevaluate and revise his compositions. He spoke to the importance of this “refinement” process, saying,

I’m going through and rewriting some of [my tunes], taking some notes out—saying “that’s too notey.” Or I might change a chord. Wayne Shorter says sometimes he’s working on a tune for 20 years. I’m totally into that…you’re refining what you do. Sometimes I’ll change it and then say, you know, I like the original thing that I did more. But you’re learning every time that you do something. Every step that you take is a step forward, no matter if you think it’s going backwards. The goal is the process—just the process of doing this is so much fun, so creative.26

Most often, Bergonzi composes at the piano, though at times he uses his saxophone or simply writes out new compositions by ear, without an instrument. He typically composes the melody and harmony together, noting:

The melody has to be solid—it has to have a hook that’s catchy. So I’m thinking about the melody, but it all happens at the same time, because the melody, the reason it sounds like the melody is because it has a life support system of harmony—so I’m hearing that note and I’m hearing the harmony that goes under it.27

Bergonzi’s philosophy that the melody has to be “catchy,” is noteworthy.

Given the array of complex harmonic techniques that he utilizes and the quickness with which he composes, it may seem that the resulting compositions would be somewhat abstract, with less regard for musical aesthetics such as melodic repetition, pacing, and contrast. However, as will be demonstrated, while he does

25 Jerry Bergonzi, interview with author, Medfield, MA, October 27, 2019. See Appendix B for interview transcript. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid.

18 utilize a number of unique musical techniques, Bergonzi’s compositions also consistently exhibit logic and artistic balance.

Use of Contrafacts

One common characteristic of Bergonzi’s compositional style is his use of

“contrafacts,” melodies that are written over a pre-existing harmonic progression.

There is a long history of contrafacts being used in jazz composition. The practice is often associated with the bebop era, during which time musicians like Charlie

Parker and Dizzy Gillespie would frequently compose new melodies over the harmonic progressions to popular show tunes like “I Got Rhythm” and “How High the Moon.” In doing so, the musicians were able to retain the basic harmonic structures that served as popular improvisational vehicles during jam sessions of the era. However, by introducing a new melody, often with more harmonic and rhythmic complexity, the new composition took on a completely different musical character. The same is true of Bergonzi’s contrafacts—each one exhibits his individual musical voice. Figure 2.1 lists 42 of Bergonzi’s contrafacts and the standard chord progression they are based on.

Figure 2.1: List of Contrafacts Composed by Jerry Bergonzi

Bergonzi Composition Original Composition/Chord Changes 114 W. 28th St. Star Eyes The 42nd Parallel On Green Dolphin Street A Granny Winner Out of Nowhere Awake Moment’s Notice Bafandine I Hear a Rhapsody Channeling Alone Together Condusive Like Someone in Love

19 Confrontation Confirmation (Ab) Creature Feature Stella by Starlight Crop Circles If I Should Lose You Deek How Deep is the Ocean Fool Hardy My Foolish Heart He’s Dead Too Lady Bird High Tops Speak Low Hogsly Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise Inside Out It Could Happen to You Ischia I Hear a Rhapsody Lend Me a Dream You Stepped Out of a Dream Lunch What is this Thing Called Love? Marshlands Lazy Bird Nobody’s Human I Remember You Of a Feather Bye Bye Blackbird On Again, Off Again Solar On the Brink Confirmation Optimum Propensity Like Someone in Love PG 2013 Giant Steps Shadd That Old Feeling Small Pleasures The Days of Wine and Roses Sprung Joy Spring Star Gazing East of the Sun Sunscreens Solar Table Steaks Stablemates Think Did Lady Bird Three Point Shot In Your Own Sweet Way Toot It’s You or No One Trippin I Thought About You Uranian Overtones Autumn Leaves While Reading My Letter Bomb, I! Body and Soul Why But Not Just Friends Wilbur I’ll Remember April Without a Trace There is No Greater Love You Mention it Too Diane

Bergonzi’s frequent use of standard chord progressions is reflective of his broader compositional style. In form and structure, most of his compositions are straightforward “tunes” that serve primarily as vehicles for improvisation. In performance, Bergonzi’s compositions typically retain the common “theme-solo-

20 theme” construction. While Bergonzi sometimes writes chord voicings, bass lines, and harmony parts for a 2nd melodic instrument, most of his compositions are notated in lead-sheet format. Describing his music, Bergonzi notes, “I have my tunes that need rehearsals and I have my tunes that are user friendly,” suggesting that the predominance of straightforward compositions is in large part due to the practical concerns and is not necessarily reflective of his entire compositional body of work.28

Furthermore, the use of standard chord progressions also serves a practical purpose, as it means that the chord changes and forms of his compositions will already be familiar to a wide body of musicians. By writing contrafacts, Bergonzi ensures that he has a collection of the tunes are “user-friendly” and don’t require a great deal of rehearsal time. It is important to note, however, that while the basic harmonic structures of the compositions are “standard,” Bergonzi’s melodic lines often do not strictly adhere to the original harmonies. Rather than constructing melodies that simply outline the existing harmonic progression, as was often the case with contrafacts of the bebop era, Bergonzi applies a range of melodic approaches, such as using intervallics, 12-tone rows or symmetric scales. By doing so, he expands the melodic and harmonic character of the compositions and makes them reflect his individual musical personality. Bergonzi’s use of these techniques also represents a clear connection between his improvisational and compositional approaches.

28 Ibid.

21 Similarities in Improvisational and Compositional Methods

Like any great improviser, Bergonzi has a wide range of improvisational approaches and techniques at his disposal. He has gone to great lengths to systematize these improvisational methods and has described them in detail in his seven-volume Inside Improvisation Series.29 Bergonzi’s extensive work as a pedagogue is helpful when analyzing his improvisations, as it provides a clear window into his methods. As will be demonstrated, these various methods, including things like hexatonics, intervallics, and rhythmic superimposition, are also central to his compositional style.

Bergonzi’s compositional approach is also reflected in his teaching. When teaching his jazz improvisation courses at New England Conservatory, Bergonzi frequently assigns students to write compositions (often contrafacts) using the improvisational concepts being discussed. The primary purpose of this exercise is not necessarily for students to develop their compositional voices, but rather to gain a better understanding of the improvisational concept through the compositional process. This approach is reflective of Bergonzi’s broader view of compositions as

“exercises.” In describing this approach, Bergonzi likened his own approach to that of saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, stating,

I heard Wayne Shorter did a clinic many years ago at William Patterson and he said you know all those tunes I wrote, they were little exercises. One was an exercise in whole tone…I feel the same way. I’m going to use this rhythm, I’m going to write some 7/4 rhythms across this 4/4 tune, kind of disguise them, you know things like that. I’m going to write phrases starting on the

29 See footnote 13.

22 and of three or write some non-functional harmony or intervallic harmonies.30

As Bergonzi suggests, this approach is reflected in his music. The following section includes analysis of four of Bergonzi’s compositions, three of which are contrafacts, each based on a different compositional methods. This analysis reflects and reinforces Bergonzi’s description of his approach and demonstrates how he applies various improvisational concepts in a compositional manner.

Intervallics and Rhythmic Displacement in “Bafandine”31

“Bafandine” is a contrafact written over the same harmonic progression as the jazz standard “I Hear a Rhapsody.” In describing the composition, Bergonzi stated, “this one is straight out of my intervallic book—this is minor 6th, major third, minor third… I pick four intervals or five intervals and I write a tune.”32 The opening section, shown in Figure 2.2 below, illustrates the intervallic approach Bergonzi described.

Figure 1.2: "Bafandine" by Jerry Bergonzi (mm. 1-4)

30 Jerry Bergonzi, interview with author, Medfield, MA, October 27, 2019. 31 A complete lead sheet of “Bafandine” is included in Appendix B. 32 Jerry Bergonzi, interview with author, Medfield, MA, October 27, 2019.

23 As seen in the opening melodic line, Bergonzi’s approach doesn’t outline the triadic harmonies of the composition. By taking an intervallic approach, Bergonzi creates a melodic line that has a more angular, modern-sounding harmonic character . It is interesting to note, however, that while the line is derived from predetermined intervals, the melodic line that Bergonzi constructs still exhibits clear connections to the harmony. For example, there are moments, such as in measure 2, where the melody aligns with the chord tones of the harmony (5th and

3rd on Fmin7; root and 3rd on Bb7).

Bergonzi continues using an intervallic approach on the bridge of

“Bafandine,” but also uses rhythmic displacement, which adds another distinct character to the melody. Rhythmic displacement, in which a rhythmic figure is repeated but started on a different beat, is a common characteristic of Bergonzi’s compositions. Like his intervallic approach, the practice is also part of his improvisational language and pedagogical approach. In Volume 4: Melodic Rhythms,

Bergonzi presents 22 rhythms and suggests players work on improvising using the written rhythms as well as displacing the rhythms. He writes, “by displacing a rhythm by ½ of a beat, or 1 ½ beats, or 2 ½ beats you create entirely different sounding rhythms at times.33 As shown below, he uses a similar technique in

“Bafandine.”

In the bridge to “Bafandine,” Bergonzi writes a four-beat rhythm constructed of six eighth notes followed by one quarter note (see Figure 2.3 below). The rhythm

33 Jerry Bergonzi, Inside Improvisation Volume 4: Melodic Rhythms, Rottenburg: Advance Music, 1998, 20.

24 appears five times, with a slight elongation in the third occurrence (m.21). As shown by the upper brackets, each successive appearance of the figure occurs on a different beat, as follows: m. 17 (beat 2); m. 18 (beat 3); m.20 (beat 4); m. 22 (beat 3); m. 24

(beat 1).

Figure 2.3: Bridge to “Bafandine” by Jerry Bergonzi (mm. 17-24)

As with the A section, the melodic lines in the bridge are primarily constructed from minor 3rd, major 3rd, and minor 6th intervals (see lower brackets in Figure 2.3). While the repeated intervallic content provides its own sense of structure, Bergonzi again finds ways to emphasize the harmonic content. For example, in m. 24, the line ends with a G augmented triad, emphasizing the G7alt harmony. Harmonic considerations like this, as well as the rhythmic techniques discussed above, indicate that Bergonzi is not simply applying intervallic methods arbitrarily when composing. Though his explanation—“I pick four intervals or five intervals and I write a tune”—suggests a certain nonchalance to the method,

Bergonzi is clearly aware of many other musical elements such as rhythm, harmony,

25 melodic contour, when composing. His awareness of all of these elements provides a sense of logic and aesthetic cohesion to the composition.

Metric Superimposition in “Bob Berg”

Another rhythmic device that Bergonzi employs as both an improviser and composer is that of metric superimposition. Bergonzi discusses ways to apply the device as an improvisational technique in his book Inside Improvisation Volume 4:

Melodic Rhythms. In the book, he outlines methods for implying 7/4 and 5/4 meters over a standard 4/4 meter.34 Figure 2.4 illustrates how Bergonzi uses the same technique in his composition “Bob Berg.”

34 Ibid., 72-76.

26 Figure 2.4: “Bob Berg” by Jerry Bergonzi

7 7

7 7

5 5 5

5 5

In mm. 1-7, Bergonzi repeats a rhythmic figure that is seven beats in duration. Each successive appearance of the rhythmic figure begins on a different beat, as follows: m. 1 (beat 1), m. 2 (beat 4), m. 4 (beat 3), m. 6 (beat 2). After four repetitions, the pattern has started on all four beats of the measure. The technique is essentially the same as that of rhythmic displacement (discussed above). However, because the figure occurs in succession without any rests in between, the effect is an

27 implied 7/4 meter over the written 4/4 meter. In mm. 9-14, Bergonzi uses the same technique, but with a five-beat long rhythmic pattern. This results in an implied 5/4 meter over the written 4/4 meter.

As with “Bafandine,” Bergonzi also uses other organizational elements to give the composition structure and logic. For example, the third 7/4 grouping (mm. 4-5) is an exact repetition of the first (mm. 1-2). The melodic contour of the second and fourth 7/4 groupings (mm. 2-4 and mm. 6-7) is the inverse of first and third. These simple melodic considerations add an additional sense of structure to the composition.

Finally, Bergonzi provides contrast in the last half of the composition. After the implied 7/4 and 5/4 meters in mm. 1-14, he shifts back to a clear 4/4 meter with a simple, sustained melody for the last eight measures. Aesthetically, this provides the composition with a sense of balance. This shift from a busier rhythmic or harmonic texture to a more open, sustained texture is something that Bergonzi does in other compositions as well (see for example “Cadiz,” “Dreaming Out Loud,” and

“Arbonius Unt”).

12-Tone Techniques on “Awake”35

Bergonzi’s composition “Awake” illustrates his use of 12-tone techniques applied to a standard chord progression. “Awake” is written over the chord progression to John Coltrane’s composition “Moment’s Notice.” The melody is made

35 A complete lead sheet of “Awake” is included in Appendix B

28 up of a 12-tone row, shown in the table below (Figure 2.5). The row appears four times: first, in its prime form (mm. 1-4 and mm. 9-12) and then in retrograde form

(mm. 5-8, mm. 13-16 and mm. 17-18).

Figure 2.5: Tone Row from “Awake” by Jerry Bergonzi

Prime (mm. 1-4 and 9-12) A F# Eb Bb Db F C E Ab D G B

Retrograde B G D Ab E C F Db Bb Eb F# A mm. 5-8, 13-16 and 17-18

Figure 2.6 (below) shows the melody to “Awake.” While the 12-tone approach is the dominant element of compositional approach, as with other compositions, Bergonzi uses other compositional techniques to add unity and organizational logic. For example, he uses the same rhythm in mm. 1-4 and mm. 5-8, which adds cohesion to the retrograde statement of the tone row.

29 Figure 2.6: “Awake” by Jerry Bergonzi

When describing “Awake,” Bergonzi noted, “some of the notes don’t fit, so I tell the piano player to just play clusters for the chords.”36 The statement is indicative of a broader characteristic of Bergonzi’s compositions. Often, his contrafacts include atypical harmonies that can be challenging for comping instruments. As with “Bafandine,” the melodic line on “Awake” isn’t derived from

36 Jerry Bergonzi, interview with author, Medfield, MA, October 27, 2019.

30 the harmonic progression. However, while it doesn’t delineate the changes like a tonal melody might, it is interesting to note how well the 12-tone line does fit with the chord changes at certain points. For example, the last four notes of the first row

(mm. 1-4) align with the 7ths and 3rds of the chord changes. The same is true in mm.

11-14. Because these notes align with the chord tones, they add a sense of tonality to the otherwise atonal melodic line.

Use of “9-Note” Symmetric Scale on “Creature Feature”37

Another unique compositional approach that Bergonzi takes is the use of what he refers to as the “9-note scale” or the “Messiaen scale.” The scale is one of the

“modes of limited transposition” often associated with French composer Olivier

Messiaen. Messiaen includes the seven modes of limited transposition in his compositional treatise “The Technique of my Musical Language.”38 Each of the scales is symmetrical, meaning that there are a limited number of intervals that the scale can be transposed by before the result includes the same collection of pitches. The

9-note scale that Bergonzi uses is Messiaen’s third mode, which Messiaen describes as follows: “It is transposable four times, as is the chord of the augmented fifth. It is divided into three symmetrical groups of four notes each. These “tetrachords,” taken

37 A complete lead sheet of “Creature Feature” is included in Appendix B 38 Olivier Messiaen, “The Technique of my Musical Language,” trans. John Satterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1956), 58-63.

31 in ascending movement, are divided themselves into three intervals: a tone and two semitones.”39

Like many of the musical techniques previously discussed, Bergonzi uses the scale as both an improvisational and compositional device. Figure 2.7 shows the scale and its four transpositions. Above each scale are the chords that Bergonzi applies each scale to.

Figure 2.7: “9-Note Scales” with Applicable Chords

39 Olivier Messiaen, “The Technique of my Musical Language: Musical Examples,” trans. John Satterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1956). 90.

32 In addition to using the symmetric scale as shown above, Bergonzi also uses what he calls the “hybrid scale.” Figure 2.8 (below) shows the hybrid version of the scale in its 1st transposition.

Figure 2.8: Bergonzi’s “Hybrid Scale”

In the “hybrid” version of the scale, the G# has been changed to a G natural.

This change makes the scale less dissonant when used over certain chords. For example, the hybrid scale shown in Figure 2.8 avoids the Major 3rd on the Eø chord and the Major 7th on the A7b9 chord.

Bergonzi used both the symmetric scale and the hybrid scale to compose the melody to “Creature Feature,” a contrafact written over the chord changes to “Stella by Starlight.” The lead sheet to “Creature Feature” is shown in Figure 9, with brackets indicating which transposition of the “9-note” scales Bergonzi derived the melody from.

33 Figure 2.9: “Creature Feature” by Jerry Bergonzi

34

In addition to the “9-note” symmetric scale, Bergonzi utilizes other motivic devices to add compositional structure to the melody of “Creature Feature.” The most prominent is the use of the perfect fifth interval. The opening line of “Creature

Feature” is almost exclusively made up of perfect fifths, with mm.1-4 containing 7 such intervals. The last half of the composition (mm. 17-32) is also almost entirely constructed of successive perfect fifths.

Bergonzi’s frequent use of the perfect fifth is reflective of how he conceives of and explains the “9-note” symmetric scale. Bergonzi explains the 9-note scale in relation to the 6-note “augmented scale.” The augmented scale is a symmetric scale built using the successive intervals of a minor third and half step (see figure 2.10 below). The 9-note scale can be constructed by adding perfect fifths above each note in the augmented scale. The three scales are shown in Figure 2.10.

35 Figure 2.10: 6-Note Augmented Scale and 9-Note Scale

The opening of Bergonzi’s melody to “Creature Feature” highlights the use of the augmented scale with added fifths. The first two measures of the melody, shown in Figure 2.11 (below), are the first four notes of a D augmented scale, with melodic perfect fifths following each note.

Figure 2.11: “Creature Feature” by Jerry Bergonzi (mm. 1-2.)

By using the perfect fifth interval motivically, Bergonzi adds cohesion to the melody of the “Creature Feature.” He often uses the interval in the context of a sequence or pattern, such as in mm. 17-22 and mm. 27-30. Doing so strengthens the

36 melody by offering a sense of melodic and harmonic stability to a scale that may be unfamiliar to some listeners. This is another illustration of the way in which

Bergonzi draws on broader compositional strategies (motives, repetition, contrast) to provide logic and cohesion in his music.

Bergonzi’s Improvised Solo on “Creature Feature”

Bergonzi’s improvised solo on “Creature Feature” illustrates the connections between his improvisation and compositional approaches. Like the melody, much of the melodic content in Bergonzi’s solo is derived from or related to the 9-note symmetric scale. Figure 2.12 shows the first chorus of Bergonzi’s solo on “Creature

Feature” from his 2007 album Tenorist. The brackets under the solo indicate the transposition of the 9-note scale that the content relates to.40

40 Scale and transpositions are shown in Figure 2.7 and 2.8.

37

Figure 2.12: Jerry Bergonzi’s Solo on “Creature Feature” (Tenorist 2007)

38

A comparison of the melody (Figure 2.11) and solo (Figure 2.12) reveals that

Bergonzi almost always applies the same chord-scale relationship while improvising as he did to compose the tune. For example, the opening two measures of both the melody and improvisation are based on the 1st transposition of the scale. Measures

3-4 are both derived from the 4th transposition of the scale. This suggests that

Bergonzi is applying the 9-note scale in a very systematic way, both as a composer and improviser. Furthermore, it reinforces the fact that, for Bergonzi, the compositional process is part of working out new improvisational approaches.

39 Bergonzi himself made this point while describing how he chooses what compositional approach to take. He said, “It’s the things that I’m working on…I’ll say,

I’m going to write a tune using that [technique] so I can learn to play the damn thing!”41 Bergonzi’s remark again underscores his view of compositions as

“exercises.”

Bergonzi’s solo on “Creature Feature” also illustrates some of the different ways he applies the 9-note scale in the context of an improvisation. In many places,

Bergonzi incorporates smaller structures found within the 9-note scale. For example, in m. 10, shown below, he emphasizes two major triads that are contained within the scale.

Figure 2.13: Jerry Bergonzi’s Solo on “Creature Feature” (mm. 10-12)

In such instances, it is difficult to know whether Bergonzi is explicitly thinking of the 9-note scale, or relying on other improvisational vocabulary. In mm.10-12, while all of the pitches fit within the 1st transposition of the 9-note scale, only 7 pitches are used. Furthermore, the use of such triad pairs reflects Bergonzi’s

“hexatonic” approach. In these cases, the line can be thought of as fitting within the

9-note scale, but is perhaps also simply representative of Bergonzi’s broader melodic language.

41 Jerry Bergonzi, interview with author, Medfield, MA, October 27, 2019.

40 In other instances, however, Bergonzi’s use of the 9-note scale is more explicit. For example, in mm. 21-22, he plays a pattern built around descending augmented triads. The pattern is shown below in Figure 2.14.

Figure 2.14: Jerry Bergonzi’s Solo on “Creature Feature” (mm. 21-22)

Bergonzi plays the 8-note pattern three times, identified with the numbered brackets in Figure 2.14. The pattern begins and ends with an augmented triad a half- step apart. When combined, the two augmented triads form the “augmented scale”

(see Figure 2.15).

Figure 2.15: Augmented Scale Pattern

When the next augmented triad (E+) is added, the three triads combine to form the

9-note symmetric scale (see Figure 2.16).

41 Figure 2.16: 9-Note Scale Pattern

This pattern illustrates how Bergonzi has systematically worked out musical vocabulary based on the 9-note scale. As discussed above, he often composes music based on the improvisational concepts he is working on of with the intent of then learning how to play over it. His improvised solo on “Creature Feature” illustrates the outcome of that process, and demonstrates how his compositional and improvisational processes are directly related.

*****

Bergonzi’s use of intervallics, rhythmic superimposition, 12-tone techniques, and symmetric scales in composition represent some of the ways he draws on unique improvisational concepts as compositional methods. This close relationship is reflected not only in the four pieces discussed above, but throughout his body of work. Bergonzi’s compositional and pedagogical methods serve as an excellent model of how to integrate improvisational and compositional concepts in creative and varied way.

42 Chapter 3:

Miguel Zenón

Compositional Approach and Philosophy

In describing his compositional process, Miguel Zenón stated, “I’m not one of those guys that can sit down and write a tune in a day. I usually gather ideas over time… a harmonic idea or a melody or some kind of rhythmic thing. I just kind of gather those together for a little while until they can seem like something cohesive.”42 In many ways, Zenón’s approach, “slow” and deliberate with an emphasis on concept and cohesion, is reflected in his music. Zenón’s compositions are often complex rhythmically, harmonically, and formally. Rather than writing

“tunes” which serve primarily as improvisational vehicles, Zenón often takes a more conceptual approach, intentionally organizing his compositions (or entire albums) around a broader idea. Zenón draws on a variety of sources for inspiration in his music. He cites the influence of folkloric and traditional music from Latin America as well as the impact of other musicians’ compositions. Zenón also uses non-traditional methods, such as translating non-musical elements into music (discussed below).

Zenón noted that he primarily writes from the piano and “rarely” uses the saxophone while composing, often preferring to sing a melody in order achieve a sense of lyricism. Zenón stated that when he does use the saxophone, it is to achieve an “improvisatory” character in the composition.

42 Miguel Zenón, interview with the author, November 22, 2019. See Appendix B for interview transcript.

43 Sometimes I do, sometimes I’ll sit and record myself playing a couple lines. I was doing that recently working with this chamber piece that I’m writing and I wanted to write this thing that kind of felt like a cadenza—that would sound like it was improvised…so I just improvised on my own and then transcribed that and orchestrated it and harmonized it. So that process can be fun, but it’s not as common for me.43

In addition to using the piano, Zenón sometimes utilizes the computer as a compositional tool, inputting passages in order to hear them back and experiment with them. He noted the benefits of having a digital version of the composition, both in his own creative process and in the rehearsal process.

One thing I’ve found is beneficial about that is that when I finish the piece it’s very rare that I’m going to revise it or change something. It might happen from time to time…but for the most part when I finish it that’s pretty much what it’s going to be, because I’ve already heard it so many times….It also helps the rehearsal process a lot, especially if the piece is complex. Just to have something to listen to and for me to know the piece really well.44

Unlike Bergonzi’s music, which often follows the “theme-solo-theme” pattern in performance, Zenón’s music typically displays a more complex formal structure.

This stems in part from how Zenón views the function of improvisation within his compositions. He stated,

I’m not the kind of guy to write a structure and then improvise over that same structure, then play the melody again and finish the piece. That’s not really what I’m interested in writing, even though a lot of great music is like that. So usually the way I create those spaces for improvisation—I’ll just try to think compositionally. I’ll think, what can I use maybe out of the body of what I already wrote or something that’s an extension of that. Maybe grabbing a motif or grabbing some kind of harmonic progression that’s already been presented or maybe just something totally new that can be a space for improvisation.45

43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid.

44 Finally, in describing the primary characteristics of his compositions, Zenón especially noted the importance of rhythm. He elaborated on the different ways he conceptualizes rhythm, saying:

You can think about it in different ways…when people talk about rhythm, what do they actually mean? Is it something that’s more percussive? Is it how the phrase is being subdivided into specific accents? Or is it something more like “feel it in your body” kind of thing?...

One thing that I like about rhythm is that it could have that pulse thing that puts you on the ground and just makes you really feel what that groove is and feel it internally regardless of the meter… but there’s also this idea of the theory of rhythm. How rhythm actually works…there’s a certain theory of rhythm where things can be broken down in specific ways and it’ll have an effect or it can be used in combination with another cell and it will have this other effect. Thinking about layers, thinking about modulations—that’s something that I think about a lot.46

The use of complex rhythmic concepts is a central characteristic of Zenón’s compositional style. Many times, this takes the form of a repeated ostinato or vamp that serves as a foundation for the entire composition, as in his composition

“Academia.”

Use of Rhythmic Subdivisions in “Academia”47

“Academia” was recorded on Zenón’s 2017 album Tipico. In describing how he conceived of the piece, Zenón stated,

[“Academia”] specifically started with this rhythmic idea of the 11 and the 4. The idea is that the 11, the way we’re phrasing it is like 4-3-4. Then to translate that into 4, we put a triplet inside the 4 and a duplet inside the 3, and that turns into 3-2-3. But the figure is always the same, the figure is consistent…the rhythmic figure. So in your head, if the drums are not there and no one is playing and you just hear that pattern, you could go both

46 Ibid. 47 The alto saxophone part to “Academia” is included in Appendix B.

45 ways—you could decide I want to do 3-2-3 or 4-3-4. And then when we play the piece, that’s what we’re doing the whole piece. Kind of going back and forth, playing with that idea of like, ok so we’re going to go this direction now, this other direction now. And that was the first thing that I had in my head before I wrote a note, I wanted the piece to do that, to deal in both zones—both rhythmic zones.48

Figure 3.1 (below) shows the two rhythmic subdivisions that Zenón discusses.

Figure 3.1: Two rhythmic subdivisions in “Academia” by Miguel Zenón

Figure 3.2 shows an excerpt from of the melody part to “Academia,” illustrating how he uses the two subdivisions in the context of the piece, and demonstrates Zenón’s use of “rhythmic layering.” As shown in the music the piano states the 4-3-4 subdivision to begin the composition and continues playing the pattern throughout. While the piano continues the initial vamp, the bass plays a line that implies the 3-2-3 subdivision (see mm. 38-45), with the alto saxophone joining the bass in m. 46.

48 Miguel Zenón, interview with the author, November 22, 2019.

46 Figure 3.2: Excerpt of Alto Saxophone Part to “Academia” by Miguel Zenón

4-3-4 Subdivision

4-3-4 Subdivision

4-3-4 Subdivision 3-2-3 Subdivision

4-3-4 Subdivision

3-2-3 Subdivision

47 In addition to the two rhythmic layers described above, Zenón also writes an intricate 8th note line for the saxophone and piano, beginning in m.8. The line presents a third rhythmic subdivision, which doesn’t fit clearly into either rhythmic zone. Because of this, it works to further obscure the two primary subdivisions, allowing the listeners to feel different subdivisions at different points throughout the piece. To compose the melodic line in “Academia,” Zenón drew on harmonic content that he was working on at time he composed the piece. He stated,

I was exploring different ways to deal with certain sounds—one sound was this #9 sound… the other was b9 natural 13—which are both modes coming out of [harmonic major]. So when I was writing the melody I was like…what would I play on this sound? And I would play it in my head or play it on my horn and then write it out.49

Figure 3.3 shows the three scales Zenón mentions and their corresponding harmonies. The first is the C harmonic major scale, which serves as the “parent scale” from which the other scales are derived. The second scale is the third mode of

C harmonic major, which implies the “#9” sound that Zenón mentions. Finally, the third scale is the fifth mode of C harmonic major and implies the “b9 natural 13” sound.

Figure 3.3: C Harmonic Major and Modes

49 Ibid.

48 Zenón’s use of the latter two scales in “Academia” can be seen in the opening of the saxophone and piano melody, shown below in Figure 3.4. The first phrase of the melody (mm.8-9) begins and ends on G, implying the b9 natural 13 sound. The second phrase (mm.9-11) begins and ends on E, implying the #9 b13 sound.

Figure 3.4: Excerpt of Alto Saxophone Part to “Academia” (mm. 5-11)

As Zenón described, the lines are indicative of what he would play over these harmonies in an improvisational setting. In this way, “Academia” illustrates how

Zenón draws on his own improvisational vocabulary during the compositional process. The melodic content in “Academia” is directly derived from Zenón’s musical language. Furthermore, the use of flexible rhythmic structures allows Zenón to draw on different rhythmic vocabulary in his improvisation. In both ways, the composition is both reflective of his improvisational voice and affects how he improvises on it. This reciprocal relationship is further illustrated in Zenón’s improvised solo on “Academia,” discussed below.

49 Zenón’s Solo on “Academia”

Zenón’s solo on “Academia” illustrates how he incorporates both rhythmic and harmonic elements from the written composition into his improvisation. For example, just as in the written composition, Zenón utilizes three different rhythmic subdivisions in his solo. During the solo section (letter E), the rhythm section is playing the 4-3-4 subdivision. Figure 3.5 shows the rhythm, as notated in the drum part to “Academia.”

Figure 3.5: Excerpt of Drum Part to “Academia” by Miguel Zenón (mm. 79-92)

At the beginning of his solo, Zenón largely mimics the rhythm that the rhythm section is playing, delineating the 4-3-4 rhythmic subdivision. This can be seen in the first 12 measures of Zenón’s solo, shown in Figure 3.6.

50 Figure 3.6: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 1- 12)

The brackets above the music indicate the 4-3-4 subdivision. As can be seen in the excerpt, Zenón breaks up the different sections of the subdivision in a variety of ways, but remains clear about the broader subdivision. He almost always marks the downbeat of the “3” section, either with a dotted quarter note or a quarter note followed by an eighth note. Often, Zenón plays two quarter notes to end the measure, making the end of the measure clear. While much of the beginning of

Zenón’s solo aligns with 4-3-4 subdivision, at times the rhythms he plays are at odds with the rhythm section. One such instance is shown below in Figure 3.7.

Figure 3.7: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 19-22)

51 In this example, Zenón implies the 3-2-3 subdivision in measures 20 and 21, contrasting with the 4-3-4 subdivision being played by the rhythm section. Zenón’s ability to move between the two subdivisions as an improviser reflects the foundational rhythmic concept around which he conceived of the tune. As Zenón put it, “you could go both ways—you could decide I want to do 3-2-3 or 4-3-4.”50

Finally, Zenón sometimes improvises steady streams of 8th notes, as shown below in Figure 3.8.

Figure 3.8: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 31-33)

Just as in the melody, the use of steady eighth notes effectively removes any sense of rhythmic subdivision from his lines. It allows him to fluidly play through and over the bar lines, as is the case in his written melody. Zenón’s use of the three rhythmic subdivisions demonstrates how he incorporates the central compositional element of the piece in an improvisational context. In addition to drawing on these different rhythmic subdivisions, Zenón also draws on the same harmonic concepts in his improvised solo as he did in the composed melody.

The solo section to “Academia” begins with an open section over a C pedal. In this section, Zenón’s lines are primarily based on the C harmonic major scale. Figure

3.9 shows the first eight measures of Zenón’s solo. In addition to the harmonic major

50 Ibid.

52 tonality, Zenón implies the harmonic minor sound, by playing an Eb in measures 4 and 5.

Figure 3.9: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 1-8)

The prevalent use of harmonic major makes sense, as many of the harmonies

Zenón writes in the solo section are derived from the scale. Figure 3.10 shows measures 17-30 of Zenón’s solo, which follows the C pedal section discussed above.

In this portion of the solo section, nearly all of the harmonies are related to the harmonic major scale in some way.

53 Figure 3.10: Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” (mm. 17-30)

Zenón’s solo on “Academia” demonstrates how the primary rhythmic and harmonic elements of the composition are also reflected in his improvisational approach. Rather than relying only on his pre-existing musical language during his improvisation, Zenón incorporates the elements from the composition into his solo.

In doing so, the composition serves as a tool for expanding his improvisational voice.

54 Use of Non-Musical Material in Composition

In addition to basing his compositions on rhythmic and harmonic concepts,

Zenón also uses less tradition methods, such as incorporating non-musical material into the compositional process. In developing this approach, Zenón was influenced by the saxophonist Steve Coleman, who has explored ways to interpret and play non-musical material. Coleman described the approach in a 2006 interview, saying,

I wanted to be able to look at a mountain and play the mountain. I used to tell my friends that, and just like you, they said, “what do you mean? You mean being inspired by the mountain?” I said, “no, not just inspired. Of course I’m inspired by it, but I want to play the mountain, literally, play the mountain.” They said, “well, what do you mean by that?” I said, “I want to look at the mountain and see something like notation and be able to play it.” They thought I was crazy. They would just dismiss what I was saying. But I was serious. I wanted to be able to look at the flight pattern of a bee, the flight pattern of a bird, and play that. Or have that directly influence my music, so almost be able to look at nature as one big gesture. You can call it notation. I mean, what is notation? It’s a bunch of symbols that tell you, don’t do this, do this. But I wanted to be able to look at life with my eyes as well as with my ears and be able to translate that into sound. That was, and still is, one of my biggest things.51

Zenón’s method of translating non-musical material into music differs somewhat from Coleman’s. Zenón described his approach as follows:

If I want to put something into music, I translate it into numbers first. I’ve done this with literature, I’ve done this with speech, just translating that into some kind of number that would turn into some kind of rhythmic pattern or melody or harmonic sequence. I’ve explored that a lot over the years and still do…I’m one of those people who likes to start with something concrete…if I say I want to write something about a lake…instead of just saying I’m going to go to a lake and look at this lake and be inspired… I’m going to look at the actual composition of the lake—what’s there? What are the natural elements

51 Johannes Völz, “Improvisation, Correlation, and Vibration: An Interview with Steve Coleman,” Critical Studies in Improvisation 2, no. 1 (2006): 5, https://www.criticalimprov.com/index.php/csieci/issue/view/25.

55 that make that lake happen? What are the stones there and how can I translate that into some musical form? Like a direct translation instead of sort of a programmatic translation.52

Text to music translation in “Morelliana”53

One example of text to music translation can be seen in Zenón’s composition

“Morelliana, which appears on the 2012 album Rayuela. 54 A collaborative effort between Zenón and French pianist Laurent Coq, the album includes music inspired by Julio Cortezar’s 1963 novel Rayuela. As part of his compositional process, Zenón created a system to translate Cortezar’s words into music. In Zenón’s system, letters corresponded with numbers, and those numbers then corresponded with specific pitches. Zenón’s key (based on his personal notes and explanation) is shown in

Figure 3.11 (below).

Figure 3.11: Zenón’s Letter to Pitch Translation Key

A B C D E F G H I J K L M 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 C C# D D# E F F# G G# A Bb B C

N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

C# D D# E F F# G G# A Bb B C C#

52 Miguel Zenón, interview with the author, November 22, 2019. 53 Complete parts to “Morelliana” are included in Appendix B 54 Miguel Zenón and Laurent Coq, Rayuela, recorded Sept. 7-8, 2011, Sunnyside Communications SSC1299, 2012, CD.

56 Zenón used his translation system to compose “Morelliana.” For the composition, he focused on the text from chapter 151 of Cortezar’s novel, also titled

“Morelliana.” The opening text of the chapter is:

Basta mirar un momento con los ojos de todos los dias el comportamiento de un gato o de una mosca para sentir que esa nueva vision a que tiende la ciencia, esa des-antropomorfizacion que proponen urgentemente los biologos y los fisicos…56

Figure 3.12: Translation of Rayuela Text57

Figure 3.12 (above) shows a rough sketch of the text and translation to pitches from Zenón’s personal notes. Above each word, Zenón has written a key

56 Julio Cortezar, Rayuela (New York: Random House, 1966). 57 Image is from Zenón’s personal notebook

57 center, progressing around the circle of fifths (C-F-Bb-Eb…). This indicates that in addition to being translated, each word is transposed, meaning the same letters don’t always correspond with the same notes. For example, the first word, “basta,” corresponds with the original key (C). The second word, “mirar,” is transposed to F, meaning that instead of the first letter corresponding with C, it instead corresponds with F. The beginning of the alto saxophone melody of “Morelliana” is shown below in Figure 3.13, illustrating how the pitches correspond with those written in Zenón’s translation about.

Figure 3.13: “Morelliana” by Miguel Zenón (mm.1-2)

In addition to translating the text into pitches, Zenón used a chapter guide included in the book to determine the rhythms of the piece. The chapter guide is a central component of the book, as it allows readers to read the book in a different order, skipping from chapter to chapter rather than reading it sequentially. In an email describing the process, Zenón wrote: “For rhythm, I used the chapter guide that Cortezar provided (starting with chapter 73)…7 would be 2-2-3…5 would be 2-

3, etc.” Figure 3.14 shows the chapter guide.

58 Figure 3.14: Chapter Guide for Rayuela by Julio Cortezar58

Figure 3.15 shows the first four measures of “Morelliana.” As shown with the brackets above the music, the rhythm Zenón has written in mm. 1-4 corresponds with the first nine numbers of Cortezar’s chapter guide (shown above).

Figure 3.15: Melody to “Morelliana” by Miguel Zenón (mm. 1-4)

In describing his method of translating non-musical material into music,

Zenón emphasized how “formulaic” the process was, saying,

58 Image courtesy of Zenón

59 My process was…to go to the book and take a chapter and go letter by letter and sort of like devise a system where the letter would translate into a number and that number would translate into a note or a rhythm. And by doing that a lot of the composition would sort of write itself, because when you create the system…you just have to put whatever the source is through the filter and on the other side there’ll be music.59

Because the compositional approach was so systematic, the melodic line in

“Morelliana” is very different from the melodic line in a piece like “Academia.” The melody in “Morelliana” is completely unrelated to Zenón’s improvisational language.

With this in mind, it is interesting to note that there is not a traditional “solo section” in “Morelliana.” Zenón includes interludes throughout for the drummer to improvise in a soloistic manner, but none of the other instrumentalists improvise. Because of this, the melodic content for the entire performance remains completely informed by the text translation.

Conceptual Approach in Music from Esta Plena

Like Rayuella, Zenón composed the music for his 2008 album Esta Plena with a central organizing principle in mind. The album is based on the rhythms of a

Puerto Rican genre of music called “plena.” One prominent characteristic of the music is the use of three hand drums called panderos. As Zenón explained, the drums played as a central role in his compositional process for the album.

I wanted to think about the idea of the three drums not only as the essence of the way the music sounded but also the way the music was being written. So a lot of times I used the idea of three as the source. That could translate in many ways—you could translate obviously into rhythm, but also into the way I was kind of like voicing out things on the piano. Or the way I was working out the form, in terms of being like two times or three times... even

59 Miguel Zenón, interview with the author, November 22, 2019.

60 creating melodies using multiples of threes for augmentation and diminution of that melody. And I was pretty systematic, I kept at it on every piece. There’s a little something in every piece that connects to that.60

“Oyelo”61

As Zenón indicates, he used the concept of three in a variety of different ways in the music for Esta Plena. In his composition “Oyelo,” Zenón applies the idea of three to the chords in the solo section, all of which are built on augmented triads.

Figure 3.16 (below) shows the saxophone solo section from “Oyelo.” As Zenón has notated in the part, the harmony is derived from augmented triads, moving up in half-steps every four measures.

Figure 3.16: Solo Chord Changes on “Oyelo”

60 Ibid. 61 The piano part to “Oyelo” is included in Appendix B.

61 “Villa Coope”62

On his composition “Villa Coope,” also from Esta Plena, Zenón applies the idea of three to the rhythm, specifically the “3 against 2 ratio between the 12/8 and

4/4.”63 “Villa Coope” begins with a rubato melody before the bass establishes the tempo by playing a repeated two-measure bass line. The bass line, shown in Figure

3.17 (below), illustrates Zenón’s use of subdivisions of three. Rather than delineating four beats with the 12/8 meter, the line emphasizes three big beats per measure.

Figure 3.17: Bass line of “Villa Coope”

The three-against-four polyrhythm is further accentuated in the drum part for “Villa Coope.” Figure 3.18 (below) shows an excerpt of the part. In mm. 7-8

(prior to the drums entrance), Zenón notates the 3/2 subdivision. In mm. 12-15, he indicates for the drummer to play the subdivision of three in the bass drum and subdivision of four in the hi-hat. The ride cymbal pattern in mm. 12-15 can be felt in either three or four, adding to the rhythmic tension and complexity of the piece.

62 The piano part to “Villa Coope” is included in Appendix B. 63 Miguel Zenón, email correspondence with the author, Dec. 10, 2019.

62 Figure 3.18: Polyrhythms in “Villa Coope” by Miguel Zenón (mm. 3-15)

The two examples from Esta Plena demonstrate how Zenón uses a single conceptual formula to unify a number of compositions. While the idea of three may not relate to every aspect of the composition, incorporating it as an organizing principle clearly provided direction in Zenón’s compositional process. Furthermore, by employing a concept as broad as the number three, Zenón had the flexibility to interpret the concept in a variety of ways, which allowed him to still have a great deal of variety in the compositions for the album.

*****

The four compositions discussed illustrate the breadth of Zenón’s work as a composer. He draws on a wide variety of compositional methods, resulting in many different musical outcomes. Zenón’s conceptual approaches on pieces like “Morelliana,” “Oyelo,” and “Villa Coope” indicate ways that he introduces a processual framework that leads to a unique musical product. “Academia” serves as an example of the relationships between his compositional and improvisational processes.

63 Chapter 4:

Donny McCaslin

Compositional Philosophy and Process

Donny McCaslin’s compositional process typically begins with a search for a musical point of “entry.” Describing the process, McCaslin said, “Often it’s sitting at a keyboard or piano and just improvising. Then if there’s an idea that comes that seems compelling, I’ll try to develop that…I’m always just looking for that entry— something that spurs the imagination.”64

McCaslin points to a number of musical elements that often serve as these

“points of entry.” He often begins with a bass line and then layers melodic content on top of it. Alternatively, a specific chord voicing, mode, or rhythmic idea might serve as the point of origin for a composition. Like Bergonzi and Zenón, McCaslin noted that he utilizes the piano in the compositional process far more than the saxophone. McCaslin stated, “It’s probably not as often that that will happen for me playing the instrument—the saxophone. I’d say primarily it’s at a keyboard.”65

Like many artists, McCaslin often draws compositional inspiration from other musicians. While every musician is influenced by other artists, McCaslin’s approach is often more deliberate—focusing on a few specific songs as a way to develop new compositional material. McCaslin described the process, saying,

Sometimes what’s happening is I’m listening to some music to try and get inspired and try to feed my sense of creative imagination. I’ll be focusing on not like three albums but like three tracks or something much more specific

64 Donny McCaslin, interview with the author, Dec. 12, 2019. 65 Ibid.

64 and then eventually something will start happening on the keyboard for me where it’s not like I’m copying it per se but I can see how it’s influenced by those songs.66

It is noteworthy that McCaslin draws inspiration for his own compositions from a variety of different musical genres. In describing this aspect of his compositional style, McCaslin listed several of his own compositions and the pieces that served as sources of inspiration, shown below in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Cross-Genre Influence in Donny McCaslin’s Compositions

McCaslin Composition Source of Inspiration

“New Kindness” Music of Sufjan Stevens

“L.Z.C.M.” “Technicolor Nightmare” by Christian McBride and “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin “Energy Generation” “You Got to Funkifize” by Tower of Power

“Memphis Redux” “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” by Joe Zawinul and the music of Donny Hathaway “Madonna” “Drowned World/Substitute for Love” by Madonna

“Fast Future” (melody) “Transition” by John Coltrane

McCaslin emphasized the fact that he has been influenced by a wide range of musical styles, saying, “For me there’s a ton of that—the source inspiration being

“non-jazz” genre. I mean there’s just a ton of examples from Madonna, folkloric

African music, folkloric Peruvian music, there’s a long list of examples.”67 He noted that his desire to explore diverse musical genres comes out of a search for music that will “stimulate [his] creative imagination” as well as a desire to find new sounds

66 Ibid. 67 Ibid.

65 that will push the music forward. In his own compositions, McCaslin incorporates outside sources in variety in ways, both drawing more abstract inspiration from existing songs as well as borrowing specific musical ideas. McCaslin’s song “L.Z.C.M” provides an example of how he draws on existing musical sources to craft his own composition.

Cross-Genre Influence in “L.Z.C.M.”68

“L.Z.C.M.” appears on McCaslin’s 2011 album Perpetual Motion. The composition was influenced by the music of two very different musical sources--the band Led Zeppelin and the bassist Christian McBride. While composing the piece,

McCaslin had two specific songs in mind, “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin and

“Technicolor Nightmare” by Christian McBride.

The influence from McBride’s composition is apparent when comparing the bass lines for the two pieces, shown below in Figure 4.2. As the comparison shows,

McCaslin’s bass line for “L.Z.C.M.” is very similar to McBride’s. The two lines are nearly identical rhythmically, and share similar melodic contours (as in m. 1 and m.

3).

Figure 4.2: Comparison of Bass Lines in “Technicolor Nightmare” and “L.Z.C.M.”

68 A complete lead sheet for “L.Z.C.M.” is included in Appendix B.

66

“L.Z.C.M.” also contains a number of elements related to “Black Dog.” The addition of distortion to the Fender Rhodes sound relates the song sonically to the distorted guitar on “Black Dog.” Additionally, the melodic content in McCaslin’s composition shows similarities to the famous guitar riff on “Black Dog.” Excerpts of the two melodies are shown below in Figure 4.3.

Figure 4.3: Comparison of Melodic Content from “Black Dog” and “L.Z.C.M.”

There are two notable similarities, identified with connecting brackets in

Figure 4.3. The first occurs in the first full measure of each piece. McCaslin’s melody mimics both the rhythm and melodic contour of “Black Dog.” The second, more overt similarity is the way the melody ends. In both melodies, the melodic contour

67 at the end of the phrase is similar, as is the shift to a different meter, which serves to elongate the phrase.

While the influence from these two pieces is clear (and fully acknowledged by McCaslin), “L.Z.C.M” also showcases McCaslin and his groups’ individual musical personalities. Relating to the discussion of McCaslin’s overall process above, the outside pieces serve as “points of entry” for the composition. Following the sections shown above, McCaslin moves away from the McBride-inspired bass line into a contrasting section to a section marked by sustained harmonies under an angular melodic line, shown below in Figure 4.4.

68 Figure 4.4: Section D of “L.Z.C.M.” by Donny McCaslin (mm. 36-55)

69 While the opening melody was influenced by the content and character of the

McBride and Led Zeppelin songs, the melodic line at D is much more representative of McCaslin’s own musical vocabulary. Figure 4.5 shows the first chorus of

McCaslin’s solo on “L.Z.C.M.”

Figure 4.5: First Chorus of McCaslin’s Solo on “L.Z.C.M” (Perpetual Motion, 2011)

A comparison of the written line at D (see Figure 4.4) and McCaslin’s improvisation illustrates that in many ways, the composed line is similar to the type of improvised solo lines McCaslin typically plays—angular, chromatic and

70 frequently utilizing the upper register of the saxophone. In this regard, this portion of the composition is clearly tied to his improvisational vocabulary. It is notable that

McCaslin chooses to end the composition with the D section, never returning to the earlier content. By doing so, the overall arc of the composition conveys a shift from clearly borrowed musical content to McCaslin’s own original musical content. This broader view of the composition is perhaps indicative of the way McCaslin incorporates borrowed material into his compositions. He draws inspiration and even direct musical influence from existing sources, but uses it as a foundation for his own compositional material. By doing so, the composition is connected to another musical source, but also reflective of McCaslin’s individual musical voice.

Use of Rhythmic Clave in “Fast Future”69

McCaslin also draws compositional inspiration from the material he is practicing, such as a specific harmonic or rhythmic exercise. One composition that developed in this way is “Fast Future,” recorded on McCaslin’s 2015 album Fast

Future. McCaslin described the origins of the tune, saying,

[“Fast Future”] is a tune that definitely started from—I’m sure when we were working together we talked about claves and the dotted quarters and quarters, right? …That bass line, it doesn't strictly adhere to that principle, but that’s an example of a bass line that came out of me practicing that stuff...70

The rhythmic exercise that McCaslin is referencing is one that he works on himself and frequently assigns to his students. It involves improvising using a

69 A complete lead sheet for “Fast Future” is included in Appendix B. 70 Donny McCaslin, interview with the author, Dec. 12, 2019.

71 variety of rhythmic claves to imply different rhythmic subdivisions and meters.

Figure 4.6 shows three of the rhythmic claves that McCaslin assigns to students and incorporates in his own playing.

Figure 4.6: McCaslin Rhythmic Clave Exercises

The bass line of “Fast Future” is based on the 5/8 clave shown above, made up of alternating quarter and dotted quarter notes. The pattern begins on beat three of the first measure, shown below in Figure 4.7.

72 Figure 4.7: “Fast Future” by Donny McCaslin (mm.1-5)

In this case, McCaslin alters the rhythm to make it line up with the downbeats of measures 3 and 5. The alteration also allows McCaslin to fit the line into 4-bar phrases, giving the composition more conventional symmetry.

“Fast Future” also provides a good illustration of McCaslin’s compositional method of establishing a bass line and then “layering” on top of it. He described using this process while composing the song, saying,

Once the bass line felt like it was there then I was thinking about the melody—and I think for that one I was thinking about “Transition” by John Coltrane. The voicings were—the way I write sometimes is I’ll have these different elements sequenced so I’ve got the bass line repeating and the I’m just improvising for these chords until I find something that feels right.71

McCaslin’s use of electronic sequencing as a compositional tool is perhaps indicative of broader trend in compositional practice. Both Zenón and McCaslin indicated that they often input musical ideas into their computers in order to be able

71 Donny McCaslin, interview with the author, Dec. 12, 2019.

73 to loop the ideas and play over them. McCaslin noted, “[It’s] a great technique to be able to hear stuff over and over and then try different things.”72

The rhythmic character of the opening section of “Fast Future” is contrasted in the B section, shown below in Figure 4.8. McCaslin described the shift, saying,

“When it gets to B…all that goes away and it goes to a different thing. I was thinking about contrast…you have this pointillistic bass line and then you want some release from it”73

Figure 4.8: Excerpts of B Section of “Fast Future” by Donny McCaslin

McCaslin’s comment about the need for “contrast” and “release” is suggestive of another side of the compositional process that is perhaps more intuitive and hard to quantify. Both McCaslin and Bergonzi expressed the need for aesthetic balance in their compositions. The above example is one way that McCaslin achieved that goal.

However, the decision, like many within the compositional process, is often made on a more intuitive level.

72 Ibid. 73 Ibid.

74 Figure 4.9: “Fast Future” by Donny McCaslin (mm. 34-39)

Finally, after the contrasting B section, McCaslin includes a 3rd section, shown in Figure 4.9, which includes elements of both the A and B sections. In this final section, McCaslin continues a more sustained approach but also reintroduces the 5-beat rhythmic subdivision that was present in the A section. However, instead of implying a 5/8 rhythm by alternating quarter notes and dotted quarters, he augments the rhythm, alternating dotted half notes and half notes. The three plus two rhythmic subdivision implies a 5/4 feel over the 4/4 meter.

Aside from the musical details, it is worth noting that the way “Fast Future” is constructed—a bass line, voicing and melody—represents a common approach for

McCaslin. From a practical perspective, this method makes it possible to convey all of the musical information on one piece of music, allowing all of the musicians to be aware of the different musical elements in the composition.

75 Shift in compositional style

When examining McCaslin’s musical and compositional style, it is interesting and important to note that his style has evolved significantly in recent years.

McCaslin has long been influenced by and worked in a variety of musical genres.

Early in his career he worked in jazz-fusion settings, playing with groups such as

Steps Ahead. However, his first small group albums were largely in a more traditional “jazz” mold, showcasing a mix of original music and often including jazz standards. In recent years, McCaslin’s style has been shifting towards what he describes as an “electro/pop-art” style. A gradual shift in style can be heard on albums like Perpetual Motion (2011), Casting For Gravity (2012), and Fast Future

(2015), which increasingly rely on electronics and rock-oriented stylistic element.

More recently, McCaslin has made an even bigger shift, both in his musical style and compositional approach.

The major catalyst for this change came in 2016 when McCaslin played on

David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar. In the years since, McCaslin has frequently spoken about the profound effect working with Bowie had on him as an artist.

Following his work with Bowie, McCaslin began considering new compositional approaches that he could take in his own music. He signaled this shift in a 2017 interview, saying,

One thing I’m thinking about is writing music that can be adapted for voice. I’m never going to be a lyric writer, but going through this experience with Blackstar and listening to so much of David’s music and the way that the saxophone and the band is integrated with his voice, that is really appealing to me. That’s one thing I’m considering for a direction ahead, developing something along those lines. I don’t know exactly what it looks like: if it

76 would be a singer or a collection of singers. But I think that’s the thing, integrating voice into what we do.”74

McCaslin realized this vision with his 2018 album Blow, which included collaborations with a number of singers from outside the jazz realm. This shift to a collaborative approach has meant that McCaslin has had to adjust how he approaches the compositional process. For example, he has described how he now thinks more in the “verse-chorus” format common in the pop idiom. Additionally,

McCaslin describes having to be more flexible, leaving room for changes and input from his collaborators. McCaslin noted, “I don’t get too married to anything I write, because I want to be open to whatever the collaborator might bring to it, and I also don’t want to over-write….”75

One major change that McCaslin has had to make is how he treats the saxophone in his own music, which he indicated continues to be a challenge for him, effecting both the compositional framework and the improvisational component.

Prior to that shift, the saxophone was central—it plays the melody and is the central lead voice. So with that approach usually where to improvise kind of went hand in hand with that as the song developed… what was more challenging in a way was the pivot to, ok, now it’s about the songwriting thing and I’m not quite sure of the role of the saxophone.76

It is clear that McCaslin’s shift in compositional style has also had an impact on how he improvises. Stylistically, McCaslin has described his music on and after

Beyond Now as “exploring the intersection of electronica music and

74 Jackson Sinnenberg, “Donny McCaslin on Working with David Bowie and Playing the Saxophone with Open Ears,” Capitalbop.com, March 3, 2017. Accessed March 1, 2020. https://www.capitalbop.com/donny-mccaslin-david-bowie-interview/ 75 Donny McCaslin, interview with the author, March 20, 2020. 76 Donny McCaslin, interview with the author, Dec. 12, 2019.

77 improvisation.”77 He spoke about the impact composing and playing in this new musical style has had on his improvisational approach in a 2017 interview.

As a saxophone player part of what’s interesting is how can I improvise within this sonic, rhythmic context in a way that feels authentic to me? And it eliminates some of the “bebop” vocabulary that I’ve grown up with or that was part of my thing but it’s been an opportunity for me to find new language that feels right for this context. Part of it has been exploring the instrument, finding multiphonics and overtones and these different ways of creating sound…78

This shift in approach is apparent in McCaslin’s solo on “What About the

Body,” the opening track to Blow. The solo, which is only 45 seconds long, illustrates the “new language” that McCaslin is exploring. One of the most evident sonic differences is McCaslin’s use of electronic effects on his saxophone. The added distortion gives the instrument a unique, edgy timbre that fits the alt-rock character of the piece. However, it is not only the sounds of McCaslin’s saxophone that is changed, but what he plays.

77 Donny McCaslin, interviewed by Matthew Hendershot, “‘Beyond Now’ and David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’.” Youtube video, posted by “Talks with Google,” May 31, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-cL1a_i3dU. 78 Ibid.

78 Figure 4.10: McCaslin’s Solo from “What About the Body” (Blow 2018)

Figure 4.10 shows McCaslin’s solo from “What About the Body.” McCaslin’s melodic language in the solo is very different than that of his solo on “L.Z.C.M.”

(shown in Figure 4.5 above). While both songs have similar tempo and feel,

79 McCaslin’s musical vocabulary on “What About the Body” is much more “effect” driven. Rather than rely on long, intricate lines that move throughout the entire range of horn and convey the songs harmonies, McCaslin often emphasizes one or two notes, repeating them and varying the timbre through the use of overtones, multiphonics, and false fingering. This is difficult to notate precisely, but is indicated in the four brackets marked “Overtones/False Fingerings.” The use of such extended techniques on the saxophone allows McCaslin to introduce new sonic textures that, when paired with the electronic effects, are more conducive to the electronic/pop- art style of the composition.

Additionally, the range of McCaslin’s solo is notable. Rather than covering the entire range of the horn, he exclusively plays in the high register. Not only does he play in the “standard” upper octave of the saxophone, McCaslin also plays into the extreme altissimo range, ending the solo on a concert Eb6, a full octave above the typical range of the saxophone. McCaslin’s choice to play exclusively in the high register may be in part to be able to be heard above the other instruments. Because he is not playing in an acoustic setting, the lower register of the tenor saxophone may be difficult to hear among the other amplified instruments. By playing in the high register, McCaslin not only adds energy and excitement to the song, but ensures that his instrument cuts through the sonic landscape. More broadly, it represents another way that McCaslin gets away from the typical “jazz saxophone” sound. In this way, it reflects his desire to mimic other sounds altogether. McCaslin spoke to this desire in recalling his approach to playing on “What About the Body.” He stated,

80 “What About the Body” is more in this pop-art zone…in a way, soloing on a song like that is influenced by electric guitar, it’s influenced by the sonic things that can be triggered with the pedals and it’s also thinking about singers and not so much thinking about a burning line that’s coming from the jazz tradition. I’m not even thinking about that—I’m more reacting to the sonic and rhythmic template that is in front of me. I think when I start to play on a song like that with more of the “jazz” vocabulary it instinctually feels inappropriate to me….sometimes it’s not the most advanced harmonically, it’s just this feeling of a flurry of overtones, of false-fingerings or multiphonics. I’m not even thinking of it as a saxophone, but more thinking: What’s the right energy? What’s the right vibe…?79

McCaslin’s remarks underscore the significant effect the composition itself has on the improvisational process. As he noted, the specific feeling of the music and the broader sonic environment of the song heavily influenced the way he approached improvising on it. His continue evolution as both a composer and improviser are also indicative of the influence both fields can have on an artist’s musical identity. As McCaslin’s music continues to shift, both his playing style and compositional processes influence the direction of that change.

*****

McCaslin’s music represents a wide array of musical aesthetics and compositional approaches. His use of borrowed material and diverse musical influences in songs like “L.Z.C.M.” serves as a model of how to balance influence with the development of a personal compositional voice. “Fast Future” provides an example of how to use an improvisational technique or exercise as the foundation of a composition. Finally, his different improvisational approaches on “L.Z.C.M” and

“What About the Body,” illustrate the relationship between compositional and improvisational approaches in his music.

79 Donny McCaslin, interview with the author, March 20, 2020.

81 Chapter 5:

Conclusion

This thesis has examined a variety of compositional approaches used by Jerry

Bergonzi, Miguel Zenón, and Donny McCaslin, providing detailed insight into their individual compositional processes and illustrating connections between their compositional and improvisational approaches. While the primary focus has been analytical, the study also has pedagogical implications. Using these musicians as models, it is possible to identify several general approaches that readers can draw on to further develop their own compositional voices.

Pedagogical Implications

Bergonzi’s music and compositional practice provides a clear model for integrating improvisational methods into one’s compositional practice. Writing music based on a particular improvisational approach allows the musician to develop new musical content as well as gain a better understanding of the improvisational concept. Additionally, considering the improvisational approach in a “controlled” compositional setting (as opposed to a real-time performance setting) may allow the musician to consider other aesthetic and structural aspects. This, in turn, can have a positive effect on the player’s improvisational process.

As Zenón’s music and compositional process illustrates, conceptual approaches can allow the composer to develop new musical styles that are entirely separate from their personal improvisational language. This method of composition offers endless possibilities to expand one’s musical voice. Furthermore,

82 compositional methods rooted in text, numbers, or other non-musical elements can connect the music to broader messages, adding additional depth and meaning.

McCaslin’s musical process offers a model of ways to draw on existing music for inspiration in an intentional way. Compositions like “L.Z.C.M.” consciously borrow from existing musical sources, but also incorporate new musical content.

This approach goes beyond a simple stylistic copy of a piece, but suggests ways composers can acknowledge musical influences in their music while also exhibiting an individual voice.

Compositional Advice

In addition to discussing their specific compositions and compositional philosophies, Bergonzi, Zenón, and McCaslin also offered some of the lessons they have learned as composers and provided their own compositional advice for developing composers.

Bergonzi’s overarching message to developing composers was to “keep writing.” He stressed the importance of simply going through the process of composing, saying, “you’re learning every time that you do something. Every step that you take is a step forward, no matter if you think it’s going backwards. The goal is the process.”

Zenón emphasized the parallels between the process of developing as an improviser and developing as a composer. His own experience provides a model for other composer/improvisers.

I feel that my process with learning how to improvise and learning how to write was really similar—go to the source you like and study it. For me a big thing was transcription and the same thing with composition—transcribing,

83 studying scores, getting information from that and devising exercises or using the composition as an exercise to try and translate an idea that I like into my own point of view. If I hear a piece and say I like those chords or those voicings, maybe I’ll try something similar as an exercise and just see how I can translate that in my own way…

Furthermore, Zenón stressed that composition should reflect one’s own musical strengths, saying, “Identify things you do well…find ways to put that into what you’re writing. Make what you’re writing an extension of yourself—of your personality.” However, he also noted that in order to expand one’s compositional voice, the opposite approach is also necessary. Zenón noted,

If I was working with a student and he’s coming in with all this super complex dense music, super systematic, over-the-top, my first inclination would be to have him try to do the opposite, to say…I want to see if you can just write a melody or just write some functional harmony and see… how the two don’t necessarily have to be totally disconnected.

McCaslin recalled important compositional lessons coming from musicians worked with early in his career. One general lesson in the importance of composing came from vibraphonist Gary Burton, who McCaslin worked with early in his career.

McCaslin recalled,

I was playing with Gary Burton and one of the things he said—I think I was talking about the struggle to find your own musical voice and he said you should write songs—that’s going to immediately help—you’re going to see what your voice is, your musical language is if you write songs. That was great advice and that’s something that I probably tell every student I have.

McCaslin also recalled the effect that trumpeter Dave Douglas had on him as a composer, especially in influencing him to organize his music around three primary voices. He stated,

84 That’s something that I felt like I learned from Dave Douglas when I was playing in his band…He often won’t write anything that has more than 3 notes—like bass note, melody note, and harmony note…and how focused that sounds—that was really helpful to me.

Possibilities for Further Research

There are a number of areas related to this study that could be expanded and where further research would prove useful. Each musician’s body of work extends well beyond the pieces discussed in this thesis. Analysis of additional pieces by these composers would help to identify other compositional methods as well as reinforce trends in their compositional practice. By analyzing a wider range of compositions, it would also be interesting to identify evolutions in style and process over the course of each musician’s career. Another logical extension of this project would be the analysis of other contemporary musicians’ compositional approaches.

It would be especially beneficial to expand the research to cover those that play other instruments. In doing so, one natural question would be how the compositional process may (or may not) differ according to a musician’s primary instrument. As this thesis sought to do, each of these avenues of research would prove useful by helping to expand the body of scholarly work on the compositional process in jazz.

Finally, the findings presented in this study can inform the development of a new pedagogy that more closely integrates improvisation and composition. As this thesis has illustrated, many connections exist between a musician’s improvisational and compositional process. By identifying and understanding these connections, it is possible to teach improvisation and composition concurrently, in a way that helps

85 musicians more fully develop their skills relating to both fields. While this study has dealt with three high-level composers and improvisers, the two fields can be integrated into jazz pedagogy at every level. Doing so will allow jazz players to more quickly develop their own compositional skills in a way that will complement their individual musical voice. This study lays the groundwork for future, more detailed development of this type of pedagogical approach.

86 Bibliography

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Baker, David. Arranging and Composing for the Small Ensemble: Jazz/R&B/Jazz-Rock. Chicago: Maher Publications, 1972.

Bergonzi, Jerry. Inside Improvisation Series. Rottenburg: Advance Music, 1998.

Coker, Jerry. A Guide to Jazz Composition & Arranging. Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 1998.

Collier, Graham. Compositional Devices. Boston: Berklee Press, 1975.

Dickinson, Scott Carter. “The Compositional Style of Dave Douglas: Analysis of Select Pieces from a Spectrum of the Composer’s Ensembles.” DMA diss. University of Miami, 2017.

Dobbins, Bill. Jazz Arranging and Composing: A Linear Approach. Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 1986.

Doyle, Frank Vincent. “Horace Silver: Transcription and Analysis of Ten Blues Compositions Including the Piano Improvisations 1954-1969.” DMA diss. Five Towns College, 2018.

Frink, Nathan A. “Dancing in His Head: The Evolution of Ornette Coleman’s Music and Compositional Philosophy.” PhD diss. University of Pittsburgh, 2016.

Goldstein, Gil. Jazz Composer’s Companion. Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 1993.

Jaffe, Andrew. Something Borrowed, Something Blue: Principles of Jazz Composition. Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 2011.

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Keil, Charles. “Motion and Feeling Through Music.” In Music Grooves, ed. Steven Feld and Charles Keil. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, 53-77.

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87 Martin, Henry. “Four Studies of Charlie Parker’s Compositional Processes.” Music Theory Online 24 no. 2 July 2018. http://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.18.24.2/mto.18.24.2.martin.html. Accessed October 28, 2019.

Martin, Henry. “Prolongation and its limits: The Compositions of Wayne Shorter.” Music Theory Spectrum: The Journal of the Society for Music Theory 40 no. 1, Spring 2018, 84-105.

Meadows, Eddie S. Jazz Scholarship and Pedagogy, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Miller, Ron. Modal Jazz Composition and Harmony, Volume 1. Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 1996.

Miller, Ron. Modal Jazz Composition and Harmony, Volume 2. Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 1996.

Monson, Ingrid. Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Morgenstern, Dan. “The Evolution of the Jazz Composer.” BMI: The Many Worlds of Music 3 (1981), 6-21.

Porter, Lewis. “John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’: Jazz Improvisation as Composition.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 38 no. 3 (Autumn, 1985), 593-621.

Pease, Ted. Jazz Composition: Theory and Practice. Boston: Berklee Press, 2003.

Rivello, Dave. “Bob Brookmeyer in Coversation with Dave Rivello.” ArtistShare, 2019.

Schuller, Gunther. “Sonny Rollins and the Challenge of Thematic Improvisation.” In Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, 86-97.

Tirro, Frank. “Constructive Elements in Jazz Improvisation.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 27 no. 2, Summer, 1974, 285-305.

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Keith Waters, The Studio Recordings of Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68. New York: Oxford University, 2011.

88 Appendix A: Interview Transcripts

Interview with Jerry Bergonzi (October 27, 2019) (transcript edited for clarity)

JL: My first question is about your normal compositional process—where does it usually start, what methods have been the most successful for you over the years?

JB: I think probably for every tune that I’ve written there is a different—it’s just different, you know. They’re not all the same. I don’t have a particular method. My method is sometimes I get inspired by something and I say to myself, ‘I’m gonna write something like that’

JL: Like another tune or another sound or harmony?

JB: Exactly, or even a voicing. I’ll get a piano voicing and say—I love that voicing, I’m gonna write a tune with that voicing in it. Or I’m gonna write a tune with these rhythms in it. Or I’m gonna write a tune with um, these type of changes. You know, like composers influence me, like Wayne Shorter, Coltrane of course, Herbie Hancock, all..the guys…Joe Henderson. So, I say I’m gonna write a tune like that, like Wayne or all the tunes that Miles played. But, it doesn’t come out anything like that, you know?

JB: And, like you’re saying, I write tunes that I wanna play on.

JL: Yeah, and do you feel like that’s a key for you in terms of, you’re thinking, I wanna blow on this tune.

JB: Yeah, exactly, and sometimes I’ll write something that really challenges me—I’ll say, man, I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna play on this tune, so I’m gonna learn how to play on it.

JL: Yeah, rather than just saying this is gonna make me sound great?

JB: Yeah, well I never think to myself this is gonna make me sound great, I never think that. I think, this is something I’m gonna enjoy playing on, I’m gonna really like this. You know, what I sound like is what I sound like. But I say, I’m gonna write something in the style I like playing in, I’m not gonna write necessarily a Dixieland tune, although I’m not putting that down, you know I’m trying to write something in the style that I play in.

JL: Yeah, and so when you say “style that you play in” you’re meaning the style that you’re most comfortable improvising in.

89 JB: Yeah. Although, one of the benefits of teaching all these years is that I get to see all the new guys coming up cause all the students are bringing me their recordings and I get to hear all the new music that’s happening so then I’ll say, ‘yeah I’m gonna write something like that’….like a student just brought a tune into ensemble that was in 15/16 and I said wow, dig that.

And a lot of times I’m on the road and I have nothing better to do. I’m in my hotel room by myself. I don’t watch TV. I say, ‘I’m gonna write some tunes today.”

JL: You’ve sort of insinuated in the past that your process is pretty fast, like you often write tunes very quickly.

JB: Oh yeah, quickly

JL: In order to just try it out on the bandstand or?

JB: I can hear it when I’m doing it. But I might do some work later on—like right now—you know my book of all my tunes—I’m going through and rewriting some of them, taking some notes out—say “that’s too notey.” Or I might change a chord. Wayne Shorter says sometimes he’s working on a tune for 20 years. So yeah, I’m totally into that—you know you’re refining what you do. And sometimes I’ll change it and then say you know I like the original thing that I did the most. But you’re learning every time that you do something. Every step that you take is a step forward, no matter if you think it’s going backwards. The goal is the process—just the process of doing this is so much fun, so creative.

But I’ll be in my hotel room and I’ll sit there and write a whole bunch of tunes, and I’ll do them quick because –you asked me what my process is—my method—every one of them is a little improvisation. I’m not trying to write the greatest tune in the world. It’s just a little improvisation and we all improvise so it’s easy to do. And I tell my students who ask me, ‘what about composition.’ I say ‘I have a secret.’ They say oh wow, ‘what’s your secret,’ I say ‘I don’t give a fuck what it sounds like’ [laughs] you can quote me on that!

You know I just write them down and I know what they sound like but I’m not trying to write the greatest tune.

JL: And when you’re writing in your hotel room is that with your horn?

JB: No, just in my head.

JL: When you are by an instrument are you usually composing at the piano or at the horn?

JB: It varies. Sometimes when a student doesn’t show up I’ll sit there and write a tune or I’ll do a contrafact or anything like that. But usually I write the changes and

90 the melody at the same time. Sometimes I sing a phrase and say ok I like that melody, what chord accompanies that.

JL: I see—that was one of my questions—whether you tend to prioritize harmony, melody, rhythm…

JB: The melody has to be solid—it has to have a hook that’s catchy. So I’m thinking about the melody but it all happens at the same time, because the melody, the reason it sounds like the melody is because it has a life support system of harmony so I’m hearing that note and I’m hearing the harmony that goes under it.

But, sometimes I’ll—I heard Wayne Shorter did a clinic many years ago at William Patterson and he said you know all those tunes I wrote they were little exercises. One was an exercise in whole tone…I feel the same way. I’m gonna use this rhythm, I’m gonna write some 7/4 rhythms across this 4/4 tune, kinda disguise them, you know things like that. I’m gonna write phrases starting on the and of three or I’m gonna write some non-functional harmony or intervallic harmonies as opposed to cycle of fourths, things resolved the right way.

JL: Right, I think an interesting thing is that a lot of what you’re says indicates that improvisation is central to the product of the tune. And I think that’s the way it is for a lot of jazz compositions where improvisation is the same level of importance. Have you ever written tunes where improvisation wasn’t central to it?

JB: Like writing a tune that I wasn’t thinking about improvising on? Yeah I’ve done that.

JL: Was that process different?

JB: I’m still thinking about I want it to sound like what I’m writing—but actually some tunes I’m not thinking about playing on them I’m just thinking about writing a tune that I like the sound of. And in fact, I don’t play them a lot because some of those tunes are tunes that need rehearsals. And a lot of times I’m in situations where—like I’m playing at the end of this month with Alex Reihl who’s a really famous jazz drummer in Denmark. He’s celebrating 60 years playing jazz—he play with Dexter all those years that Dexter was in Europe—so he’s doing four nights and I’m on two of the nights. So I sent an email to the piano player and said ‘what are we playing?’ he says ‘I don’t know’ and says here’s a list of standards that I know so I just said ok cool. We don’t have time to rehearse.

JL: Right. So that’s a practical aspect—you’re writing tunes that you can play when you’re on the road with little rehearsal time.

JB: Well, getting back to what you’re saying—I write tunes that I like the sound of but they would need a rehearsal so I don’t play them a lot.

91 JL: Right, that’s interesting. So that maybe varies from some other musicians that the composition is a larger thing—maybe it goes from one place to another to another.

JB: Right, well like Miguel’s tunes. They take rehearsals. You just can’t say ‘yeah let’s sight-read this down’ you know. Or there’s a guy that I’ve recorded with his name is Nando Michelin—his tunes need rehearsals—serious rehearsals. So I have my tunes that need rehearsals and I have my tunes that are user friendly, so.

JL: Yeah, and I’ve noticed you’re usually trying to get all the information on one leadsheet—you’re not doing a separate bass part and piano part…

JB: Yeah. Sometimes I’ll tell the bass player, ‘I want to hear this kind of thing’ or I’ll write piano voicings out or I’ll show the piano player a particular voicing. And I find that every time I show the piano player a voicing he never plays it…don’t get me started…that’s another doctorate…how to comp…[laughs]

JL: Well you mentioned a bit about compositional exercises, but one question I had was what exercises or maybe what advice did you get that you felt like was particularly helpful in terms of developing an individual compositional style or voice?

JB: My advice is just keep writing. Just keep writing. I have a friend, his name is Andy LaVerne he’s a famous piano player. He’s written over 1000 tunes. And what I’ve noticed is his tunes keep getting simpler. Simpler and simpler and simpler. And they’re hearable. Now, he played with Stan Getz for years and he told me—you know Stan Getz had perfect pitch and tonal recall and he’d play the tune once with Stan and if Stan got it he’d play the tune if he didn’t he’d say next. So he had to keep it simple. So his tunes—they sound complicated but they’re not. They have a thing that you can’t be Sammy the Simpleton and play it but they’re not like a tune like “Skippy”--Thelonious Monk’s tune which is like—every beat is a chord. It’s like the only person I’ve actually heard play it –well a few people but Steve Lacy comes to mind. It’s almost like it’s worked out you know.

JL: Are you thinking about other sort of “non-musical” factors –like the people you’re going to play or record with, other things –are there other elements that influence the process.

JB: Yeah, you know when you have a rich emotional life—it just comes out. You know so I’m passionate about thinks—a lot of times I can’t verbalize those things to it comes out in music. A lot of times music is kind of my therapist. Sometimes I think of a person and I’ll write a tune like my daughter, my son, friends---I wrote a tune for Dexter, you know things like that. You know—the political scene right now that’s going on. I think—art reflects a lot of the stuff that’s going on. Like the music of the 60s was like insane—all the stuff that was going on….it’s in the atmosphere and you can’t change the atmosphere…

92 Discussion of Specific Tunes

“An Internal Affair”

JB: An Internal Affair, here’s the bass line [plays bass line] [plays melody with chords]…so you would never recognize that that bass line is playing every note in the chromatic scale—it’s all 12 tones.

JL: Yeah, and so, do you recall, when you were starting with that tune, you started with the chords?

JB: I was thinking you know, I wanna write a tune that's, I hate to use this word but I’m going to, an “exercise” in melodic minor, so it goes [plays chords] Lydian flat 7, altered, minor major 7, Lydian flat 7, altered, minor major 7, Lydian flat 7, altered, minor major 7, Lydian flat 7, altered, minor major 7.

JL: So they’re all drawn from modes of melodic minor.

JB: Yeah, exactly.

“Awake”

“Awake,” this is just a twelve tone row. [plays melody] then it’s the twelve tone row going backwards, so retrograde. Then its another twelve tone row and another twelve tone row going backwards. So the harmony is the same—twelve tone rows and twelve tone rows going retrograde. But I wrote it across “Moment’s Notice.” Some of the notes don’t fit so I tell the piano player, just play clusters for the chords, you know [demonstrates on piano].

JL: So, that’s an interesting thing, I mean, a lot of your tunes are contrafacts, right?

JB: Yeah, the reason I’m thinking contrafact is, again, I’m on a gig—I don’t have time to rehearse, everybody knows these tunes.

JL: Yeah, and it allows you like a standard structure that you can writes something new on.

JB: Exactly

JL: I think that’s an interesting thing about your music is—it doesn’t sound like just a contrafact—maybe that’s part of it where the notes don’t always fit—you’re not just writing like a bebop melody.

JB: Exactly. This one [Bafandine] is a contrafact on “I Hear a Rhapsody” and this one is like straight out of my intervallic book [plays melody]. This is minor 6th, major

93 third, minor third, fourth….it’s based on those intervals—I pick four intervals or five intervals and I write a tune.

JL: So then does that effect how you blow on a tune—

JB: Yeah it gives it an atmosphere…

JL: Are you thinking I’m gonna try and do an intervallic approach or?

JB: It makes you think that because the flavor of the melody is such that I’m not going sit there and play like real straight ahead on it, you know?

JL: Right, yeah. Yeah, that’s maybe another thing to discuss….I think sometimes we talk about how our own style affects how we’re writing tunes, but I think the opposite is true too that it affects how you play.

JB: Totally…yeah

JL: And maybe that’s a more organic thing, where there’s no rhyme or reason to it but there’s a vibe to a tune and it affects what you’re doing

JB: Yeah, exactly.

JB: Anyway, this one [Before it Happens] is just a [plays melody]. It hits a lot of key centers, with a little pedal at the end. You know, easy to play on.

JB: This one [“Between Worlds”] is interesting. This one is like—you know a lot of times I’ll go up on the chord past the 13—so this is like almost polytonal—it’s like B major over G. It’s on the changes of “How High the Moon” but I’m playing B major in the melody [plays] Then A major over F [plays].

JB: This one is off that kind of the Messiaen thing [plays scale] off that 9-note scale. It’s called “Blue Cube.” And I improvised off that 9-note and it’s just, man I just—you can never run out of things to play.

This [“Bluebonics”] is kind of an odd meter thing that I wanted to try and it’s got some of the Hexatonic things [plays] like there’s a lot of hexatonic voicing that I play off of.

Oh, this is a tune that I wrote for Bob Berg. It has some 5/4 and 7/4 melodies in there [sings rhythms] almost like a metric modulation [plays]. You know that’s a 7/4 going across 4/4 and then it goes into a 5/4 rhythm.

JL: So I was just thinking about this...It seems like we could make a list of approaches that are both improvisational for you and compositional. Like 9-note, hexatonic.

94 JB: Yeah I’ll use those in my compositions and [playing]

JL: It seems like a lot of the concepts you’re talking about

JB: Are things that I use in my playing

JL: Like rhythmic displacement—I notice that a lot in your tunes—moving a rhythm by one beat.

JB: When I play?

JL: Yeah, both when you play and when you write.

JB: Yep. Yeah. Well, it’s the things that I’m working on. Sometimes I’ll say I’m gonna write a tune using that. I’m gonna write a tune using that so I can learn to play the damn thing [laughing]

JL: Right, yeah. Makes sense to me.

JB: Here’s the tune “Cadiz” I was talking about…so the bass line [plays bass line] So I wrote—I said I’m gonna write a melody that fits that. [plays] check this chord out [plays A/C] sharp 15 [plays] same thing right there [plays]

JL: Yeah, that’s beautiful. I think also, the ending, there’s a nice balance in it. How are you thinking in terms of like—it’s not orchestration exactly but it’s sort of a form thing where you’re going to a vamp. You know like you have that tune on Moment’s Notice where you do the same thing. Or there are tunes where it goes between a vamp and maybe more active thing.

JB: Yeah. I’m trying to get some—sometimes its like this is so rich with harmony that you need a place where it can just chill for a second. You know, even though the chords don’t chill—they’re related [plays] its like B major, Eb major, even though this is Ab minor it’s like B major…[plays] but you have to have the right piano player....

JL: Right, with these harmonies, if you don’t have the right voicings…

JB: You can’t play it. Yeah, so that’s why a lot of times I won’t play these tunes…

JL: So that’s a part of your process too that obviously you developed an ear that understands some of those more complex harmonies-- #15s something like that so that it sounds consonant, where as other people might not know what to do with that.

JB: Yeah, exactly so it's a work in progress but it makes me—I have to learn how to play it you know cause I like the sound of it so much…

95

96

Interview with Miguel Zenón (November 22, 2019) (transcript edited for clarity)

JL: Could you tell me what your typical compositional process is like? I know there are probably a lot of different approaches for different compositions, but maybe discuss how you typically start out?

MZ: Yeah, sure. My process is usually pretty slow. I’m not one of those guys that can sit down and write a tune in a day. I usually just kind of gather ideas over time—be it what it is—if it’s a harmonic idea or a melody or some kind of rhythmic thing. And I just kind of gather those together for a little while until they can seem like something cohesive. It kind of depends on the situation. Sometimes those ideas are already coming out of a source, like something I hear somewhere else or some kind of folkloric thing or traditional thing or an idea that I grabbed from someone else’s piece or something like that. So I gather those up and then by the time that I sit down and actually start trying to put something together I sort of have a basic roadmap in my mind of what I want the piece to be. So it’s pretty rare that I’ll just kind of sit and see what happens and just kind of wait for something to come. I usually—when I go into the process I kind of already know what I want to get out of it. I’m starting with concrete things and just trying to fill up what I don’t have, fill up the holes—be it a transition or if I feel like I have a melody but I need some kind of harmonic progression or the opposite. I’m just trying to build it up from the ground up.

But, like I said it’s pretty slow. I rarely use the saxophone. Most of the time I’ll either use the piano or I’ll use a computer a lot. Just kind of input things into the computer and play them back to see how they sound and just go through the process slowly like that. I find myself doing that more and more actually, over the years.

JL: That’s interesting. So, that’s kind of the question of how things have evolved. Do you find that you compose in a different way now after many years of doing it?

MZ: I think the process is pretty much the same. It’s just, I think I’ve kind of found a series of steps that work for me. The succession of events that works and that I do consistently. I have my notebook and if an idea comes up I’ll just write it down or just sing it into the phone, and then when I go sit down I kind of already know. The computer thing is not something I was doing right away, I think maybe because I wasn’t as well-versed—not that I am now—but I’m a little quicker than I was 15 years ago. So I definitely use it more now. Especially in terms of being able to hear stuff back. One thing I’ve found is beneficial about that is that when I finish the piece it’s very rare that I’m going to revise it or change something. It might happen from time to time, like add a repeat here or there. But for the most part when I finish it

97 that’s pretty much what it’s gonna be. Because I’ve already heard it so many times and I kind of go back and forth in term of how something’s going to sound—what a transition is going to sound like. And it also helps the rehearsal process a lot, especially if the piece is complex. Just to have something to listen to and for me to know the piece really well instead of just showing up and saying “Oh let me see how this sounds” so I don’t really know what it’s going to sound like—for the most part I usually do know—I have a pretty clear idea of what it’s going to sound like.

JL: Ok, that’s interesting. So you’re not bringing in stuff to a group that’s unfinished and just trying to work it out in the group? You have a clear idea of what it is when you bring it in.

MZ: Yeah, it’s very—I don’t think I remember one time that I’ve done that [laughs]. I might have a sketch and say “let me see how this sounds” but for the most part if it’s a piece or a composition—yeah it’ll be finished. It’ll be pretty much ready to go.

JL: So, when you’re writing tunes, as you’re figuring out the structure, are you thinking actively “I want to improvise of this—this is an improvisational vehicle for me” or for the other musicians? Is improvisation sort of central to the process when you’re writing?

MZ: Well, yeah. If I’m writing something for a group where improvisation is involved within the group with improvisers–like most of the time there’ll be a section there that will include some kind of improvisation. Usually, like—you’ve heard my music—I’m not the kind of guy to write a structure and then improvise over that same structure, then play the melody again and finish the piece. That’s not really what I’m interested in writing, even though a lot of great music is like that. So usually the way I create those spaces for improvisation—I’ll just try to think compositionally. I’ll think, what can I use maybe out of the body of what I already wrote or something that’s an extension of that. Maybe grabbing a motif or grabbing some kind of harmonic progression that’s already been presented or maybe just something totally new that can be a space for improvisation. And usually, when I do that I’m not necessarily thinking about—well it depends—sometimes I think “this should not be a piano solo because the piano is going to be playing all this stuff so he shouldn’t solo over this--maybe the piano solo can be in another section.” But most of the time I just kind of write out a few solo spots and then decide later who’s going to play.

Another thing that I think about a lot that’s important to me is the idea of form and just kind of how the events are being presented. That’s something that I just really enjoy about the process of writing the piece and I enjoy it when I’m listening to a piece, just kind of like guiding myself through the form of the piece and finding events—like this is the recap of something that already happened, this is something new, this is something that already happened but it’s just a little different with some variation, that kind of thing. That’s something that I really enjoy about the process and I think about that a lot when I’m writing music. So more often than not, if there’s

98 more than one soloist it will be in different sections, just to have a little variety. That’s just something that I enjoy.

JL: Sure, so you’re using those improvisational sections within the composition as ways to move it forward.

MZ: Yeah, yeah. I think of the improvisation part of it as part of the piece.

JL: When you’re giving people compositional advice or techniques, or when you’re writing your own music, do you find yourself drawing on similar improvisational techniques, whether that’s different rhythmic groupings or things that you use in your own improvisation harmonically, do you find yourself drawing on that when you’re composing? Is it sort of the same vocabulary?

MZ: Yeah, a lot of times it is. I feel that there’s definitely, at least in my case, a very similar process when working on it. Because, improvisation for me is like language, I think about it that way—you kind of build up your language and you get to a point where you can kind of control that language without having to think about it too much. With composition, you build your language too, the same way. You study other people’s music and then find stuff that you like don’t like as much and sort of like unconsciously or consciously you adapt things into your own persona. And for improvisation it’s the same process.

What I do think about composition, though, is that—there are ways to write that way where it is a total extension of your language. For me, the epitome of that would be Charlie Parker’s music. When you hear his tunes, you’re basically hearing a solo—a written down solo over the same set of changes. Whereas, maybe when you hear Wayne Shorter’s music, it’s more like he’s sort of conceptually sitting down and working out concepts that are not necessarily coming out of his horn. And that could be another way, also—that you’re kind of writing totally disconnected to your process as an improviser. And then the composition becomes a challenge—ok so how am I going to play on this now, how am I going to deal with this? But a lot of times, like when working with younger musicians and working specifically on composition, I try to get them to identify—the same thing like playing—things you do well, things you don't do as well and the things that you really like—find ways to put that into what you’re writing. So, if there’s a specific type of music you’re trying to get to, whatever it is, try to find ways to put it into your writing. And make what you’re writing an extension of yourself—of your personality, the stuff that you like.

But it could have two faces—one face could be really and extension of what you’re playing or the other face could be something more conceptual, not something that you necessarily play all the time but you do like and enjoy listening too and you’re trying to put it into your own language.

JL: Right. Do you have examples of your own music, pieces you wrote that exhibit those different approaches?

99

MZ: Maybe. I’m sure there are some. Let me think. There’s a tune that I wrote kind of based on a lot of things I was working on at school, it’s called “Academia.” So that tune kind of came, a little bit from both sides…I was working on rhythmic ideas with some of the drummers at school, so I started putting some rhythmic layers with 11 and 4, going back and forth. Then I was working on some things that had to do with harmony and working with specific colors, specifically coming out of the harmonic major scale, like certain modes of the harmonic major scale. So I was trying to use those colors in different ways with the voicings for the tune and trying to find melodies that I would play on that color and trying to fit them into the 11. So the process was kind of similar.

A lot of times…I don’t really use the horn a lot to write. Even if I want to come up with a melody, I’d kind of rather sing the melody and approach it more from that lyrical perspective. Sometimes I do, sometimes I’ll sit and record myself playing a couple lines. I was doing that recently with this chamber piece that I’m writing and I wanted to write this thing that kind of felt like a cadenza—that would sound like it was improvised but I wanted to orchestrate it for a few instruments. So I just improvised on my own and then transcribed that and orchestrated it and harmonized it. So that process can be fun, but it’s not as common for me.

JL: Ok, that’s interesting. So on “Academia,” that line that you play in unison with the piano, do you recall if you came up with that away from the horn?

MZ: It was a combination. I remember I was kind of exploring different ways to deal with certain sounds, like one sound was this sort of #9 sound, and trying to be really precise about the #9 what was flat what wasn't. And the other was like b9 natural 13. Which are both modes coming out of that scale. So when I was writing the melody I was like, ok maybe I’ll play on the piano—what would I play on this sound. And I would play it in my head or play it on my horn and then write it out.

I mean, I probably wouldn’t have played exactly that if I was improvising but it was definitely coming out of an approach of like what would work here—something respective of the saxophone.

JL: So “Academia” is an example of a tune that starts with like a rhythmic ostinato, and I feel like a lot of your other tunes do that as well. Is that something that you draw on a lot—as a basis for what you write?

MZ: Yeah, yeah. Rhythm is a big thing for me. It’s always been, even before I started writing music or before I knew about music, it’s just something I’ve always been attracted to. And I tend to gravitate towards that in a lot of my music. You can think about it in different ways and I think about this a lot actually—when people talk about rhythm, what do they actually mean? Is it something that’s more percussive or is it how the phrase is being subdivided into specific accents or is it something more like “feel it in your body” kind of thing, where like you feel certain things and it

100 makes you not necessarily dance but kind of feel accents in certain parts—makes you feel the grounding of the rhythm in a specific way and then the up in another way. So there’s a lot of ways to think about it. I like to kind of explore that a lot.

One thing that I like about rhythm is that it could have that pulse thing that puts you on the ground and just makes you really feel what that groove is and feel it internally and then regardless of the meter if there’s something there that you can kind of feel and not even think about what the meter is—like you can feel the pattern, you can feel the grounding of the pattern, or the sort of like rhythmic melody, that’s something that I explore a lot and that I enjoy. But also this idea of the theory of rhythm. How rhythm actually works. Like when you think about harmony, there’s a certain theory that makes harmony work and makes the extension of harmony interesting, you know? When you think about tensions and when you think about colors and things. So I think about rhythm the same way---there’s a certain theory of rhythm where things can be broken down in specific ways and it’ll have an effect or it can be used in combination with another cell and it will have this other effect. Thinking about layers, thinking about modulations. So that’s something that I think about a lot. I’ve sort of found a certain language that I like—a certain approach that I really like and I just say ok—I did it this way, let me try it this other way and see how that works. I’ve been doing that for a long time, so the music that I write, I usually find myself gravitating toward some rhythmic idea at some point, cause I feel that that’s just what I like in music.

JL: Yeah. So it seems like there’s a good balance in your music, and maybe you would advocate for a good balance in terms of the mathematical—the intricacies of that but also just the feeling of it…

MZ: Right. Yeah that’s certainly a goal—that’s something to go for. Something that I’ve found with creative music in general—like if you want to talk about jazz music—that was really something that attracted me to jazz music in the first place was this idea of when you have something that can really be a reflection of a personality and very honest expression of someone’s feelings and personality but it could also be something really intellectual and complex. And I like both things. I’ve had this conversation with a lot of people about the complexity of music—especially today—and whether that can alienate the listener or attract the listener. And I think a lot of it is really about personality. For me—I’m attracted to complexity. It draws me in when I listen to music that has some kind of level of complexity it sparks my interest. But at the same time I’m also attracted to music that’s very simple and rooted and kind of folksy. So in a lot of what I do is really about trying to get to that balance of those two things that I really like and trying to find a way where ideas that in theory could be complex and in practice could be presented to sound simpler than what they really are.

JL: As you were developing as a composer do you recall specific compositional exercises, advice, things that people you studied with were telling you or processes that felt like you were going through to develop that skill. I don’t know if you ever

101 studied classical composition or other composition formally, but what was your process in developing as a composer?

MZ: I never really studied composition formally. I took a couple really rudimentary classes in school at Berklee mostly. Just like—they talked about the basics of form and we analyzed things but it wasn’t very involved. But I was already interested in the idea of writing your own music and finding your personality so like most people I would just kind of try to copy the things that I liked and try to emulate a composition by this person or that person and see if I could try to kind of find myself that way. Eventually I took a really good class that really kind of changed my perspective—it was a class on 20th century music and it was an analysis class. I took it at Manhattan School of Music in New York when I went there for my graduate studies. It wasn’t a jazz course at all. It was basically—we would just pick pieces out of the 20th century repertoire and sit down and analyze them both harmonically, in terms of form. The teacher was really good and really well informed. That really opened my mind in every way—form and harmony and dealing with colors. And that was in combination with a lot of the stuff that I was already checking out. So I said, now I can see a certain direction I can take. And over the years I’ve continued to be informed by a lot of my peers and a lot of the music that’s being written today and everything from dealing with translating non-musical elements into music to writing lyrics to make your music more lyrical—there’s some devices hear and there that I feel I’ve kind of borrowed over the years from a lot of my peers and just stuff that I like. And I find myself still looking at scores and sitting down and analyzing things and trying to figure out how they work. I feel that—at least for me—the process is easier when I can kind of see how someone else did it. I can kind of say— ok so this person took this road and this works and sounds this way so I can do something similar or I can borrow this idea and turn it into my own—which is really the way I learn improvise too. So it’s like the process is pretty similar.

JL: Yeah. And in some ways that’s what I’m trying to get at with this project. Such an important part of learning to improvise is learning how other people do it and copying that and taking from that and so I’m kind of trying to do the same with composition but rather than just analyzing music after the fact, I think it’s interesting to see and hear what the compositional process was. So, in a bit I’ll ask you if we can talk about some specific compositions, but I did want to draw on what you just said about translating non-musical things, or the effect of extra-musical, external factors. Could you talk a little bit more about that, or how that influences your composition? And maybe it is musical too—obviously you draw a lot on your own heritage, your own traditions.

MZ: Yeah, yeah. There’s that, there kind of going outside of the jazz world and trying to find things that are more rooted in folklore or certain Latin American roots or world music roots, but there are things also that are more direct translations and the first person that I really saw doing that consistently was Steve Coleman, the saxophonist.

102 So, I remember—I mean I’ve always really admired him and I remember coming to New York and meeting him and getting together with him a bunch of times and kinda looking into his process and he was doing really extreme things, like looking at the I Ching and looking at you know, solar systems and trying to come up with ways to translate that and it was a constant sort of search in that way, you know…I think one of the things that he talks about is just being able to look at nature and being able to literally just play what you’re seeing. Like if you look at a plant or you look at a tree, like being able to say like, ok instantly can I translate that into music—that was kinda like his goal.

I didn’t necessarily go that far but I did explore the idea of looking at music through numbers, and that’s something that I enjoy. So usually my process is, like if I want to put something into music, I translate it into numbers first. And I’ve done this with literature, I’ve done this with speech, just kind of translating that into some kind of number that would kind of turn into some kind of rhythmic pattern or some kind of melody or harmonic sequence. I’ve explored that a lot over the years and still do. Like I said I’m one of those people who likes to start with something concrete. So, a lot of the time like if I say I want to write something about a lake or something like that for example, right? So, instead of just saying I’m gonna go to a lake and just kind of look at this lake and be inspired or whatever, look at a picture of a lake or whatever. I will probably say I’m gonna look at the actual composition of the lake— what’s there? What are the natural elements that make that lake happen? What are the stones there and how can I translate that into some musical form? Like a direct translation instead of sort of a programmatic translation, if that makes sense.

JL: Yeah, that’s interesting. I don’t think a lot of people do that, that’s really cool. So are there tunes that you could point to that you could show, like, this is how I translated this to that?

MZ: Yeah, there’s a lot of tunes like that. Let me think of something that’s recent. Well, um, there’s an album that I recorded a few years ago, that actually the whole inspiration for the album was a book called Rayuela. I did this with a friend of mine, who a French pianist, we did it kind of like a co-led thing. But, the idea of the album was that…we were both gonna deal with half of the book and we were gonna find ways to translate that into what we were doing. And he had his process and I had mine. And basically what my process was in a lot of the pieces that I wrote was literally to go to the book and take a chapter and go letter by letter and sort of like devise a system where like the letter would translate into a number and that number would translate into a note or a rhythm. And by doing that a lot of the compositions, or at least a good chunk of the compositions would sort of write itself, cause when you create the system you know, you just have to put what ever the source is through the filter and on the other side there’ll be music, you know what I mean? So, on that album, a lot of the pieces that I wrote came from that idea.

There’s another album that I made called Esta Plena which deals with this Puerto Rican rhythm called “plena. ” And the pieces are pretty folkloric in nature and kinda

103 coming out of that. But one thing that I was doing with those pieces was that I was starting to have sort of like a connecting element amongst all the pieces that were there. And I started thinking about what that could be and eventually figured that what I wanted to do was I wanted to have like—there’s three drums in that style of music, usually three drums that are played together—panderos they’re called. So I wanted to think about the idea of the three drums not only as the essence of the way the music sounded but also the way the music was being written. So a lot of times I used the idea of three as the source. And that could translate in many ways—you could translate obviously into rhythm, but also into the way I was kind of like voicing out things on the piano. Or the way I was like, working out the form, in terms of being like two times or three times, stuff like that. Or even creating melodies using multiples of threes for augmentation and diminution of that melody. And I was pretty systematic, like I kinda kept at it, you know, on every piece. There’s a little something in every piece that connects to that. And again, this is the kind of thing where, if I wasn’t telling you, you wouldn’t know and it wouldn’t really matter to the listener, but for me it matters, cause for me the process, having that process there, it makes the whole thing make sense to me. It makes like, you know, so know I have a set of rules or a system that I can follow.

JL: Right and I think--that’s really interesting to me just the idea that a lot of times we as the listener don’t know what the process was and understanding that, not only can it inform our own—musicians’ own understanding of how to compose, but it also, it adds some depth to understanding what you’re hearing, you know? I think that’s great.

MZ: Right, right. I mean of course if I’m telling you and it changes your perspective on whatever tune and we’re talking about it now and you go listen to it later and say “ok now I can hear that” But part of it for me is that the listener is gonna find its own way to a piece its own terms and then the composer has his own terms and it’s not until you open that door that you can kind of see the terms of the composer. Sometimes those terms won’t be obvious—it’ll be more like you have to dig in. But it might make it more interesting or it might make it less interesting—I don’t know.

JL: Yeah. Well, we’ve kind of been talking about this but I’m wondering if you have specific tunes where you feel like you can recall what the process was—like I started with this rhythm and then added this and this or things you can point to that could more clearly outline the process.

MZ: Yeah. I’ll mention “Academia” because we were talking about it. That one specifically started with this rhythmic idea of the 11 and the 4. The idea is that the 11, the way we’re phrasing it is like 4-3-4. Then to translate that into 4, we put a triplet inside the 4 and a duplet inside the 3, and that turns into 3-2-3. But the figure is always the same, the figure is consistent…the rhythmic figure. [sings rhythm] So in your head, if the drums are not there and no one is playing and you just hear that pattern, you could go both ways—you could decide so I wanna do 3-2-3 or 4-3-4. And then when we play the piece, that’s what we’re doing the whole piece. Kind of

104 going back and forth, playing with that idea of like, ok so we’re gonna go this direction now, this other direction now. You know. And that was the first thing that I had in my head before I wrote a note, I wanted the piece to do that, to deal in both zones—both rhythmic zones.

And then I brought some of the harmonic ideas…from the harmonic major scale. And when I was writing the voicings for the piano I was like ok, these voicings are gonna kind of come out of this mode and they’re gonna modulate a little bit here and there, but I was trying again to like stick with the system. And then once I did that, it was like, ok, what do I want this melody to be—do I want this melody to be more like a lyrical melody or do I want it to be more like a 8th notey, fast melody to delineate the rhythm, and I decided with that latter, so I wrote some things, thinking about what I would play, or the way I would delineate the lines. The rest was basically form. Once I had that I was like, ok so I want this melody to do this. Then I want this little break, then we’re gonna have the melody come back but put a different melody over the same section, then there’s gonna be some kinda transition from the 11 to the 4, then I’m gonna have this other melody do that, that’s what’s gonna bring me back to the 11 over a pedal Eb, then solos over the changes coming out of the same idea, there’s gonna be some kind of transition that’s gonna lead to the piano solo and then from the piano solo we’re gonna have a transition that’s gonna lead us to sort of like, that same bridge melody over the 11 that’s gonna go bacak to the 11 melody and finish the tune….so a lot of times when those elements are there, all I’m doing is filling up the spaces…and to be honest a lot of times I write down what I was just telling you now…I’ll write down a series of events…before I write the tune… I want this to happen, there’ll be a solo, there’ll be a transition to the other solo, then we’re gonna recap, you know…I’ll write it down.

JL: Yeah. So you’re almost starting with the formal outline or road map first.

MZ: A lot of times yes. But I always have something there—some kind of idea like a melody or some kind of groove or harmony. There’s always an initially kind of seed and then I start kind of seeing a form—ok I want this melody to do this and I’m gonna have an intro or transition—and you know sometimes that will change throughout the process but I’ll definitely start with some kind of basic roadmap.

JL: So another tune that in some ways is similar in that it starts out with a groove is “Tipico.” Could you discuss that one a bit?

MZ: Yeah. So the idea for “Tipico” came from two sides. One side was rhythmic and this idea of this pattern that’s a common Caribbean or Latin American pattern where you have stuff that’s on the off beats delineating the syncopation. And that’s always something that I’ve always like because it can be deceiving. It’s like what we were talking about with “Academia”—depending on where you hear the beat or where you hear that syncopation falling it could be on the downbeat or the offbeat—so it could go both ways when you just hear it on its own. So that was the first idea. I put

105 it down on the piano and eventually thought maybe this could be a 10 beat pattern or 5 beat pattern.

Then the other idea was actually harmonic. There’s a certain cadence that’s very very common in Latin American music and Caribbean music. It’s very simple—let’s say if you’re in G minor and the tune is kind of revolving around G and the dominant and G. And then at some point that would translate—maybe I’ll just play in so you can hear it— [Plays G minor] this is G minor and it’s going between that and D7 [plays D7]. Then at some point there’ll be some kind of transition to the relative major, so like F7 to Bb [plays F7 to Bb] and then A7 to B7 [plays A7 to D7] and that’s telling you that it’s going to go back to G minor but really it goes to the subdominant minor (C minor) and this is the other cadence that I was talking about—it goes:

[plays G minor, C minor, G minor, D7, G minor, D7, G minor, F7, Bb major, A7, D7, G, C minor, G minor, D7, G minor, C minor, G minor, D7, G minor]

It’s a very traditional, kind of simple songlike cadence but what attracted me to it is that I just kept hearing it everywhere. I was like—there’s something in this cadence cause it’s all over the place—all over the music of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico—all over the place, right. Venezuela.

I’ve actually written a few things with this cadence, sort of like camouflaged, but I was like ok, I’m going to just put it in the tune. So I started messing around with those two ideas and came up with some kind of melody and then the rest was just orchestrating the ideas—you know—I want to give this part to the piano, this part to the bass, the drums are going to delineate this certain part of the groove kind of hitting these hits and making this longer cycle against it. And then the rest was form and transitions.

JL: Right. Do you find that when you’re orchestrating things you have different strategies like –you like to have the melodies in unison with piano or have piano playing a vamp with the bass—do you have different orchestration techniques you like?

MZ: Yeah, it depends on the bands. If it’s quartet I’m usually specific about parts, like I’ll write out bass parts and piano parts if I want something specific in terms of voicing or I want the pianist to double a melody or bass line I’ll write it out. Also the drums, I’m specific about drums and the kind of hits. Or if I want a specific drum groove, like a specific orchestration of high and low with the snare and hi-hat or bass drum and toms I’ll write it out specifically. So I try to be mindful of that. With the quartet I think about it the same way I would think with any band. I just try to use what’s there and give specific parts to everyone to try and enhance whatever I want to enhance. Sometimes I want the saxophone to be on it’s own and the trio to feel like a supportive element. Sometimes I want the saxophone to work within the band so I’ll ask the band to be more interactive or play busier parts. If I’m writing something for a large ensemble like the SF Jazz Collective then it gives you more

106 options—you can use this instrument, double it with another one, you can pair these two instruments with these other two, you can double the melody with the vibes, or you can have it feel like a trio for a second or duo for a second—it just gives you a lot of options.

JL: Yeah, that’s great. One more big sort of general question, which we kind of touched on a little bit of the idea of how composition interacts with improvisation— I think we all approach different compositions slightly differently in terms of how we improvise, but how might that come into play in your own compositions.

Are you playing to your strengths as an improviser when you’re composing or even thinking about that?

MZ: Most of the time, no. Most of the time when I come up with a solo section, because I’m doing it from the piano or it’s just something that’s coming out of the composition itself, I’m not really thinking about playing on it at all, until I finish it. And then usually I have to sit down and practice it, so it’s more the other way around, where like the composition comes first. And again, a lot of the stuff I’m writing is things that I like, I like the sound or a certain progression—something that’s attractive to me. So I might already be familiar with it. But when I’m writing it I’m not thinking about playing on it at all. I’m just kind of thinking about this section is going to be open and someone will play on it and then once I’m done I’ll just figure out how to play on it.

JL: Ok, great. Well then the final question is whether there are ways to integrate the way we teach improvisation and the way we teach composition, what the relationship is between that learning process and whether you have any thoughts on pedagogy in private lessons or a class or…

MZ: Yeah, well you already know that this stuff is really personal and the process is a reflection of the personality. As a teacher you try to pass down your process and say this is what worked for me and you can try it—I want you to try this or that. And it’s the kind of thing that might not work for everyone but if it works for you, you figure people might get something out of it. But I feel that my process with learning how to improvise and learning how to write was really, really similar—go to the source you like, study it. For me a big thing was transcription and the same thing with composition—transcribing, studying scores, getting information from that and devising sometimes exercises or using the composition as an exercise to try and translate an idea that I like into my own point of view. If I hear a piece and say I like that, those chords or those voicings, maybe I’ll try something similar as an exercise and just see how I can translate that in my own way and that might turn into a composition that I end up play. And even larger projects—conceptually are inspired by things that I hear—if I see someone who’s doing a tribute to so and so and I like they way they approached that or someone’s exploring a certain way to deal with folklore and I just like the combination of elements and the way they balance that out that could be more of a conceptual inspiration. So for me, if I was dealing with a

107 student, I’m just trying to identify what they like and have them write to their strengths, emulating things that they like—the same thing we do with transcription—what they like, things they need. For example, if I was working with a student and he’s coming in with all this super complex dense music, super systematic, over-the-top, my first inclination would be to have him try to do the opposite, try to say I see that you like to do this but I want to see if you can do this other thing—I want to see if you can just write a melody or just write some functional harmony and see how you can put the two together and try to point out some examples from my own music or someone else’s music of how the two don’t necessarily have to be totally disconnected. They can be kind of used together. It’s not that different from what I do if we’re just working on playing, on improvising.

108 Interviews with Donny McCaslin (December 2019 and March 2020) (transcripts edited for clarity)

Dec. 12, 2019

JL: Could you talk about some of your typical compositional methods—how you approach composition—I’m sure there are a number of different ways.

DM: Yeah, I guess, it’s probably evolved over the years but for me often it’s sitting at a keyboard/piano and just improvising. Then if there’s an idea that comes that seems compelling I’ll try to develop that. I think sometimes for me as opposed to it being a melody and changes it might be more of like a bass line that I’ll start with and then I’ll layer from there. But it’s not absolute because I’ve certainly written things that have started with melody or started with just a chord voicing. But I’m always just looking for that entry—you know something that spurs the imagination and it could be any of those things. It’s probably not as often that that will happen for me playing the instrument—the saxophone. So I’d say primarily it’s at a keyboard. And another thing that I want to say is that sometimes what’s happening is I’m listening to some music to try and get inspired and try to feed my sense of creative imagination. Sometimes I’ll be focusing on not like three albums but like three tracks or something much more specific and then eventually something will start happening on the keyboard for me where it’s not like I’m copying it per se but I can see how its influenced by those songs. And I said three—it’s sort of a random number but what I really mean is—its not like I’m listening to like 15 songs at a time. It's a smaller sampling and then usually something will come out of that that’s inspired by a song by Sufjan Stevens for example. There’s one song I can directly— on this last recording of mine it's a song called “New Kindness” and I was listening to a lot of Sufjan Stevens’s music and a few songs in particular and when that song started happening it felt like it had that spirit of how I filter the Sufjan thing. So that’s—you know if I was gonna distill it into something concise it would be that— that’s a process that happens for me. And then other times it’s something more like, you know, I’ve been working on a rhythmic exercise and then something maybe happens that’s not exactly what the rhythmic exercise is but it’s inspired by it. Or I’m working on a particular mode—like there’s a song that came out maybe a month ago called “Tokyo” and I think I was playing around with harmonic major you know and I was just improvising with it and then that tune started happening and you know off the top of my head I can’t even remember if it’s all harmonic major but it started from me working on that and the b6 sound.

JL: Yeah, nice. I think that that’s common—sort of the inspiration from other tunes or exercises and things like that. That’s great—the Sufjan thing—do you have other example you could point to of like—this is a tune that inspired this one?

DM: Yeah, I mean if I go back sort of further in my catalog there’s a song called “LZCM” from a record years a go that was totally coming from this Christian McBride song which I think is called “Technicolor Nightmare” and also “Black Dog” by Led

109 Zepplin. “Memphis Redux” was inspired by “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” and that same record there’s one called “Energy Generation” which was really inspired by a Tower of Power song “You’ve Got to Funkafize” and it was that kind of thing. You know I remember with “Memphis Redux” I was like, “Ah, I love the feeling of “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” and I love the feeling of Donny Hathaway and the sort of that started happening. That’s a few.

JL: Yeah, that’s great. So, you mentioned sometimes starting with bass lines. So do you feel like you end up prioritizing groove, bass line, a sort of a foundation on a lot of tunes or do you prioritize melody or is there no real rhyme or reason to it.

DM: That’s a good question. I guess I would say that the bass/melody relationship is the primary focus for me. And not that the groove on the drums isn’t, but that sometimes I’m not clear what that should be or is gonna be. But I can get more clarity just sitting and working on the relationship between the bass note and the melody note—bass and melody. That would probably be my priority I would say. And then, yes, some tunes it starts with a bass line and then I add a melody later, you know. But it’s not always like that.

JL: Yeah, so having those two voices that are set, and then other things fall into place…

DM: Yeah, that’s something that I felt like I learned from Dave Douglas when I was playing in his band and you know he’s really prolific and just going through…a large volume of music that he produced and noticing that oh, this batch of songs is just 3 voices, you know. He won’t write anything for this particular project that has more than 3 notes—like bass note, melody note, and harmony note. And like, how focused that sounds—that was really helpful to me in terms of getting the focus.

JL: Yeah, I remember be kind of blown away when I saw some of his music at Banff years ago, which I think you were also at—and I think he had us do some exercises in three-part writing and just seeing how simple the music looked on the page and then how much came out of it was amazing.

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JL: In terms of your improvisational approach—how does that affect how you are composing. Are you thinking “I want this to be a vehicle for improvisation” or are you thinking of the improvisation as some sort of after thought—is that central to most of your compositions or does it vary?

DM: Well I would say that in a way its an afterthought, in a way for me it’s about the tune and make the tune the most cohesive, flowing thing that it can be and I’m not thinking so much about—I mean of course it’s like, oh, what would be a cool solo section or what would feel right to play over, but that isn’t the primary thing. I mean part of that is maybe that’s changed in the last few years as I’ve pivoted to this more

110 of like a songwriting approach, you know—lyrics and so it’s really changed in the last let’s say four years because my focus is really not on ‘where am I going to solo?’

JL: Yeah, that’s something I wanted to talk about. I think it’s clear in your music that there’s been a shift in whether the saxophone is the primary voice even in the song, so that’s really interesting—I’m sure that affects compositionally how you’re thinking about everything.

DM: Yeah, cause I think, prior to that shift like, the saxophone was gonna be, is the central—plays the melody, is the central lead voice in that. So with that approach usually where to improvise kind of went hand in hand with that as the song developed. I guess I’d also be seeing what it would look like to play over this section or that would be part of the—hmm let me just think about this for a second. I think even then the focus was still on the tune and the relationship between the bass and the melody, the flow of the harmony and trying to get this like, this complete story that felt compelling. And then the improvisation part of it would usually be over part of the form or the whole form, or maybe just going free. So that all seemed to work together and I think what was more challenging in a way was the pivot to ok, now it’s about the songwriting thing and I’m not quite sure of the role of the saxophone but I’m not going to worry about it to its completion and then if the saxophone role hasn’t come already then I’ll just keep working at that.

I’m in the middle of working on a whole batch of new songs and that’s been the thing where we recorded all the stuff and then listening back and tweaking and it’s like yeah, the saxophone thing was unclear in a way, what the role was, so I had to kind of go back and focus on that and get that dialed in. But I wasn’t really able to do that until I had some other elements in place with the lyrics and the groove and the synths and this and that and it was just because of the nature of this new kind of thing that I’m pursuing and it’s good because it’s harder because it’s not as simple as ‘Alright, melody’s over, I’m gonna shred!’ you know…

JL: Right, I’m sure it’s a lot more to think about. I would think also, just the aspect of technology and—I’m thinking about even some of your earlier albums like Fast Future or some of those where you do some overdubbing or looping or things like that. I’m wondering how that might affect things—it’s almost like you have another instrument or you have other options—does that come into play a lot when you’re writing?

DM: Yeah, it does. Sometimes it’s something that I’m thinking about when I’m writing and I’m feeling inspired but it’s also something that I’ll think about after. Like I’ll have the essential elements in place but it’s like, ‘hmm, what would some different kind of synth sound be like or is there another synth part that could happen’ and sometimes with that it’s not something that I write frankly, but it’s something that Jason Linder would just add and then it sounds great and it becomes part of the recording and part of the way the tunes put together.

111 Just quick side note—you mentioned “Fast Future.” I mean that is a tune that definitely started from—I’m sure when we were working together we talked about claves and the dotted quarters and quarters, right? That bass line, it doesn't strictly adhere to that principle, but that’s an example of a bass line that I think came out of me practicing that stuff that we talked about. [Sings] That rhythmic pattern. It wasn’t like I sat down and was like ok 5 plus 7, etc. But it was kind of inspired by that rhythmic exercise that we worked on.

JL: Right, and that gets and some of the different ways that you teach and the things you work on---what do you see as the similarities or differences of how you teach or how you approach working on improvisation versus composition? Do you find the process similar in terms of developing as a composer and developing as an improviser?

DM: Well I think with the rhythmic stuff it’s equal—it’s equal opportunity. For something like that it just can so inform improvisation and also composition. I mean obviously, when you're like working on intervallic patterns I mean that definitely can work of improvisation and for composition too. And I think even working on modes and exotic modes like modes of limited transposition and something like—I mentioned harmonic major which isn’t as common of a mode definitely yields results for both improvisation and composition. So I guess in the big picture it all kind of works together, I think.

JL: Right. And part of the reason I ask is because one of the things I’m trying think about with this project is the idea often we since we’re not teaching composition as overtly early on, that maybe player develop as improvisers and then at some point it’s expected that they’re writing tune but we don’t allow for the same process of development, and whether there are ways when teaching improvisation to integrate compositional ideas.

DM: Yeah, absolutely. I’m starting to do that a little more, like saying, ok here’s this mode, write something. That’s a good observation.

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JL: In your development as a composer, were there certain things--advice you got, classes you took, or people you studied with that you found particularly useful?

DM: Yeah, I never took any classes unfortunately. If I had to do it over again I maybe would have taken some composition classes and studied that more, because it was all about playing for me as a student. That being said, I remember I had a conversation with Dave Kikoski asking him about composition and he gave me some advice that I got a lot out of…even before that was I was playing with Gary Burton and one of the things he said—I think I was talking about the struggle to find your own musical voice and he said you should write songs—that’s going to immediately help—you’re going to see what your voice is, your musical language is if you write

112 songs. That was great advice and that’s something that I probably tell every student I have. So those two really stick out…outside of that I would mention David Binney—I played a lot of his music over the years, he’s produced a lot of my recordings. I’ve always felt really liberated by the freedom in his writing and how he was never afraid to let any kind of influence come in and he’s a very broad thinker. So that’s inspiring to me. And then, I mentioned being up close with Dave Douglas’s music for how ever many years that I was in his band—5-6 years. Going through his music I really learned a lot. Same thing with Danilo Perez—I was in his band for a few years and played a lot of music. That was very inspiring for me. That was in the period where I made Soar and In Pursuit and so those are the big up close and personal things that have happened that have helped inform and inspire me as a writer.

JL: Yeah, so it’s kind of models—dealing with other people’s music and seeing what they do.

DM: Yeah, definitely.

JL: Are there external factors that come in for you when you’re writing music? Things outside of music that are inspiration or that inspired your compositional approach?

DM: I think for me in a way it’s feeling. So in a way I try not to overthink it and when I’m there I try to just be in the feeling. So it’s more of an emotional thing that I try not to describe. Certainly I’m influenced by all that’s happening in the world and when my children were born or all the things that we process as we are living. All of that informs how I feel about things, but I can’t think of an example where it’s like— I saw this Vincent Van Gogh painting and now I’m going to write this tune. That’s not how it goes for me. It’s more just feeling—emotion.

JL: Right. And maybe a related thing that you were mentioning earlier in talking about being inspired by Sufjan Stevens is the element of inspiration from outside of what we would call the typical “jazz” genre.

DM: For me there’s a ton of that—the source inspiration being non-jazz genre. I mean there’s just a ton of examples from like Madonna, folkloric African music, folkloric Peruvian music, there’s like a long list of examples for me.

JL: Does that come out of a sort of conscious effort of like, you want to push the music forward and explore new things or is it just kind of that’s the aesthetic that you’ve always been into?

DM: Well, I think it's a little bit of both. I mean part of it is looking for things that will stimulate my creative imagination, number one and just following that wherever it leads—following that non-judgmentally, you know. And then also wanting to find different sounds and wanting to find things that are different.

113

JL: Yeah, nice. Well one thing that would be helpful for me would be to discuss some specific compositions, which you mentioned a few, that you can outline the process for—of kind of this is where I started, this is how it came about…

DM: Yeah, if I was going back a little further, the song “Madonna” from In Pursuit was really inspired by the first song on her record Ray of Light which is like two songs—“Drowned in Love” and something else. It’s a weird relationship—cause I’m not a huge Madonna fan by any stretch but I love that song. So that was one. But again that was more like the feeling—not like I took this harmonic device, but just feeling. Whereas “Energy Generation” which I mentioned earlier, the bass line for the A section really came from the Tower of Power thing and I don’t know—I can’t even sing the bass line of “You’ve got to Funkafize” but somehow just that’s really what I got from it was the bass line and then the song went from there. …

JL: On “Fast Future” you’ve got the melody, bassline and voicing—is that common in terms of the way you construct things.

DM: Yeah, it is. And that was one where the bass line is coming from that exercise we talked about and then once the bass line felt like it was there then I was thinking about the melody—and I think for that one I was thinking about “Transition” by John Coltrane. And then the voicings were—the way I write sometimes is I’ll have these different elements sequenced so I’ve got the bass line repeating and the I’m just improvising for these chords until I find something that feels right and I’ll bet that that’s what happened on that tune.

JL: Ok, so that’s another interesting element of your process is then is to use sequencing or looping and then improvising over that.

DM: Yeah, because you know I’m not like an accomplished piano player so that’s a great technique to be able to hear stuff over and over and then try different things.

DM: Yeah and that’s for the A section, and then in that tune when it gets to B I think it’s like a B minor chord—all that goes away and it goes to a different thing and that was thinking about contrast and you know you have this pointellistic bass line and then you want some release from it and what can that look like.

JL: Right, and that gets into the more aesthetic kind of philosophical need for balance that’s just like you said, somewhat intuitive.

114 Follow-Up Interview March 20, 2020

JL: I’m interested in how your recent stylistic shift has affected the compositional process. Now that you’re collaborating with singer-songwriters more and writing different types of music, how does the compositional process look different for you?

DM: Definitely part of what’s changed is thinking more in the verse-chorus format. And I’m not an expert on song-writing form in the pop idiom. I couldn’t give you a break down of the different classic styles because as I was mentioning last time, for me, a lot of this is intuition. But one change has been, for the songs I’m writing to be potential collaborations is a sense of having a couple strong sections and then—I guess these are kind of big picture things—part of it is I don’t get too married to anything I write because I want to be open to whatever the collaborator might bring to it, and I also don’t want to over write….

One example would be the song “Tiny Kingdom” off the album Blow. It’s one where I kind of wrote the whole thing and then had Jeff Taylor put lyrics to the melody that I had already written. So that’s one way to do it, of course, but I felt like it was more interesting in a way to leave space for the collaborator to potentially come up with the vocal melody. So I’ll put together a tune that’s more bare bones—a bass line, chords, a groove, maybe a sax line but the sax line has space—it’s a melody but it’s not necessarily a lead melody, and then I’ll see what the collaborator does and I’ll adjust.

So in a way there’s more unknown this way and so sometimes it’s hard. I’m sitting there working on something and then sending it off feeling like maybe this is too bare bones, but I find that this way it gives the collaborator more leeway and then when I get it back we get into a back and forth and keep refining.

I’ve also experienced it where I get together and I have fully formed tunes and I’m in a songwriting session and everything gets stripped away except for like two chords and then the song is built off that and it works out. The song “Eye of the Beholder” is a good example of that. I had a whole thing with all these sections and then it ended up being stripped down to just a vamp and the vocal collaborator did come up with a vocal melody and I just focused on the harmony and it went from there.

So those are the main things. I’m still working on the process, because what can happen is I’ll send something off and then they’ll really fill it up and I’m like “whoa”, that’s really cool but where does the saxophone fit in? That can be the challenge. And there was one song that kind of ended up feeling like there just wasn't enough saxophone and we had kind of gone down this path and it just played out and it just didn’t really make the cut so that tune got cut.

It’s a different dynamic with every collaborator, but it’s getting clearer. I’m figuring out how much to give each person.

115 JL: So then a related question to that—I heard an interview I think from right before Blow came out and you were speaking a little bit about how that shift has forced you to change your improvisational approach also. So I’m thinking about a tune like “What about the Body” where you have a solo on it but maybe you’re approaching it sonically from a different place…I wonder if you could just talk about that tune or more generally your approach.

DM: Sure. I feel like again part of this is intuitive and it’s getting into these situations and playing and feeling like “the vocabulary I grew up with doesn’t really fit here.” The way I would play on a Maria Schneider thing or something with Dave Douglas, it just doesn’t feel like it’s the right thing, so what is the right thing? Sometimes for me that’s been exploring creating different sounds on the saxophone. For a while I was really working on multiphonics to give me different textures that felt like they really fit in the sort of drum and bass, progressive, improv./electro zone.

“What about the body” is not so much that thing, it’s more in this pop-art zone, so I remember feeling like in the studio, what the right feeling for this? And part of that solo there’s a lot of false-fingerings. And that’s a texture. In a way, soloing on a song like that is influenced by like electric guitar, it’s influenced by the sonic things that can be triggered with the pedals and it’s also thinking about singers and not so much thinking about a burning line that’s coming from the jazz tradition. I’m not even thinking about that. I’m more reacting to the sonic and rhythmic template that is in front of me. I think when I start to play on a song like that with more of the “jazz” vocabulary it instinctually feels inappropriate to me. So I pull back and I’m looking for what feels like it’s the right vibe for this. And yeah, sometimes it’s not the most advanced harmonically it’s just this feeling of a flurry of overtones, of false- fingerings or multiphonics. Or a percussive thing. I guess I’m just thinking of hearing the saxophone playing a solo there but not even thinking of it as a saxophone, but more thinking what’s the right energy, what’s the right vibe for this thing.

So a lot of the language stuff that I worked on for years is all out the window in a way. Not out the window, but I’m not thinking about that stuff in this context. I’m just thinking—what serves this song in the moment. There’s an element of that that is a search because I don’t have it all figured out and it’s new and it’s different so sometimes it doesn’t come easily, but it’s exciting.

JL: Great. So another piece I’m discussing in the paper is L.Z.C.M. You mentioned your influences for that song and I think it’s clear where those fit in, but then in the solo section, it’s in a similar sort of rock vibe—obviously a few years earlier, but how would you describe your approach on that tune…where there is an outside influence from people like Led Zeppelin, but you’re still trying to fit it into your voice?

DM: Yeah. That one is definitely in that sort of hybrid, rock/electro/fusion/jazz. The melody, there’s these lone 8th note lines that happen, and definitely my playing on

116 that is closer to the jazz thing and it’s not as far over as I am now into the pop-art thing. That one to me does feel like I’m still on my way over to where I am now.

It’s a 10-bar frame and the changes are not super simple. It moves around a bit and it’s an odd phrase so that one is definitely still in that sort of hybrid phase. When I play that, when I played that the other night, I’m more connected to the jazz language on that one for sure.

117 Appendix B: Music/Leadsheets/Transcriptions

“Bafandine” by Jerry Bergonzi “Bob Berg” by Jerry Bergonzi “Awake” by Jerry Bergonzi “Creature Feature” by Jerry Bergonzi Jerry Bergonzi’s Solo on “Creature Feature” “Academia” by Miguel Zenón Miguel Zenón’s Solo on “Academia” “Morelliana” by Miguel Zenón “Oyelo” by Miguel Zenón “Villa Coope” by Miguel Zenón “L.Z.C.M.” by Donny McCaslin Donny McCaslin’s Solo on “L.Z.C.M.” “Fast Future” by Donny McCaslin Donny McCaslin’s solo on “What about the Body”

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