Qualitative Inquiry

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Extending the Metaphor: Notions of Jazz in Portraiture Adrienne D. Dixson Qualitative Inquiry 2005 11: 106 DOI: 10.1177/1077800404270839

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Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 10.1177/1077800404270839QUALITATIVEDixson / NOTIONS INQUIRY OF JAZZ / February 2005 Extending the Metaphor: Notions of Jazz in Portraiture

Adrienne D. Dixson The Ohio State University

Portraiture, as a qualitative research methodology, challenges how we define objectivity and rigor in the social science research tradition. More recently, and in this “seventh moment” of qualitative research, scholars have begun to explore the impact of “racialized discourses” and “ethnic epistemologies” on both the process and content of qualitative research, particularly within communities of color. In this article, the author offers jazz as a heuristic for thinking about research that is informed by and a reflection of “racialized discourses” and “ethnic epistemologies.”

Keywords: portraiture; jazz; teachers; research; urban education

You know, I only agreed to do this because you’re a sista. I have been in a lot of people’s research. They hear about the school and me, and they want to come and do a study. I’m just tired of them coming here and me helping them out to get their degrees. So, when I saw what you were trying to do, and that you’re a young sista, I thought it was finally an opportunity for me to help one of my people. ’Cuz you know,not many of us get out of there with a doctorate. —Ms. Theodora Johnson, High School Teacher1

Jazz is merely the Negro’s [sic] cry of joy and suffering. —“Lewis” in The Cry of Jazz (Bland, Hill, Kennedy, & Titus, 1959)

The above quotes, in part, mark the essence of what I am attempting to express in this article. Ms. Johnson’s statement demonstrates the subjective and relational nature of research, particularly within one’s community.More- over, Lewis, a character in the film The Cry of Jazz (Bland et al., 1959), states

Author’s Note: I would like to thank Professor Gloria Ladson-Billings at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for the intellectual guidance and space to produce this work. I would also like to thank Assistant Professors Jessica DeCuir-Gunby of North Carolina Qualitative Inquiry, Volume 11 Number 1, 2005 106-137 DOI: 10.1177/1077800404270839 © 2005 Sage Publications

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Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 107 very poignantly what jazz is. I will attempt to build on the essence of both Ms. Johnson’s and Lewis’s statements to articulate what I mean by a jazz research methodology. Like most graduate students, graduate study was challenging for me. I struggled specifically with the notion that one can know something objectively and abstractly and that this knowing was not emotional. That is, I struggled with the notion that one can know something and not be invested in its meaning or the process of discovery. Although there are certainly those for whom the concept of knowing and researching are indeed emotional acts, for the most part, much of the training for graduate students is to know in the abstract, objectively and without emotional investment. I found this aspect of graduate study particularly difficult to absorb. In the academy,we are trained to express what we know as benignly and sterilely as possible—to divorce our emotions from the topic. We are trained that personalizing an issue, especially in academic writing, compromises one’s credibility and objectivity. As Ms. Johnson’s statement illustrates, what I could know and how I would access what participants in my study knew was predicated on a great deal more than what I had been officially trained to know about research and being a researcher. My struggle with the idea that one can know something with absolute cer- tainty came in part from my liberal arts undergraduate education. As most undergraduates, I had my share of required psychology and science courses wherein I was introduced to the ideas of objectivity and the scientific method. However, as a jazz studies major, I had an abundance of courses that encour- aged me to analyze, question, and express ideas creatively.I was trained to listen and be keenly aware of my surroundings such that what I had to offer as a speaker, singer, or instrumentalist served to complement, rather than detract from, that which was transpiring around me. I was initially trained as a “classical” musician in that I developed some of the technical skills of playing the flute through the study of European music. Although studying European music helped me acquire a high level of facility on my instrument and a broad knowledge of music theory and composition, studying jazz gave me a keen insight into the interpretive aspects of creating and performing music. Similarly, my instrumental facility was enhanced asI learned to manipulate tonalities, harmonies, and rhythms in ways that Euro- pean music did not. The notion of praxis became even more salient for me because through playing jazz, the musician is simultaneously exploring and negotiating the boundaries of theory and practice. As a member of Southern

State University, Jeannine Williams Dingus of the University of Rochester, and Thandeka K. Chapman of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee as well as Heather Harding-Jones, doctoral candidate Harvard University, for their thoughtful and insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I am sincerely grateful to Yvonna Lincoln, Norm Denzin, and the reviewers for their suggestions and encouragement as I prepared this article.

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University’s Jazz Ensemble, I learned more intimately how to participate in and contribute to an ensemble. I learned to listen carefully to what others were “saying”2 such that my contribution added to the aesthetic whole. Most profoundly,I learned the difference between being “correct” and “right.” This notion of being “correct” and “right” has been key as I begin to conceptualize jazz as a qualitative methodology, particularly in light of how a “racial discourse and an ethnic epistemology” might inform my work in this area (Ladson-Billings, 2000). My primary jazz professor, Clarinetist Alvin Batiste, spoke frequently about the contradiction in traditional conceptions of Western music theory between what is often “correct” theoretically and “right” musically. Thus, the task of the jazz musician is to understand music theory, but to know when to play music “right.” I also learned to express my thoughts on political and social issues creatively. By studying the work of master jazz musicians and composers who were able to transform their insights on political issues into provocative pieces of music, I learned that we are indeed affected and influenced by our surroundings. For example, John Coltrane produced a haunting composition, “Alabama.” Coltrane composed this piece in response to the horrific church bombings in Birmingham, Alabama, that claimed the lives of four young African American girls who were worshipping in a church one Sunday morn- ing (Werner, 1999). The piece opens with a somber and melancholy introduction, with Coltrane on the tenor saxophone and the rhythm section playing over a single chord. Both Coltrane and the piano are playing in the lower reg- isters of their instruments. This voicing adds to the melancholy timbre of the piece. The sound is dark and emotional, with the drums playing a diffuse and ominous rhythm. Although there is a redemptive section in the piece, the introduction alerts the listener that the song is serious in nature. Through this composition, Coltrane not only made a statement about the lives lost but also lent his support to the civil rights movement. With the lighter, redemptive section of the piece, he signaled the response of the leaders of the movement to this tragic event (Werner, 1999, p. 125). Similarly, Billie Holiday was a vocalist whose talent lay not necessarily in the quality of her voice but rather, in the genius of her delivery and abilityto phrase or to express a melody. Holiday added her voice to the efforts of the antilynching movement by performing and recording the composition “Strange Fruit,” which laments the senseless and violent deaths of Black people, both male and female, during the Jim Crow era (Davis, 1998). Contemporary jazz musicians such as Branford Marsalis and Wynton Marsalis have used their music to respond to issues and events facing African Americans. Branford Marsalis’s 1992 recording I Heard You Twice The First Time featured two songs that were political in nature: “Brother Trying to Catch a Cab (On the East Side)” and “Simi Valley Blues” (written in response to the acquittal of four White police officers accused of beating Rodney King. The trial was held in Simi Valley, California). Wynton Marsalis, by the same

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 109 token, recorded Blood on the Fields in 1997 as a musical documentation of the experience of slavery in the United States and for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in music, the first jazz musician to ever win the award. These two musicians use their music to make commentary on both the historical and contemporary experiences of African Americans specifically as well as the much larger project of humanity and democracy. Wynton Marsalis has been at the forefront of the movement to recognize jazz as the first and only truly Ameri- can art form. He also has worked tirelessly for the national recognition of significant and innovative musicians such as Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong. The efforts of these musicians (and many others) taught me that through jazz, I could make profound statements creatively. In addition, I learned that what I could offer would be part of a collective statement that could and perhaps should be political and liberatory. It is this training (that included learning to be part of an ensemble) that influences my understanding of researching and knowing. I must admit that using this metaphor did not come to me organically. Rather, through my quest for a methodological and epistemological perspective that spoke to my worldview and beliefs about research, I found Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot’s work on portraiture. It was through my reading of Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis’s (1997) The Art and Science of Portraiture and Lawrence-Lightfoot’s (1994) I’ve Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation that I discovered it is possible for research to be creative, subjective, and rigorous. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis argued that the researcher’s perspective must be acknowledged and accounted for during and throughout the research process (p. 11). For me, learning that there is a way to conduct intel- lectually rigorous research that is honest and creative was both intriguing and liberating. As I will discuss later, the tenets of portraiture allowed me to explore the issues of gender, race, and class identity in Black women’s pedagogy without compromising my commitment to producing work that is re- sponsible to my participants. By using the jazz metaphor, as Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) have with portraiture, I will explore how this idiom might be helpful for further research on topics and issues through which traditional research methodologies might not capture the complexity and nuances. In addition, through this metaphor, I believe that I am able to make connections across genres that speak to the interconnectedness of the Black experience. Using examples from a 10-month study I conducted on the pedagogical philosophies and practices of two Black women elementary school teachers that I believe exem- plifies the essence of a jazz sensibility, I will attempt to make some connections to qualitative research methodology and that of jazz.3 The challenge that guides the use of the jazz metaphor is avoiding superficial comparisons between both qualitative research and jazz music. Moreover, I want to avoid haphazardly replacing one metaphor of methodology for another.

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In this article, I argue for both the usefulness of jazz as a metaphor for qualitative research and attempt to explain how it might look as a research methodology. My interpretation of jazz as a metaphor for qualitative research departs slightly from Oldfather and West’s (1994) interpretation in that I situ- ate my discussion within what Ladson-Billings (2000) has described as a “racial discourse and an ethnic epistemology.” I argue that given the cultural and political roots of jazz as not only an American art form but also a decidedly African American art form, its use as a qualitative research methodology for working in and with African American communities can be described as a culturally relevant approach to research. In other words, I am conceptualizing jazz as an epistemological approach to research as well as looking at how to do jazz as a research methodology.It is important to note that I am still at the early conceptual and theoretical stages of this work. Moreover, I am conscious of the tendency for researchers to do what Rist (1980) has described as “blitzkrieg ethnography.”That is, I am hoping to offer a thoughtful and deliberate epistemological perspective and methodology and not merely an “alternative” methodology because “racial or ethnic” epistemologies are the “in” thing to do at this moment in qualitative inquiry.

Black Feminisms in Real Life

My paternal grandmother, Alice Lynn-Audrey Rose Bryant, was the first Black feminist I knew. She did not call herself a feminist, but her lifestyle and ideology sug- gest that if she knew what a Black feminist was, she would most certainly subscribe to the idea. My grandmother was a staunch supporter of a woman’s right to choose. She came from a long line of midwives on her mother’s side of the family. These women— her mother, grandmother, and aunts—helped hundreds of women give birth in rural Phoenix, Louisiana. She was also a registered nurse, having received her training at one of the few Black hospitals in the city of New Orleans, Flint-Goodrich. According to my grandmother, as a result of the civil rights movement, Flint-Goodrich closed down because “Black folks believed the White hospitals were better than the ‘colored’ ones.” The hospital closed in the late 1980s; it has since been reopened as a convales- cence home and serves the aging Black residents located in its neighborhood. Shortly after becoming a registered nurse, my grandmother moved with her then only child, my Aunt Martha, to Los Angeles, California. She, along with a number of her neighbors, was among the other migration of Blacks out of the South. This second wave of migrants was mostly from Louisiana and had moved to Southern California in the early 1940s (Franklin & Moss, 1947/2000). Generally, they all purchased homes in nearby neighborhoods and created a “little New Orleans” in their community. This move to Los Angeles was prosperous for my grandmother in many ways. It allowed her to find gainful employment as a nurse as well as maintain her private practice performing abortions for women in need. Her belief was that no woman should be forced into becoming a mother or giving birth to a child if she was not ready

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 111 or did not want to. From her midwife grandmother and aunts she had learned to use natural herbs and teas that could induce a miscarriage. She often counseled young women on what herbs to purchase from the pharmacy (one of which is still legal and available over the counter) and what to tell the pharmacist if he inquired as to the woman’s need for the product. She would sit with the women when they used the teas to make sure there were no complications. As a general rule, she performed surgical abortions only if the woman had waited too long to use the tea “remedy” which was usually effective only in the first few weeks of pregnancy. She would chastise a woman for waiting too long so as to need a surgical abortion because my grandmother believed that a woman always knows when she is pregnant. In addition, she generally performed abortions only for Black women. She had a room set up in her home where she performed these procedures unbeknownst to her children (my father and Aunt Marva were born in 1947 and 1946, respectively). She ultimately lost her license in the early 1950s when she performed an abortion on a White woman whose husband coerced her into identifying my grandmother as her abortionist. She spent one night in a county jail and lost her nursing license. As a result, she was relegated to working in the hospital as a food service worker. Several years later, she had an opportunity to be reinstated when it was discovered that a physician at Los Angeles’s General Hospital (the hospital where she was a nurse) had performed an abortion. However, circumstances pre- vented her from taking advantage of the reinstatement. She eventually worked as a private care nurse, although she was unable to dispense medication to her patients. Most of her patients were elderly and White. This unfortunate turn of events did not deter my grandmother from continuing to help young women and mothers in need. For as long as I can remember, my grandmother’s home has always been a tempo- rary shelter to a number of women and their children. At any given time, and in addition to the 11 or so biological grandchildren who occasionally roomed at her home, my grandmother might have two additional families. She expected that the women help with the general housekeeping, laundry, and with preparing meals for everyone else in the household. They made a small financial contribution to the utilities and in return, had a safe and clean place to live for as long as they needed to “get themselves together.” Marriage related some of the women to us and others were the daughters of my grandmother’s friends (mostly also Louisiana transplants). My grandmother made no distinction, however, between her own biological grandchildren and the women’s children—we all called her “Granny”—and she would have it no other way. If any of us—her “real” grandchildren—made the “other” children feel unwelcome, we were severely chastised and might even “catch a whipping” if she thought we were too mean. Everyone knew her as “Granny” in her neighborhood. Thus I learned first hand this notion of “othermothering” from my grandmother who had been mother/ grandmother to literally hundreds of people during the course of the 48 years she lived in South Central Los Angeles. During her 20-year marriage to my stepgrandfather, Blyde Bryant, from Shreve- port, Louisiana (who passed away in the early 1980s), she made all the financial deci- sions for the family and purchased several homes in the Los Angeles area. She was savvy financially, with a portfolio of investments in the stock market. She stressed to

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 112 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2005 her daughters, nieces, and granddaughters the importance of women being financially independent. She would take all the granddaughters (there were five of us) with her as she collected the monthly rent, lecturing us about planning for our futures. From my perspective, she was a fair landlord who attended to her property as carefully as she did her grandchildren. The properties were well kept and clean and the tenants seemed happy.

JAZZ AND PORTRAITURE

The portrait is created through negotiation of the discourse between the portraitist and the subject. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) argued that portraiture as a qualitative research methodology is a subjective processin which the researcher acknowledges the extent to which her or his perspective, or vantage point, informs her or his vision of the subject. That is, the portrait represents, in part, the portraitist’s vision or seeing of the subject. Lawrence- Lightfoot described an experience as the subject of a portrait in which she viewed the artist’s rendering of her as capturing the “essence—qualities of character and history some of which I was unaware of, some of which I resisted mightily, some of which felt deeply familiar” (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 4). Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis defined social science portraiture as

a method of qualitative research that blurs the boundaries of aesthetics and empiricism in an effort to capture the complexity, dynamics and subtlety of human experience and organizational life. Portraitists seek to record and interpret the perspectives and experience of the people they are studying, documenting their voices and their visions—their authority, knowledge, and wisdom. (p. xv)

Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) went on to discuss how the images portraitists create, both in the social science and fine arts contexts, are really translations of the subjects that are layered and shaped by their relationships with the participants/subjects. The perspective of the subject is shaped by many factors. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis named five essential featuresof portraiture that help the portraitist render an image that may not be a literal representation of the participant’s perspective of herself or himself but again, one that captures the essence of the participant. Those five essential features are context, voice, relationship, emergent themes, and aesthetic whole. In exploring how portraiture relates to a jazz methodology, the notions of context, relationship, and emergent themes are related to the idea of ensemble playing and improvisation. Playing together in front of a live audience influences the creative process differently than playing in a recording studio or an empty rehearsal hall. In qualitative research, the context not only affects the data collection process but also adds to the understanding of the research question. Studying African American students in an elite, private, suburban,

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 113 predominantly White school provides a different context for understanding the schooling process than in a public, urban, predominantly Black school. How does the schooling environment—physically and psychologically— compare to what students experience in their communities? Paying close attention to language use and personal interactions, for example, is as important as the aesthetic value of the physical plant in understanding the context within which our participants live and work. Jazz musician Art Blakey (personal communication, 1984) generally closed his concerts by saying that music comes “from the Creator, through the musician, to the audience.” Blakey was suggesting that for jazz musicians, music is in part a manifestation of not only the musician’s deeply spiritual relationship with “the Creator” but also the musician’s relationship with the audience. Thus, the music could not happen without those key relationships. Similarly, jazz musicians’ relationships to each other greatly influence the music that they create. Miles Davis was significantly affected by the presence of John Coltrane in his band. He felt that playing with Coltrane had opened up his senses of harmony and improvisation in ways that playing with other musicians did not (Dibb Directions, 2001). In a jazz methodology that is situated within this idea of a “racial discourse and an ethnic epistemology,” the relationship between the researcher and participant is vital. Moreover, given the decidedly political intent of a jazz methodology, equitable relationships between the two must be sought. The researcher must see herself or himself as part of and invested in the community in which she or he is conducting research. It is more than just a site and an opportunity to learn something new. In my study of African American women teachers, I was very much invested in the outcome of the study because I saw myself in the participants’ experiences and stories. Thus, asan African American woman and a teacher, I could relate to many of their beliefs and experiences. In many ways, the data and my analysis would reveal as much about me as an African American woman teacher as they would about the women who participated in the study. Although the context of my teaching has changed from a middle grades classroom to a university classroom, I share with them their sense of commitment to African American children, a sense of urgency and importance in helping African American children be successful in a society that makes it nearly impossible for them to do so. I also understand intimately how it feels to be blamed for the lack of opportunity and perceived underachievement of African American children.4 Given the popular and pervasive images and stereotypes of Black women as immoral, hypersexual, and lazy, neglectful mothers and of Black teachers (primarily Black women) as mean, authoritarian, incompetent, and irrational, I was sensitive to the teachers’ reticence in participating in a study.5 Prior to the study, I had never met the women who agreed to be participants. I had to build a relationship with each of them such that each trusted that I was not interested in casting her as an incompetent and mean teacher. Thus, the

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 114 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2005 research process must be conceptualized as having a positive impact on the participants. This happens through relationships that the researcher builds with the participants. Sharing field notes, discussing the data analysis, creating opportunities for the participants to help with the data analysis, and participating in community events are all ways that the researcher can build a substantive relationship with the participants. Similarly,the notion of improvisation is related to Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis’s (1997) concept of emergent themes. Although jazz musicians may use a written piece of music as a guide, the profundity and beauty of their performance is through the act of interpretation. The interpretation is demonstrated not only through changes in meter or harmony but also in the addition of improvised embellishments to the melody through the use of breaks and solo passages. These breaks and improvisations—emergent themes—manifest in the data. Through observational or interview data, themes come to the fore that either support and enhance the researcher’s initial hypotheses, hunches, and beliefs or contradict and refute them. Three aspects of portraiture that I find particularly powerful are the search for goodness, voice, and validity. It is important to point out that several features of portraiture, as Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) have conceptualized it, are complementary to a jazz methodology. However, given space limitations, I am focusing on these three areas of portraiture primarily because they address some fundamental aspects of jazz, particularly jazz as a methodology, that I believe are essential.

My Sister’s Keeper

“Bitch!” came out of John Patrick’s mouth as if he were spitting in the face of his worse enemy. Perhaps at that moment he was; the recipient of such a venomous epithet was Shaundrelle. Both Shaundrelle and John Patrick were overage students in my sixth-grade class. John Patrick was 15 years old and Shaundrelle was 14 years old. Both had been retained, or “kept back” as the children referred to it, at least twice as a result of failing the state’s promotion examinations when they were in third and fifth grade, respectively. As a 1st-year teacher in New Orleans, I had my share of war stories about fights among the children and my other classroom management woes. This exchange between John Patrick and Shaundrelle was a relatively new trend with the boys in my classroom calling the girls bitches. John Patrick was a frequent perpetrator. I called his name and motioned for him to meet me outside our classroom and into the hallway. As usual, the other children suddenly got silent and a chorus of “Ooh, you in trouble now, John Patrick” rang out. Another child called out, “You know how Ms. Dixson feels about that word!” I asked John Patrick if he had noticed a change in Shaundrelle that I had seemed to miss. He looked at me perplexed. I explained to him that the term bitch referred to a

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 115 female dog—as in a canine. John Patrick had a surprised look on his face when I said bitch as if to acknowledge that its use in school was inappropriate. I continued to explain to him that as far as I could tell, Shaundrelle had not changed species since school had started several hours earlier. John Patrick looked at me and said, “Come on, Ms. Dixson, you know what I mean.” I explained to him, that no, I did not know what he meant. He stated that he was angry at her for “getting smart with him” when he asked her a question. I looked at him blankly and explained that I failed to see how the situation warranted him calling Shaundrelle “out of her name.” I asked John Patrick how he would feel if someone called his sister or a female cousin a bitch. He responded that he would be angry and ready to fight the name caller. I asked him to consider that Shaundrelle was someone’s sister and someone’s cousin. In other words, if he would be angry and ready to defend his sister’s and cousin’s honor, so would her relatives. I asked, rhetorically, what gave him the right to disrespect Shaundrelle and call her a bitch? I asked him to consider that every time he called a girl or a woman a bitch, he was calling someone’s mother, sister, cousin, or aunty, a bitch. Furthermore, the anger that he felt because his sister, mother, or other female relatives were disrespected is the same anger that the girl/woman and her relatives feel when she is called a bitch. More- over, I explained that when I heard him calling a girl bitch, I felt like he was calling me one too. John Patrick was a young man who, despite his recent use of demeaning and sexist language, had generally been very respectful and gentle toward me. Looking down at the ground, as if he were too embarrassed to look at me directly, John Patrick said that he would never call me a bitch and apologized. I told him that I thought he needed to apologize to Shaundrelle because he disrespected her. He agreed. I called Shaundrelle out into the hallway so that John Patrick could apologize to her privately. He agreed to also acknowledge to his classmates that his comment was inappropriate and made a public apology to Shaundrelle in our classroom.

The Search for Goodness

For Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997), portraiture as a methodology serves as “counterpoint to the dominant chorus of social scientists whose focus has largely centered on the identification and documentation of social problems” (p. xvi). In addition, given that much of social science researchis written for a certain audience, quite often the language is inaccessible for the general lay public. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis explained that with portraiture, they seek to “illuminate the complex dimensions of goodness and [it is] designed to capture the attention of a broad and eclectic audience” (p. xvi). This search for goodness is especially important when we consider the volume of literature, with the exception of more recent research by scholars of color, that focuses a pathological lens on African Americans and other groups of color. Specifically, with respect to Black women teachers, rarely has a positive light been shown on us as women and teachers. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis offered,

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It is an intentionally generous and eclectic process that begins by searching for what is good and healthy and assumes that the expression of goodness will always be laced with imperfections. The researcher who asks first “what is good here?” is likely to absorb a very different reality than the one who is on a mission to discover the sources of failure. (p. 9)

Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis, however, were quick to add that through the search for goodness, the portraits are not “documents of idealization or cele- bration.” Rather, the inconsistencies, the vulnerabilities, and the waysin which people negotiate these terrains are “central to the expression of goodness” (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 9). Similarly, the definitionof goodness is defined in collaboration with the subject. The examples of goodness are organic. A primary objective for the portraitist is to look for multiple ways the subject expresses it. If we think about the project of the jazz musician as that of expression and aesthetic interpretation, the goal is implicitly one of success. That is, the musician, for the most part, endeavors to successfully express, represent, and interpret. In jazz, this “search for goodness” manifests in the myriad ways that jazz musicians attempt to do this. Their “search” may manifest sonically (i.e., through instrumentation like pairing a harmonica with a saxophone) and/or compositionally (i.e., composing songs that harmonically and melod- ically signify events, emotions, or issues). The success lies not necessarily in flawless technical execution but rather, it is both the pursuit and attemptat interpretation through which success is measured. Moreover, the interchange, and the “success” of the interchange between musicians on the bandstand is, thus, another attempt at the “search for goodness” for the musician. Furthermore, the very events, ideas, and issues that the musician chooses to express and interpret may themselves be contentious. Consider again Wynton Marsalis’s masterwork, Blood on the Fields. U.S. chattel slavery was/is not a “good” or positive event in U.S. history. However, Marsalis sought to express the love, enduring spirit, and humanity of those held in bondage—to “search for goodness” in a very tragic event. In extending this metaphor of jazz to research, the “search for goodness” is one of both finding and interpreting “good.” As Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) have pointed out, much of social science research seeks to document failure. That is, we are trained as researchers to critique and find what is missing or has not “worked.” Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis argued that finding failure is easy. The challenge, however, is finding success. Thus, the jazz methodology would always already be focused on finding that which is “good.”

Voice

Unlike traditional social science research that controls for the researcher’s subjectivity, in portraiture, the voice of the researcher or portraitist is

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Voice is the research instrument, echoing the self (or the “soul” as Oscar Wilde would put it) of the portraitist—her eyes, her ears, her insights, her style, her aesthetic. Voice is omnipresent and seems to confirm Wilde’s claim that portraits reflect more about the artist than about the subject. (p. 85)

In addition, in portraiture, voice encompasses three orientations: epistemology, ideology, and method. It also includes the portraitist’s authorship, interpretation, relationship, aesthetics, and narrative (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 87). Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis added that this use of voice does not exclude a commitment to rigorous research “grounded in systemati- cally collected data, skeptical questioning (of self and actors), and rigorous examination of biases—always open to disconfirming evidence” (p. 85). One of the essential elements for jazz musicians is this notion of voice. Jazz musicians are identified primarily through the “voice” they develop on their instrument. That is, within jazz, musicians have an identity that is formedin large part through their individual nuanced performance on their instrument. John Coltrane, through the span of his career, developed a voice that was distinct but not stagnant. Educated listeners and jazz musicians are able to identify other jazz musicians by their distinctive instrumental and interpretive voice. In addition, one is generally able to identify the musical influences of jazz musicians through their tone, phrasing, and the musical ideas they express during improvisation or soloing. This suggests that within jazz, voice is not only a highly individualized characteristic but also inextricably dependent on one’s relationship (either directly or indirectly) with another. Moreover, this notion of voice in jazz speaks to Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis’s (1997) suggestion that voice encompasses epistemology, ideology, and method. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) identified six aspects of voice that might be useful for the portraitist. These six aspects are voice as witness, voice as interpretation, voice as preoccupation, voice as autobiography, listening for voice, and finally, voice in conversation. Similarly, they cautioned the researcher to limit the volume or range of her or his voice such that it does not mute the subject’s voice. The portraitist’s voice accompanies the subjects— it adds to and enhances the themes, insights, and articulations. Furthermore, Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis argued that in many respects, the researcheris creating a self-portrait that “reveals her soul but produces a selfless, system- atic examination of the actors’ images, experiences, and perspectives” (p. 86). Balancing the creation of the researcher’s self-portrait and “documenting the authentic portrait of others” is a “complex and nuanced” undertaking. All of the dimensions of voice introduced by Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis speak to the text or the portrait. It is through one or all of these dimensions of voice that the portraitist creates the narrative portrait of her or his subject.

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Although all of the aspects of voice identify the subjective and interpretive nature of this methodology, it is the “voice as interpretation,” “voice discerning other voices/listening for voice,” and “voice in dialogue” that appearto make the closest translation to conceptualizing a jazz methodology.6 It is through these ideas of “interpreting,” “listening,” and “dialoguing” that the synergy and exchange that occur between jazz musicians on the bandstand are captured. Hence, “interpreting,” “listening,” and “dialoguing” are essential in a jazz methodology. It is useful to quote Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) at length:

Each of these modalities of voice reflects a different level of presence and visibil- ity for the portraitist in the text, from a minimalist stance of restraint and witness to a place of explicit, audible participation. In each modality, however, the cho- sen stance of the portraitist should be purposeful and conscious. Whether her voice—always dynamic and changing—is responding to or initiating shifts in dialogue, action, or context, she should be attentive to the ways in which she is employing voice. And although it is always present, the portraitist’s voice should never overwhelm the voices or actions of the actors. The self of the portraitist is always there; her soul echoes through the piece. But she works very hard not to simply produce a self-portrait. (p. 105)

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Miss Kinney was the first Black woman teacher I had from my elementary school years until I was graduated from high school in Portland, Oregon. She was my fourth- grade teacher, and my class was her first teaching assignment. I felt very lucky to be in her classroom. She was the only Black teacher in our building, and she was also one of the youngest teachers. She was 24 years old. I know because she told us. She also told us that she had just been graduated from college to be a teacher. We were all very impressed. For almost all of my classmates, Miss Kinney was the first Black teacher we ever had with the exception of Mr. Allen, the gym teacher, who lived a few blocks from our school. All our teachers were mostly older White women who did not live in or near our neighborhood. Miss Kinney was the most beautiful teacher I had ever seen. She was a “plus size” woman who dressed in a manner that complemented her shape and size. Her wardrobe seemed to be up to date with the latest fashion trends of 1978. She had full lips on which she wore a muted berry-colored lipstick that seemed to blend perfectly with her cocoa brown skin. Her dark brown hair was chemically straightened and always styled perfectly. It seemed that her favorite style was a well-kept ponytail pulled back and gelled with a scarf tied around the base such that the loops of the scarf flowed out from the back of her head. The color and pattern of the scarves always seemed to match her outfits. She had an infectious smile that spread across her face and made her eyes disappear. It made you smile when you saw it. She also had a hearty laugh that made her whole body move. She laughed and smiled a lot. She mostly laughed and smiled at us and we all loved her.

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I blossomed in Miss Kinney’s class. I was eager to come to school and learn. I had the reputation of being a behavior problem in school; more often than not, I was insub- ordinate and at times openly defiant and belligerent with my previous teachers. Although at the time I could not articulate what was bothering me, I was aware enough to know that the White teachers treated the African American students differently from my White classmates. As a “smart” student—I was a good reader and read several levels above my grade—I was often in groups where I was the only African American. Many times in these groups, I was ignored. My creativity and participation in discussions and activities went unrecognized and my interest in learning was ignored; it seemed that my misbehaviors were highlighted. Although I loved to learn and would complete assignments when asked, my behavior was far from cooperative. Consequently, and to my parents’distress, my grades reflected my behavior more than my ability and aptitude. We later learned that although I consistently scored very high on standardized tests, my previous teachers refused to recommend me for the Tal- ented and Gifted Program (TAG) in our district. It took 2 years for me to be placed in TAG, as I needed to “prove” that I was capable. In Miss Kinney’s class, I was a com- pletely different student in the sense that my surliness disappeared. I cannot identify one thing in particular that I liked about Miss Kinney; however, I recall that I liked her immensely. She read to us everyday. She allowed us to pick the books she would read, and we sat at our desks and worked quietly while we listened to her. She was animated when she read, and if something were funny, she would stop reading and laugh along with us. Most of all, I remember that Miss Kinney seemed to like us and to really like me. Toher, I was not some disrespectful child who needed to be punished. I was bright, funny, and she seemed to enjoy our conversations as much as I did. She did not ignore me, and when she thought I was doing something I should not be doing, she told me to stop the behavior that to her was unacceptable or inappropriate and explained why. Her directions and expectations were very clear. Sheex- pected us to work hard and to do the best we could. If we strayed from the expectations, we were the first ones to know. I respected her for that. It was not that simple with my other teachers. With other teachers, I did not quite understand what I had done that they considered inappropriate when I was reprimanded or graded lower than I expected. Miss Rogers,7 my second-grade teacher, would yell at us and turn red. The other African American students and I had never witnessed someone turning red when she was angry. Because we did not always know what would make Miss Rogers angry and turn red, we were intrigued. We would try different things to see if it would happen again. Miss Kinney never yelled at us—she did not have to. She also did not turn red when she was angry. In fact, I do not remember a time when she was angry with us, although I am certain there may have been moments when we were not always behav- ing appropriately. However, she made certain that her expectations and rules were clear. I think we were so afraid of not seeing her smile or hearing her laugh that more often than not we were eager to be “good.”

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Validity

The uses of voice and subjectivity beg the question of validity. How, if the researcher is inserting her or his voice, can the research be validated? Within portraiture, the subject is observed in multiple contexts, using a varietyof perspectives. Similarly, the five dimensions of voice allow for multiple perspectives for the purposes of authenticating the data. Moreover, not only is the subject the focus of the portrait but also the setting in which she or he oper- ates such that colleagues, students, and others who directly (or indirectly) interact with the subject provide insight into her or his actions and beliefs. Themes or interpretative ideas that are generated by the researcher are always checked against the voice of the subject (through interview and observational data) and contextual information gathered in the field. Therefore, establishing validity is inherent in the design and implementation of the portrait. Although I find the portraiture methodology liberating in the sense that it acknowledges the subjective and creative nature of research, as a trained musician, the metaphor to visual art does not speak as clearly to me. I used the basic tenets of portraiture to conduct the research in that I was mindful of my voice and perspective as I collected data; however, the actual collection of the data that included my relationship to and interactions with the participants is more likened to the dynamics that occur between jazz musicians on the bandstand. In addition, the creation of the text or portrait or the final narrative in which I will share my “findings and results,” to me, is more akin to that of composing and performing a jazz composition. Although both the composer and performer hold to some basic tenets or foundational musical elements, through their own creative energy and disciplined understanding of music theory and composition, they simultaneously create a separate but complementary composition—an element of jazz performance and improvisation. In the previous sections I have drawn some similarities between portraiture and elements of jazz. In the next section, I will discuss the basic tenets of jazz music and composition and speak more directly to jazz as a methodology.

ETHNIC EPISTEMOLOGIES AND JAZZ

Most music historians and critics agree that jazz music is a major contribution to the American aesthetic. Many argue that jazz is the only truly Ameri- can, as in North American, United States of America, American art form. That this music, jazz, is truly American and is a contribution from African Americans is also significant. This significance lies not merely in the fact that African Americans created the music but, rather, that because of the experiences of African Americans in the United States, the music emerged (Jones, 1963/ 1999; Murray, 1976/2000).

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For most people, nonmusicians that is, jazz is an enigma. It is akin to poetry in that any piece of writing that rhymes and does not follow the conventions of grammar and syntax, qualifies as poetry.Similarly for jazz, if the performer improvises, or a song is performed sans a vocalist, it qualifies as jazz. The term is also typically used to describe something that is unique, different, andcre- ative. If a woman displays a certain flare in her attire, her outfit is jazzy. Hence, the term jazz has come to denote creativity and uniqueness, a catchall term to describe something, someone, or some act that is in essence abnormal. To be creative, different, and unique to many are desirable attributes. However, on closer examination, the term jazzy has actually come to be meaningless. If anyone can become jazzy simply by adding colorful language to a story or wearing a striped shirt with plaid pants, then what, in fact, makes her or his actions, stories, or personal style unique? Similarly, the notion of creativity is questionable if a musician can simply embellish a line or change a note here and there in a piece of music and be deemed a jazz musician. I am not making an argument for purity; rather, my point is that because jazz music is to many enigmatic, its place in the American aesthetic is precarious. Furthermore, both the term and the form of jazz have been appropriated in ways that may in fact diminish its liberatory intent and potential. This is not a discussion of the history and purity of jazz music as an art form. Rather, my discussion of the treatment of jazz in both popular culture and the vernacular is more illus- trative than plaintive. I want to explore more specifically how this art form can be a meaningful heuristic or expressive idiomatic instrument for African American researchers (Murray, 1976/2000, p. 93). Ladson-Billings (2000) suggested that the field of qualitative research be open to epistemological perspectives, particularly those that are “multiply informed and multiply jeopardized” by race, class, gender, sexuality, and other aspects of difference (p. 273). This is not to say that scholars who are situated within marginalized or liminal groups are “burdened” by their race, class, gender, sexuality,and so forth but rather, that these positionalities provide a perspective on both the margin and the center that can serve to “reveal the ways that the dominant perspectives distort the realities of the other in an effort to maintain power relations that continue to disadvantage those who are locked out of the mainstream” (Ladson-Billings, 2000, p. 263). Thus, given the inherent political mission of jazz music, how might we begin to use it as a way to both think about and “do” the critical qualitative research Ladson-Billings described? It is important to clearly delimit the form, structure, and usage of this idiomatic instrument as a means through which we can express and display research, ideas, phenomena, and theories that may be outside of what is official and legitimate in the academy. By relating the process of research as akin to that of jazz composition and performance, a host of questions emerge. How can one express the nuances of a participant’s experiences, beliefs, and/or practices? To what extent can these nuances be attributed, for example, to gender, racial, and class back-

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 122 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2005 ground? How can a researcher account for her or his influence on and interaction with the field and the data? In what ways does the interaction between the researcher and the participant enrich the data and the findings? Sundgaard (1955) suggested that there is no precise notation method in music that captures the nuances and the essence of what jazz musicians express in their music and especially in their improvisation. In terms of research methodology, many scholars of color and those in liminal groups have argued that research is limited in its ability to accurately indicate the complexity of their lives and experiences (see, e.g., Collins, 1990/2000; Lather, 1991; St. Pierre & Pillow, 2000). However, the struggle to express what is learned or discovered is perhaps the beauty of the research process. Indeed, “improvisation” is what the researcher does when presenting or discussing her or his findings. If we can acknowledge that what we learn as researchers, albeit discovered under “rigorous” methods, is in reality a subjective representation that is bound and constrained by a “system of notation” that is similarly constrained, then a jazz research methodology might be useful. Theresa Jenoure (2000) suggested that jazz improvisation represents a kind of intelligence or way of thinking that is “sophisticated and multidimen- sional” and is fundamental to African American cultural expression. She believed that the attitudes and behaviors associated with jazz improvisation have extramusical implications. I submit that this “intelligence” might also be helpful for qualitative researchers. In addition, this jazz sensibility might be helpful for engaging in research that is phenomenological. This notion of a jazz sensibility might be particularly useful when exploring issues such as culture and gender influences. Jazz improvisation, according to Jenoure,isa system of spontaneous composing that requires that ideas be instantly orga- nized and expounded on. In addition, Jenoure stated that jazz improvisers

assess the past, present, and future in a relatively short span of time and choose appropriate melodic, harmonic and rhythmic solutions. This choosing, or composing, requires that musicians have physical, mental, and emotional access to a vast reserve of musical ideas. Negotiating a fine balance between structure and freedom, they often rely on pre-established perimeters to guide the expression of spontaneous yet highly crafted ideas. It is the personality, attitude, and individual choices made by listening, analyzing, and feeling that produce the music. In this way, performers are also co-composers in that they shape the particular structure or outline into a fully realized work, which enables the process and the product to unfold simultaneously. (p. 15, italics added)

Jenoure’s work has interesting implications for developing a jazz research methodology. Thinking of research in these terms, although jazz researchers employ a level of creativity and spontaneity,they maintain the integrity of the research process by accessing “a vast reserve” of research ideas, concepts, and theories, both “established” and cutting edge. Similarly, data analysis occurs as the researcher attends to “pre-established” perimeters, in addition to attending to the choices she or he makes from “listening, analyzing, and feel-

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 123 ing.” Jenoure outlined three principles of jazz improvisation that might also be helpful in further developing the jazz methodology. These principles are interaction, the mutual shaping of ideas; definition, the offering of ideas that take into account the ideas of others in a larger context yet express the indi- viduality of a musician that is shaped by introspection and honesty; and tran- scendence, the “process of upliftment from the ordinary to the extraordinary” (Jenoure, 2000).

Discipline as Expectations for Excellence

It is an hour before the end of the school day and Mrs. Fisher is standing in front of her class of 20 first-grade students. As usual, Mrs. Fisher is dressed in her “business clothes.” She has on a cream-colored blouse, a knee-length brown skirt, “flesh” toned nylons, and low-heeled brown pumps. She says that she dresses “professionally” because during her teacher training program (at a historically Black college), they were told that they needed to dress professionally because the work they did was serious business. She often decried the way that some of the preservice teachers came dressed to school—wrinkled shorts, T-shirts, sandals. She said it was often difficult to tell the difference between the children and the student teachers. Mrs. Fisher is in her early 40s and describes herself as “old school” and attributes much of her beliefs about teaching from her upbringing in what she describes as the “segregated South.” She is at the chalkboard writing words for a penmanship activity. The students are all sitting at their desks, which she has arranged in not-so-symmetrical rows of four across. The students are arranged such that boys and girls alternate sitting next to each other. I’m not sure if she arranged this on purpose, but for now, it seems to not make a difference in terms of whether students socialize with each other. They all seem friendly and talkative. Mrs. Fisher asks students to name things that go up and down. The students are excited and engaged. She laughs with them as they name things such as frogs. On the chalkboard, she writes two of the most popular words that the students name— basketball and kite. They are supposed to write a story or some sentences with words that go up and down and draw a picture to match the sentences. The students get right to work. She allows them to talk quietly with their neighbor while they work. At this age it does not seem reasonable that they would sit next to each other and not hold a conversation. She instructs the students to complete the penmanship activity in their notebooks. We both walk around the classroom, making sure that students understand the assignment and helping students if necessary. After 5 minutes, a girl brings her notebook to Mrs. Fisher, indicating that she is finished with the assignment. She hands her the notebook. Mrs. Fisher takes a seat at a table in the front of the classroom. After looking over the student’s work, she erases the entire page and returns the notebook to the student. She tells her, firmly but very gently, that she wants her to do the assignment again because she did not do her best work and it looks like she rushed through the

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 124 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2005 assignment. She tells the student that she has seen her do a better job on her penmanship and gives her examples of assignments on which she has done a “good job and taken her time” and asks her if she remembers those assignments too. The student nods her head. Mrs. Fisher asks her to return to her desk and put in the same effort on this assignment as she did on the other ones. She does not appear to be upset. The little girl returns to her desk and begins rewriting her sentences. Mrs. Fisher reminds the students to take their time and to do their best work. Each student comes to Mrs. Fisher and shows his or her notebooks. She erases work that she believes is poor quality. She explains to each child why his or her work is not acceptable. She instructs them to do it again. She tells each student to do his or her best work and not to rush through it. “How many of you know that Mrs. Fisher doesn’t like work like this?” Mrs. Fisher asks. All the students raise their hands.

ELEMENTS OF JAZZ

Murray (1976/2000) asserted that the blues idiom statement is art that is “the process by which raw experience is stylized into aesthetic statement” (p. v). I would submit that for those of us as African American researchers who are engaged in research that examines the dynamic nature of African American and Black culture,8 Murray’s conception of the blues idiom may also be a helpful way to conceptualize our research, our participants, and our- selves. Likewise, Collins (1990/2000) asserted that the ways in which both the African American female researcher and participant determine or validate what is truthful or valid can differ from that of White researchers. In particular, within the African American community and Collins argued, for Afri- can American women specifically, the use of narrative, story, or “testitfyin,” wherein one can verify information through personal experience, has been a traditionally more valid form of determining truth. Although jazz musicians “borrowed” the song form and theoretical conventions from European music, the execution of the song form and the development and enhancement of those theoretical conventions, which includes harmony, melody, and rhythm, is distinctly African American and quite unique (Jones, 1963/1999; Murray, 1976/2000; Werner, 1999). Jones (1963/ 1999) stated that the early music “African Negroes” played in New Orleans was in some ways imitative of European music. The funeral dirges, marches, and quadrilles were song forms that Black musicians copied from White musicians. However, the execution of the song forms, in rhythm and in harmony, differed tremendously from the original song form:

It was usually a spiritual that was played [at a funeral procession], but made into a kind of raw and bluesy Napoleonic military march. The band was followed by the mourners—relatives, members of the deceased’s fraternal order or secret society, and well-wishers. (All night before the burial, or on as many nights as

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there were that intervened between the death and the burial, the mourners came into the house of the deceased to weep and wail and kiss the body. But these “wakes” or “mourning times” usually turned into house parties.) After the burial, the band, once removed some good distance from the cemetery, usually broke into the up tempo part of the march at some approximation of the 2/4 qua- drille time. Didn’t He Ramble and When the Saints Go Marchin’ In were two of the most frequently played tunes—both transmuted religious songs. (Jones, 1963/ 1999, p. 74)

Similarly, Murray (1976/2000) offered that although jazz (and its precursor blues music) may be an amalgamation of West African rhythm and European musical elements, the music is still a by-product of the “U.S. Negro.” Murray suggested that although the distinct harmonic characteristic of the blue or bent notes are important in distinguishing jazz from European music, the syncopation of the beat is also a distinctively U.S Negro marker. It is worth quoting Murray at length:

Drum talk is not only what the accompanying guitar, banjo, or piano answers or echoes the folk blues with, and not only what such singers answer and echo themselves with when they hum, beat out or otherwise furnish their own comps, fills and frills; it is also most likely to be what all blues singers do even as they play with their voices as if on brasses, keyboards, strings and woodwinds. ...In any case it is a mistake for the uninitiated listener to approach blues music with the assumption that rhythm is only incidental to melody,as it tends to be in Euro- pean music. ...Itisnotenough, however to say that blues musicians often play on their horns, their keyboards, and strings as if on drums. Nor is it enough to say that the drums are more African than European in that they keep rhythm and talk at the same time. The rhythmic emphasis of blues music is more obviously African than either the so-called blue note or the call-and-response pattern, but all the same, the actual voices of which all blues instrumentation is an extension speak primarily and definitively as well in the idiomatic accents and tonalities of the US Negroes down South. (pp. 117-118)

Murray offered the notion that you cannot separate out those parts of jazz by taking the simplistic approach of “add blue notes and stir” or by adding a “swing” rhythm and there you have jazz. It is the complex combination of the rhythm, the blue notes, and the relationship of the musicians to each other and the audience (à la the call-and-response pattern) that help to create and perhaps even sustain the music. In addition, these “idiomatic accents and tonalities” are a cultural expression that comes out of an experience in the South. Certainly, others would argue that there are a number of talented jazz musicians who are not Southerners and therefore this ability to combine rhythm, harmony, and melody in a unique way is not lost on African Ameri- cans from the North. This discussion is helpful in terms of imagining a process of research that is responsive to the communication styles and epistemology of African Americans. Of course, there is always a concern about essentialism. However, there may be some merit to the notion that although culture is not fixed, people of the same ethnic group (i.e., African Americans) share some commonalities regardless of regional, educational attainment,

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 126 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2005 and socioeconomic differences. Moreover, finding the commonalities in experience among those of the same cultural/racial group has been helpful politically (Ladson-Billings, 2000, p. 262). During the solo or the improvisation, the jazz musician essentially creates her or his own composition while simultaneously performing another piece of music. That is, the ensemble will generally play a piece of music one time through together; the subsequent refrains, or choruses as jazz musicians call them, will generally be played sans the ensemble collectively performing the melody while the pianist, drummer, and bassist, otherwise known as the rhythm section, play the harmonic chord progressions. While the rhythm section is playing the harmonic progression of the original melody, the soloist is creating a musical composition of her or his own. Although the technical intricacies of how this is done is beyond the scope of this article, suffice it to say that being able to do this, and do it well, requires a high level of facility on one’s instrument as well as a vast theoretical vocabulary. Jazz musicians refer to these skills as “chops.” It is important to note that “skill” on one’s instrument, in this sense, should neither be confused nor conflated with technical ability or virtuosity.Rather, I am connoting skill more with interpretive ability rather than technical facility, as it is perhaps the singular most important attribute a jazz musician should have. Although jazz musicians generally perform their solos without accompa- niment by other wind instruments, in ensemble playing, riffs and breaks played by the other horn players in the band quite often serve as backdrops for the soloist and often complement what the soloist is playing. Murray (1976/2000) described a riff as “a brief musical phrase that is repeated, sometimes with very subtle variations, over the length of a stanza as the chordal pattern follows its normal progression” (p. 96). Riffs may be played spontaneously or written as part of the composition. Murray added that the creativity of riffs lies not in their originality, as many riffs are lines from famous or com- monly recognized melodies, but in their frame of reference and how they add to the aesthetic expression of the composition (p. 96). For example, while a soloist is playing a solo on a blues composition, the other musicians might reference another song with a similar harmonic structure. Or the band members might play the melody to “Mary Had a Little Lamb” behind the soloist. This can be a playful move on the part of the background and/or the rhythm section. They may use a riff to lighten the tone and timbre of the solo and/or as a way to engage the audience. It may also serve as an inspiration to the soloist. Breaks serve as a form of rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic relief. The break is a momentary suspension of harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic activity by the rhythm section. In other words, the break is a moment for the soloist to “confront . . . [an] empty sonic landscape” (Meacham, 2001). Within this “empty sonic landscape,” the soloist also confronts what Murray (1976/2000) described as a “moment of truth” wherein the soloist maintains the melodic,

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 127 rhythmic, and harmonic integrity of the composition vis-à-vis her or his interpretive prowess. These elements of jazz composition help to mark the uniqueness of the music. Although the form of jazz compositions is similar to that of European music, it is the composite of the harmonic devices such as the blue or bent notes, the melodic elements such as improvisation and riffs, and the defini- tive rhythmic element of swing that set it apart from many other forms of music. It is important to note that from jazz, other musical forms have sprung, particularly popular music (e.g., rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and froman improvisational perspective, hip-hop).

Teaching as Othermothering

When I arrive to observe in her third-grade classroom, Andrea Collins is “fussing” at Melinda Faulkner, an African American female. I have been here to observe more than a dozen times already. The other students in the classroom are working inde- pendently on an assignment. While she is standing at the front of the classroom, Andrea calls Melinda over so that she can talk to her. Two other African American female students have come to complain to Andrea about Melinda “playing the doz- ens.” There are seven African American female students in her classroom, more than any other class on her grade level. Andrea gave birth to her son last year and is not yet back to her “prebaby” weight. She generally comes to school dressed in casual clothing. Today, she is wearing black leggings with a long burgundy-colored oversized tunic blouse. She has on nylons and low-heeled black shoes. Her dark brown, chemically straightened hair is chin length and combed so that it sweeps forward onto her cheeks. In African American women’s hair styling parlance, her hairstyle would be called a “wrap.” She wears wire-rimmed glasses. When she is making a point or is chastising a student for misbehaving or not having his or her homework, her eyes open widely. Her eyebrows rise prominently over the rims of her glasses. Melinda is a tall 8-year-old girl who towers over the other third-grade students in her class. At first glance, she looks much older than many of them. She is a “brown skin” girl and “healthy,” as my grandmother would say. Melissa is not heavy but has a large body frame. She is a cute child and has a constant smile that shows the deep dimple in her right cheek. Her hair is parted down the middle and braided in two plaits. She has on a cute outfit—navy blue pedal-pusher pants, a white shirt, white ankle socks, and white tennis shoes. Andrea begins her discussion about the incident with all three of the girls by telling them that they are all strong. She is obviously upset with the girls for arguing with each other and is especially upset at Melinda. “Melinda Faulkner! Who do you have control over?” All the young women (including Melinda) reply that they have control over themselves. Their response reminds me of how children respond to their mothers when they know that their behavior is inappropriate. Incredulously, Andrea asks the

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 128 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2005 girls, “Why can’t we all be strong together?” She speaks directly to Melinda about using her size to physically intimidate other students. “What do you think is going to happen when you’re 17 years old and you try to fight people?” Melinda replies that she doesn’t know what will happen. The other girls look so small standing next to her. Her height belies her age; her response to and interaction with Andrea remind me that she is still only 8 years old. Andrea’s voice projects louder as she admonishes Melinda. “It’s called an assault charge. You go to jail. Do you have a relative in jail?” Melinda replies that yes, she does have a relative in jail. “Do they like it?” Andrea asks Melinda. Melinda says that she doesn’t know. “ You don’t know?! I have a friend who’s a police officer and I’ll have him talk to you about jail. Do you think that if you are in jail that you are in control? No [replies before Melinda has an opportunity to]! The person with the key is in control. Do you think I had to swallow a lot of stuff? Swallow my pride sometimes?” All the African American girls shake their heads and answer, “Yes.” “Don’t you think I had disagreements with my friends?” Again, all the girls shake their heads and answer, “Yes.” “But guess what, we all came together. Melinda, how you gonna punk somebody? How you gonna talk about somebody’s mama? What if someone talked about your mama? What’s going to happen next, Miss Faulkner? What do you think I’m gonna do the next time I hear about this?” Melinda shrugs her shoulders to indicate that she doesn’t know what will happen. She lowers her head and looks at the floor while Andrea is talking to her. “Is that something that you need to work at?” Melinda answers, “Yes.” Andrea tells all the girls involved that they need to work on not talking about people. She asks them what will happen if they do it again. They respond that they will, “get in trouble.” “Why does it have to be in trouble? Can it be that you’ll learn a lesson and deal with Ms. Collins?” Using the first name of each girl’s parent to demonstrate that she knows each girl’s parents well enough that they would be equally disappointed in their child’s behavior, she asks each one what her parents would say. “Melinda, what would Arlene say if she knew you were fighting and talking about someone’s mama? Mariah, what would Vanessa and James say if they knew you were fighting and talking about someone’s mama? Sydney, what would Jocelyn and Terence say if they knew you were fighting and talking about someone’s mama?” Sydney attempts to explain that she didn’t say anything about “anyone’s mama.” Andrea stops her and tells her that she doesn’t want to hear any excuses and says, “I know that you are not innocent.” She sends the girls back to their seats with an admonition to “get along with each other.”

STRAIGHT, NO CHASER: “DOING” JAZZ RESEARCH

A song of itself is not jazz, no matter what its origin. Jazz is what the jazzmen searching together bring to it, take from it, find within it. Spiritu- als, blues, stomps, ragtime, quadrilles, folk ballads, popular songs—all

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these and more are the subjects of their creative scrutiny. Even the most sensitive and skilled of jazz arrangers like Duke Ellington and Ralph Burns cannot put down all that is actually played. Much is left free for improvisation, and no precise method of notation has been developed to indicate its rhythmic and emotional complexities. In most cases no formal score whatever is followed. The song and its arrangement become for these men a means to an end. The music used, in other words, is somewhat incidental to the inspired uses to which it is put. For this reason jazz, within the realm of music, thrives on endless exploration and ceaseless discovery. —Sundgaard (1955, p. 54)

Sundgaard’s (1955) quote captures not only the essence of jazz as a musical form but also the complexity of qualitative research. This comparison of jazz to qualitative research to me is quite obvious. In other words, many qualitative researchers are attempting to make sense of phenomena that are not easily measurable quantitatively. That is, a “pure numbers” approach to research, although valid and useful in particular instances, can leave out important contextual information and fail to capture the socio-emotional-linguistic aspects of particular “research” environments, with educational environments being one example. Earlier I discussed extending Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis’s (1997) portraiture metaphor to jazz as a metaphor for research. Although my discussion was broad in terms of providing some basic definitional elements of music generally and jazz specifically, it is important here to describe in more detail the ways in which I am conceptualizing jazz as a research methodology. The challenge has been and continues to be more than just a “swapping” of meta- phors such that in place of the language of portraiture (i.e., canvas, paint, portraitist), I replace it with jazz terms. This would be a superficial use of jazz and a corruption of Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis’s powerful and important work. My challenge is to provide a more substantive description of the ways in which jazz as a research methodology captures what I attempt in this article. It is important to note that my decision to discuss the critical qualitative research process in jazz terms rather than some other heuristic is not solely related to my training as a musician. As I stated earlier, although my musical training had a profound epistemological impact on me, I believe that jazz, as both a musical and cultural concept, is a powerful way to discuss particular projects with African Americans and similar projects that are inherently political and cultural. In particular, a jazz methodology has important implications for those of us engaged in research and scholarship that takes a critical look at race and racism in education. Specifically, a jazz methodology may be a powerful complement to critical race theory (Calmore, 1995). Jazz, at its roots, is an expression of African American consciousness that addresses liberation, political awareness, and community. Thus, my dis-

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 130 QUALITATIVE INQUIRY / February 2005 sertation project was inherently political (Dixson, 2002). The theoretical framework that I employed—Black feminist ideology—mandated that I pay attention to the ways in which Black women teachers struggle for relevant curriculum, safe schools and neighborhoods, political freedom, and equity on behalf of their students and themselves. Secondly, jazz music began out of African Americans’ resistance of oppression and the struggle for equality. The music epitomizes the political will of Black people who toiled for liberation (Jones, 1963/1999; Murray, 1976/2000). Thus, it made sense to me that in researching the impact of racial, gender, and class identities on Black women’s pedagogy, I would need a methodology or at least a way of thinking and talking about these issues in a way that was to me, culturally relevant. Furthermore, Collins (as quoted in Denzin, 1997, p. 70) suggested that Black women researchers look for ways to explore the lives, experiences, and praxis of other Black women that challenge “traditional” research methodologies and epistemologies that have historically pathologized our behaviors and/or rendered us invisible. Finally, just as jazz music builds on, extends, and enhances a basic framework using disciplined creativity, so would, I argue, a jazz methodology. In other words, using careful and rigorous research tools, the jazz researcher may desire to “creatively” move beyond traditional methodologies and conventions. For example, in developing rapport with my participants, our interactions extended beyond their classrooms and into community,social events, and even worship services. In fact, I actually taught the daughter of one of my participants in a precollege, after-school program in which both of my sons also participated. Moreover, our children were not only classmates in this precollege program but were also coworkers at a community-based news- paper produced by adolescents. Thus, our relationship took on several aspects beyond just that of researcher-researched. It is important to note that I developed and cultivated relationships with my participants not in service to the project but rather, the relationships were enhanced somewhat seren- dipitously as a result of our (mine and the research participants’) membership and participation within the broader African American community. I paid closer attention to my behavior during interviews such that I did not divert the speaker’s attention or her train of thought. Some of our interviews were extremely conversational, and topics were introduced and expounded on spontaneously. These conversations were based entirely on what I heard in terms of the narrative the teacher constructed during the interview. Both the speaker and I would often code-switch such that we might have begun the interview speaking common American English but at various points intu- itively found it more appropriate to express an idea by speaking African American Vernacular English or Ebonics. This use of African American Ver- nacular English/Ebonics is not limited to syntax and grammar but reflects style, body language, facial expressions, and volume (Smitherman, 1977/ 1986).

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It is during my training as a musician that I learned that listening is essential to being both a solo musician and a member of a musical group. That is, whether I participated in an orchestra, jazz band, or performed as a soloist, I learned to listen to my fellow musicians such that what I played added to the overall presentation of the music and did not detract from the performance. Balance was the key. In addition, as a flautist, listening for the tone and mood of the piece and my part in it was primary because the timbre and range of my instrument made it possible for me to “rise above” the sound of my band mates and detract from the overall beauty of the piece we were playing. Hence, my musical training was helpful for me as a researcher in terms of listening for rather than listening to a story. In addition, I learned to play what was right versus playing that which was correct. As a researcher, I had to be careful that my comments during interviews or informal conversations with the research participants did not become the focal point of the discussion but rather, complemented what they were sharing with me. Similarly, I had to listen for their stories in the variety of venues afforded me—conversations with colleagues and parents, interactions with students, and our interviews and informal conversations. The stories that emerged from these arenas were enhanced by the metalanguage the teachers employed. Gesticulations, glances, frowns, smiles, chuckles, exclamations, and “um hmms” were aspects of the teachers’ voices that I needed to listen for because they added depth to their stories. Three fundamental elements frame my understanding of jazz as a researcher methodology: swing, solos, and riffs. Swing, a defining element of jazz music, is a “sensation of momentum in which a melody is alter- nately heard together with, then slightly at variance with, the regular beat” (Microsoft Encarta: Online Encyclopedia, 2000). For my developing conception of a jazz methodology,this swing is characterized by an understandingof Black cultural expressions, aesthetics, and consciousness; a commitmentto uncovering and highlighting examples of success for African Americans; and a fundamental respect for research participants, their experiences, and knowledge. Solos/Improvisation are represented in the participants’ stories/narratives and the analysis and interpretation of the data. In other words, the participants’ stories and narratives are essentially their solos/improvisations in terms of their (and their lives, personal histories, experiences, etc.) being highly individualized and unique and an expression of their disciplined understanding of their profession, culture, and the like. Furthermore, the participants’ solos may also be their way of “speaking back” to the profession. For example, in the case of African American teachers, how they imagine and approach their work as teachers is often in direct contradiction to traditional teacher education to the extent that African American teachers, and African American women teachers specifically, have been cast as “harsh” and

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“authoritarian.” These characterizations were insidiously used as justifica- tion for displacing thousands of Black teachers and administrators following the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision and the subsequent school desegregation that took place across the nation (with all deliberate speed; Bell, 1987). Riffs are those recurring ideas and themes in the data (interviews, observations, artifacts). Riffs can also be those ideas and themes that do not seem to “fit” with the rest of the analysis—the ideas, comments, and actions that fall outside of the themes the researcher (and the researcher’s peer debriefersor participants) have identified. Riffs can be found in the relationship between the researcher and the participant in terms of developing rapport and trust. The researcher might also “riff” during interviews in terms of her or his language use and style during interviews and her or his role in the field. Essen- tially, riffs are those actions by the researcher and/or the participant that add to the overall melody. Similarly, breaks provide those moments where the researcher (and participants) make sense of the data vis-à-vis their personal experiences, or the theoretical framework that also frames the study, or both. Using data and narratives from my study of African American women teachers, I provided examples of how riffs and breaks illustrate the researcher’s theoretical and epistemological perspectives. I used Breaks 1 and 2 to demonstrate how my family history and educational experiences shape my epistemological perspective. These breaks speak in large part to Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis’s (1997) assertion that researchers bring with them experiences and beliefs that shape and inform how they make sense of information and “see” when in the research site and in their interactions with participants. Moreover, through these breaks I addressed how I, as an African American woman, bring my personal experiences—as a female and a student—to bear on my beliefs about teaching and feminism. Similarly, I used Riffs 1 and 2 to present two of the themes from my study of African American women teachers. With these riffs, I am demonstrating the nuances of African American women’s pedagogical practices. Finally, through the riff about John Patrick, I discussed my attempt as a teacher to dis- rupt the sexist and demeaning practice of calling girls “bitch” that I noticed had become a common practice among the boys in my classroom. By talking to the perpetrator and attempting to humanize the victim as well as personal- ize the verbal attack, I had hoped to make John Patrick see how his actions against one woman affected all women. Data collection. Interviews with participants can be as synergistic as performing live music by taking the researcher and the participants to spaces that are more revealing and informative with each exchange. For example, traditional interview methods would have the researcher follow a predetermined list of questions that allow for some conversational spontaneity but primarily limit the type of “call and response” and the nonlinear manner that is some-

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 133 times found in the narrative and speech styles of African Americans (Etter- Lewis, 1993; Smitherman, 2000). Hence, in the jazz interview, transcriptsare quite often lengthy and colloquial because both the researcher and the participant may engage in storytelling and testifyin’ sessions during the course of the interview. Thus, the jazz methodology is an interactive, synergistic process. It is much like that of musicians on the bandstand who create and re- create music using the ideas and energy of not only the other members of the band (the researcher and the participant) but also the audience. Moreover, relationship and trust building are essential elements within a jazz methodology. To facilitate the exchange or synergy between and among participants and researcher, the nature of the relationship between the “musicians” is necessarily different than within traditional research methodology. Data analysis. Similarly, the interpretative stage of research can be an additional site of energy and interaction depending on the method of analysis the researcher uses. Denzin (2001) suggested that in this “seventh moment” of ethnography,there is a need for researchers to be reflexive (p. xii). It is also not done in isolation but rather, with the participants. Member checks and peer debriefing help to get at this notion of synergy and interaction that is a hall- mark of jazz. In Ladson-Billings’s (1994) study with eight successful teachers of African American students, she used what I would a call jazz methodology to the extent that she involved the research participants in every step of the research process. I see this notion of data analysis as a creative process that requires me to create and re-create instantly and sometimes simultaneously. Listening to or rereading the interview transcripts or field notes is essentially re-creating a moment in time. In attempting to analyze the field notes and interview transcripts, I am simultaneously making sense of the data and composing, just as jazz musicians when they improvise. From this improvisation results a creation of something “new,” a moment described by Meacham (2001) as “affirmation.” Affirmation is, according to Meacham,

a broadened and more flexible sense of relationships from which future cross- roads will be encountered and acts of improvisation will be engaged. Affirma- tion represents the new awareness of musical relationships and possibilities that follow an improvisational performance. (p. 194)

This suggests, then, that research is not for the sake of research but that it should lead us to a “new level of consciousness” (Vygotsky, as quoted Meacham, 2001, p. 194). In my case, this “new level of consciousness” should inform the ways in which we work within communities of color, specifically within educational contexts. Thus, a jazz research methodology always already works toward this moment of affirmation. It seems appropriate to close with a quote by Murray (1976/2000) to sum up my conception of jazz and research:

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Such being the nature of the creative process, the most fundamental prerequisite for mediating between the work of art and the audience, spectators, or readers, as the case may be, is not reverence for the so-called classics but rather an understanding of what is being stylized plus an accurate insight into how it is being stylized. Each masterwork of art, it must be remembered, is always first of all a comprehensive synthesis of all the aspects of its idiom. Thus to ignore its idiomatic roots is to miss the essential nature of its statement, and art is nothing if not stylized statement. (p. 196)

NOTES

1. This opening statement comes from Theodora Johnson (a pseudonym), an Afri- can American woman teacher, who participated in a pilot study I conducted in 1999 on the pedagogical philosophies and practices of African American women teachers. It is important to note that the comment has been paraphrased to fit the narrative style of this article. 2. In jazz terms, musicians’ improvisations are often described as their statements, as though they are speaking or verbalizing their thoughts through performance on their instruments. 3. Due to space limitations, I do not provide a lengthy discussion of the specific study but am instead focusing on methodological considerations. It is important to note, however, that in this study, I explored the extent to which the pedagogy of Black women teachers is informed by their race, class, and gender identities using both culturally relevant pedagogy and Black feminist theory as the theoretical framework. The study found five overlapping themes that reflect my interpretation of the interviews with teachers, parents, and colleagues; my participant observations; and my informal conversations with the teachers. The themes are teaching as a lifestyle and a public service, discipline as expectations for excellence, teaching as othermothering, relationship building, and race, class, and gender awareness. 4. Moynihan (1965), in his very famous report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor, essentially blamed Black women for the poverty, decay, and underachievement in U.S. urban areas. 5. See the first episode of Boston Public (Kelley & Pontell, 2000) wherein the first Black woman teacher viewers meet, Ms. Hendricks, runs down the hall screaming. The principal goes to her classroom to find it full of students and a message that Ms. Hendricks “scrawled” on the chalkboard that reads, “Gone to kill myself, hope you’re happy.” 6. Through “voice as interpretation,” the portraitist makes sense of the data through the use of cultural anthropological ethnographic methods of “thin” and “thick” description. The thin description is vivid but superficial in that it describes only the basic information of who, what, why, where, when of the setting and the actors in the setting. Conversely,thick description is much more rich in detail and provides for interpretation on the actions, actors, and setting by the portraitist. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) added that the portraitist “must be vigilant about providing enough descriptive evidence in the text so the reader might be able to offer an alternative hypothesis, a different interpretation of the data” (p. 91); “voice as discerning other voices/listening for voice” and “voice in dialogue”—these two aspects of voice require

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 135 the researcher to balance more carefully her or his own voice with that of the participant. That is, while the researcher is in the setting, she or he is paying close attention to the ways in which the participant expresses herself or himself both verbally and nonverbally,such that voice moves beyond just words to gestures, actions, and silences. Similarly, the conversations between the portraitist and the participant are chronicled such that she or he shares the varying stages of her or his relationship from its develop- mental stage (in perhaps negotiating entrance into the site) through the completion of the project. The researcher, through this dimension of voice, acknowledges her or his proximity to the participant in that the researcher’s view is not on the boundary but instead, up close and personal. The methodological concerns—questions, interpreta- tions, and interventions—are again exposed through this aspect of voice. It is through “voice in dialogue” that the portraitist and the participant “express their views and together define meaning-making” (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 103). 7. A pseudonym. 8. Although jazz historians, critics, and aficionados recognize jazz as an African American aesthetic, I would argue that we could apply a jazz sensibility when we explore cultural phenomena in the African diaspora. Hence, I have included the term Black to include those in the diaspora who do not identify as African American but rather, as Black and part of a collective struggle toward liberation and equality.

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Adrienne D. Dixson is an assistant professor in the school of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. She teaches master’s and doctoral courses that focus on equity and diversity issues in urban schools as they relate to middle childhood education. Her research interests primarily focus on the sociocultural aspects of teaching and learning in urban schools. She situates

Downloaded from qix.sagepub.com at LOUISIANA STATE UNIV on August 23, 2011 Dixson / NOTIONS OF JAZZ 137 her scholarship theoretically within Black feminist and critical race theories. Her recent publications include “‘And Nothing of That Had Ever Been Men- tioned’: Using Critical Race Theory as a Tool of Analysis and Desilencing in Education” in Educational Researcher (June/July 2004) and “‘Let’s Do This!’: Black Women Teachers, Politics and Pedagogy” in Urban Education (2003).

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