Storytelling in Jazz Improvisation Implications of a Rich Intermedial Metaphor Bjerstedt, Sven 2014 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Bjerstedt, S. (2014). Storytelling in Jazz Improvisation: Implications of a Rich Intermedial Metaphor. Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University. 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LUND UNIVERSITY PO Box 117 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Storytelling in Jazz Improvisation Implications of a Rich Intermedial Metaphor Sven Bjerstedt 3 © Sven Bjerstedt Malmö Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Department of Research in Music Education Email: [email protected] ISBN 978-91-981344-3-8 ISSN 1404-6539 Printed in Sweden by Media-Tryck, Lund University Lund 2014 4 Contents Preface 11 Chapter 1. Introduction 13 1.1. Conceptualizing an art form 14 1.2. Structure of the thesis 25 Chapter 2. Jazz improvisation and storytelling: Previous writings 27 2.1. The field of investigation: Jazz improvisation 28 2.1.1. Idiomaticity 31 2.1.2. Tradition versus freedom 33 2.1.3. Playing jazz 35 2.2. Storytelling in the field of jazz improvisation: Previous writings 36 2.2.1. Storytelling in jazz studies 37 2.2.2. A role model: Lester Young 40 2.2.3. Coherence 43 2.2.4. Drawing on experience 47 2.2.5. Signifyin(g) 49 2.2.6. Musical self-reflectivity 51 2.2.7. Conversation 53 2.2.8. Linearity and temporality 56 2.2.9. Sound and embodiment 62 2.2.10. The need for a pedagogy of jazz improvisational storytelling 64 2.2.11. Metaphoricity 64 2.3. Aim of study and research questions 68 Chapter 3. Theoretical framework 69 3.1. Theories of narrativity 71 3.1.1. Paul Ricoeur's theory of narrative 72 3.1.2. Theories of musical narrativity 75 3.1.3. The applicability to the present study of perspectives on music and narrativity 93 3.1.4. African American rhetorical practices in jazz improvisation 99 5 3.2. Intermedial use of concepts 111 3.2.1. The voice in the text 112 3.2.2. The music in the picture 113 3.2.3. The rhyme in the picture 114 3.2.4. Musicality in spoken theatre 114 3.2.5. A model and a classification of intermedial relations 115 3.3. Fictions, metaphors, and conceptual blending 117 3.3.1. Fictions (Hans Vaihinger) 117 3.3.2. The substitution view of metaphor 118 3.3.3. The discursive view of metaphor (I. A. Richards) 119 3.3.4. The interaction view of metaphor (Max Black) 119 3.3.5. The tension view of metaphor (Paul Ricoeur) 120 3.3.6. Conceptual metaphors (George Lakoff and Mark Johnson) 122 3.3.7. Conceptual blending (Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner) 124 3.3.8. Conceptual metaphor in the field of music (Michael Spitzer and Christian Thorau) 126 3.3.9. Conceptual blending in the field of music (Lawrence M. Zbikowski and Ole Kühl) 128 3.3.10. Landscapes of metaphor 132 3.3.11. Metaphors, etc. as educational tools 133 3.3.12. Concluding remarks on the applicability of metaphor theories 134 3.4. Learning how to improvise 138 3.4.1. Situated cognition and legitimate peripheral participation 139 3.4.2. Ecological perspectives on perception, music, and musical learning 140 3.4.3. Stealing knowledge 142 3.4.4. Landscapes of learning 151 3.5 Perspectives on the worlds of jazz music and jazz education 154 3.5.1. Cultural capital, field, and habitus 155 3.5.2. Discursive construction of society and of musical authenticity 158 3.5.3. Discourse analysis 165 3.5.4. Sociological analyses of worlds of music and education 168 3.6. Summary: Remarks on selection and consistency of theoretical perspectives 172 6 Chapter 4. Methodology, method, design, and analysis 175 4.1. Methodological considerations 175 4.1.1. Interpreting expressions of lived experience (Dilthey) 176 4.1.2. Man as a hermeneutic creature (Gadamer) 178 4.1.3. Understanding as seeing connections (Wittgenstein) 180 4.1.4. The hermeneutical circle: The impotence of being logical, the importance of being intuitive 180 4.1.5. Aspects and themes of interpretive processes 181 4.1.6. Criteria for understanding 184 4.1.7. Life, research, and improvisation 186 4.1.8. Pre-understanding, contexts, and interview dynamics 186 4.1.9. Concluding remarks 194 4.2. Method and design of the studies 195 4.3. Analysis 198 4.4. Quality and relevance 200 Chapter 5. Results: Storytelling in jazz improvisation 205 5.1. Storytelling in jazz improvisation: A description of jazz improvisation 205 5.1.1. Adequacy of description 206 5.1.2. The notion of non-storytelling jazz improvisation 222 5.1.3. Music and language; the unspeakable 225 5.1.4. Qualities pertaining to storytelling 229 5.2. Storytelling in jazz improvisation: The threefold now 238 5.2.1. Prefiguration 239 5.2.2. Configuration 252 5.2.3. Refiguration 280 5.3. Storytelling in jazz improvisation: Educational implications 284 5.3.1. Education in jazz improvisation: General considerations 284 5.3.2. Education in jazz improvisation: Methodology 295 5.4. Storytelling in jazz improvisation: Summary 300 Chapter 6. Discussion: Theoretical, artistic, educational, and sociological implications of the storytelling metaphor 301 6.1. Rich intermedial metaphoricity 302 6.1.1. Intermediality on a conceptual level 304 6.1.2. Bidirectionality 305 7 6.2. The jazz storyteller 308 6.2.1. Narrativization 310 6.2.2. Cultural competence 314 6.2.3. Musical patterns 315 6.2.4. The notion of a Scandinavian storytelling mode 317 6.2.5. Telling it NOW 324 6.3. Storytelling landscapes 329 6.3.1. Landscape of metaphor 330 6.3.2. Landscape of learning 332 6.4. Storytelling as counterdiscourse 338 6.4.1. A battle of generations 340 6.4.2. Autodidacticism vs. educationalism 341 6.4.3. Heterodoxy vs. orthodoxy 342 6.4.4. Genuinity vs. proficiency 344 6.4.5. Concluding remarks on sociological implications of the storytelling metaphor 344 6.5. Concluding remarks on theoretical, artistic, educational, and sociological implications 345 Chapter 7. Further research 347 7.1. Further research regarding theoretical issues 349 7.1.1. Expansion of time-based categorization to other kinds of artistic practice and thought 349 7.1.2. Explorations of rich intermedial metaphoricity in other art forms 350 7.1.3. Storytelling in jazz improvisation and musicality in spoken theatre – 'Mirror reflectivity' in the arts 350 7.2. Future research focused on artistic issues 351 7.2.1. Further studies of narrativization and temporality 351 7.2.2. Jazz improvisation in different cultural contexts 352 7.2.3. Expansion of issues to other art forms 352 7.3. Further exploration of educational perspectives 353 7.3.1. Expansion to other art forms 353 7.3.2. Jazz educational implications – an in-depth exploration 354 7.4. Further exploration of sociological implications 355 Chapter 8. Concluding remarks 357 References 359 8 Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new sense of hope or triumph. This is triumphant music. Modern Jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone toward all of these. (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., opening speech at the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival) 9 10 Preface As a small child playing the piano I noticed that even though listeners would display reasonable appreciation now and then, life on the piano stool essentially seemed to me a rather lonely enterprise. After a few years, however, I came to discover worlds in which my piano playing could function in contexts where I felt it was needed and made sense. One of these worlds was the field of jazz music. In it, I found the encouragement of tutors, the friendship of fellow musicians, and the response of audiences. From the age of 12 and onwards, this world has meant a lot to me. Later on, I studied jazz and jazz pedagogy at Malmö Academy of Music and have remained a jazz pianist on an amateur or semi-professional level ever since. However, during all of my musical life, I have returned to and repeatedly reflected on a fretting and somewhat alarming suspicion that my formal jazz education may not, in any significant way, have made me improve very much as a jazz musician.