Ronan Guilfoyle: Rhythm Book/Essays

Control Freaks?

I played recently at a jam session in Athens. I'm not a great devotee of jam sessions - as a bassist I often find myself playing the same tune for 30 minutes, being required to play behind an endless parade of horn players - being a 'bebopper's labourer' as a drummer friend of mine calls it. However, if I have a good drummer to play with, and a good pianist or guitarist, Jam sessions can also be fun, as the rhythm section varies the backgrounds behind the soloists, and challenge them to come up with different stuff - orchestrating the tunes in a way. However, these days jam sessions often just consists of a parade of soloists, trotting out their favourite licks, over a background provided by a live 'playalong' rhythm section. No real risks are taken, no reputations endangered - and no real improvisation occurs in my opinion.

To go back to the Athens scenario for a moment. The first group to play consisted of a self contained saxophone trio, plus a trumpeter and a pianist. When the guitarist from my group tried to join them, he was told by the bassist in the trio - 'No, we're going to play first and then other people can play'. Now apart from being bad manners and a flagrant violation of jam session ethics, this was, to me, symptomatic of the kind of mind-set that exists in many young musicians today - this need for control. Predictably this aforementioned group's performance was predictable and safe, and deathly dull!

I mention this incident because I think it points to a malaise that is common among young jazz musicians everywhere, and some of this, in my opinion has to do with the environment in which they learn the music. Jazz is of course an improvised music, and one would assume that the word 'improvisation' implies the ability to think on one's feet, to live in the moment, to respond to circumstances as they arise. But how much of this type of spontaneity is actually going on in jazz today - especially jazz played by school graduates under 40 years of age? Not much in my opinion - and Ispeak as a teacher of some of these graduates. Miles famously said 'Don't play what you know, play what you don't know". This statement places an importance on the constant discovery of new things through music, discovered in the act of playing. In much of today's jazz, I think this element is missing, this serendipitous ethos. And some of that has to do with the fact that the music is now almost exclusively learned in the classroom rather than out on the bandstand.

Jazz was originally learned in an oral tradition, involving a kind of apprenticeship system. In this system the young musician worked his way up (I say 'his' because in this period the music was almost an exclusively male enclave), through various bands lead by much older and more experienced musicians. The young musician learned all kinds of things from his time in these bands - and not always about the technique of music, it could also be stuff related to bandleading, programming a set, the importance of variety, how to project to an audience etc.

This system was very much an autocracy - the leader said do this or that, and you did it! It was a rare leader who would ask his sidemen about how they thought a piece should go. So, the apprentice sideman wasn't in control, they had to respond to the wishes of the bandleader, instantly, or else they'd be ex-sidemen!

In this milieu, and by working in different bands as they worked their way into the jazz world. Musicians didn't just develop their music techniques and motor skills, they also learned how to be adaptable, how to develop quick instincts, how to respond to different demands. It could be said that they learned jazz 'life experience' along with the knowledge of their instruments.

However that time has passed, the gigs and economics under which that system flourished has disappeared. Now the only way to learn the music and get to play a lot, is through schools. And schools do a great job with this, giving the students vast amounts of information as well as a community of musicians to work and play with. However, the classroom situation also has disadvantages too, and I think that one of them is that it tends to encourage people to be afraid of spontaneity and risk taking. In the classroom, students are operating under carefully controlled conditions. Under the watchful eye of the teacher, they rehearse their music and play it. If anything goes wrong - if the form gets lost or someone's playing too loud for example - the teacher stops the ensemble and explains the problem and starts them off again. Of course this is necessary for the academic teaching ethos that pertains in jazz schools. Similarly, students will normally have their Real Books and fake books, so they're reading all the time. Another control situation - the music and chord progression is laid out for them to follow as they play.

But what about when they perform? Well usually, since students these days don't get to play with older musicians, the groups they play in are almost inevitably made up of their fellow students and peers. Usually these groups will have a set repertoire which has been carefully rehearsed, and this provides a certainty about each performance - more control.

And I think jazz is paying a price for this, in terms of the conformity we find among a lot of young musicians. There have of course been a lot of complaints about all the young guys sounding 'the same' and the blame being laid at the door of the schools giving everyone the same material. But I don't think it's as simple as that - information is only as good or as bad as what the individual does with it. I think there's another problem here that goes beyond everyone having the same information. I think it relates to the fact that students are to some extent control freaks. They won't play tunes without their fake books, they're very reluctant to take chances in case they screw up, and the result of all of this is that they have a real problem being spontaneous or instinctive.

The courage to fail is not something that a lot of jazz students posses, at least in their performances. And why would it? It's not something that's encouraged by the environment in which they learn, live and play. However if one wants to see the creative benefits of this 'courage to fail', I think Miles' complete "Live at the Plugged Nickel" is the ultimate example of how true improvising musicians should approach performance. And not because of the great technical skill of these great players - but because of the extraordinarily inventiveness, risk taking, and spontaneity demonstrated in the performances. These guys had no fear - they took even the most familiar material - which they must have played hundreds of times - and examined it anew every time they played it. They allowed their instincts to guide them every time, and trusted in their colleagues to help them out if they got into difficulty. And the result? Amazingly fresh exciting performances that transcends the material, and elevates the music into great art ‚ jazz truly as the sound of surprise.

So, how can we as teachers help students to develop their instinctive and spontaneous sides more, and help them overcome their fears about taking chances? This is difficult - we have our hands full already just giving the information to them! But here's something practical that could be done and may help in a small way at least.

Programme in a class that's like a jam session, but the core group of the session are experienced teachers rather than students. The students attend the class and get to play with the teachers, but there is no music to prepare beforehand - the student goes in with his or her instrument and has to be ready to try anything - instantly! There should be no reading involved, it should be a situation where the student has to depend on their ear, responsiveness and creativity to make a contribution to the music. The teachers can call any tune (or play free), maybe briefly describe the harmonic structure if necessary, and off you go. Tempos, key, vibe, all Will be decided by the teachers and the students' job is to play whatever is thrown at them and do the best they can. There would be no 'correct' response in the usual way we measure things in schools, since this session, (I think that's a better word than 'class' in this case) would be about the student gaining experience in playing spontaneously and reacting in the moment to the music rather than preparing a response beforehand.

I think the students would not only benefit greatly from this chance to play with experienced senior musicians, but they'd enjoy it a lot too. And the teachers? Well teachers always bemoan the lack of playing they do nowadays, and I know from my own experience that this is one class they'll always look forward to! I've done this a few times on an informal basis - invited a couple of students to come to the school and play with me and a couple of other teachers, and it's always been lots of fun for both parties. We are looking at expanding the courses at the school at the moment, and this will definitely be something we'll be trying to get into the regular schedule. Jazz is one of the last bastions of creativity in an increasingly ordered and controlled world, let's try and keep that wonderful quality alive in the music and keep it out of the hands of the control freaks!

Ronan Guilfoyle, June 2003