Improvisation, the Key

Jazz as a way of life

On tradition, creativity, & how we’re all improvisers (even if you hate jazz)

v1 was published over at my Substack newsletter on 10 Apr 2024.

Dakota Jazz

I grew up with jazz. My dad played jazz piano most nights as I went to sleep. My parents tell me that my favorite songs, when I was finally able to talk, were “Deck the Halls” and “The Girl from Impanema.” (Classy kid!)

As I started listening to jazz on my own as I grew older, I discovered I knew a lot of tunes—like “Memories of Tomorrow” (a Keith Jarrett improvisation from his famous Cologne concert), or Ron Carter’s beautiful “Little Waltz,” or the Oliver Nelson tune “Stolen Moments,” made famous by Ahmad Jamal. Not to mention huge swaths of Bill Evans & Antônio Carlos Jobim.

But I didn’t grow up in New York, or Chicago, or the West Coast, or New Orleans.

I grew up in Fargo—a town more often the butt of jokes about the lame midwest than considered as a cultural center, much less a place where jazz has any significance.

(Indeed, though, Fargo has had its moments in jazz history. I’d recommend checking out Ted Gioia’s great story of Duke Ellington’s stop in Fargo—which became, decades later, an epic live record.)

In any case, jazz had a big place in the formation of my heart, mind, and imagination.

The heart of improvisation

I wound up playing quite a bit of jazz, too—mostly as a bassist, though I played some piano and saxophone too. I loved how the bass bridges rhythm and harmony.

One element of jazz that I loved as a listener but struggled with as a musician was improvisation.

If you’re unfamiliar with how live jazz works, here’s how a jazz group typically plays a tune:

• The group plays the melody
• The individual musicians take turns soloing—playing improvised solos over the tune’s chord changes
• The group returns to the melody, playing through it once more before the piece ends

To someone new to jazz—and especially to people who don’t really like jazz—the solos can sound like a chaos of random notes. And sometimes, that’s exactly what a solo can be, if it’s played by a new or nervous or poorly trained musician.

But the best solos are remarkable. They start somewhere familiar, the song’s melody, and wind up somewhere unexpected, unforeseen—a melody unheard before that moment.

And the truth is, we all have this ability to improvise. Improvisation is a cornerstone of a well-lived life. To understand why, allow me to first outline what goes into a good solo:

• The woodshed – You start with technical proficiency: mastering your instrument and your tradition. This involves days in the woodshed, practicing. The principle of the woodshed is a counterpoint to the illusion of “pure” improvisation—just making something up out of nothing. It’s a point of basic theology that God creates ex nihilo, out of nothing. But we don’t. Any good solo comes after you’ve made a second home in the woodshed. And you’re not just learning how to play your instrument. You’re learning the songbook, mastering every tune (in every key). You serve as an apprentice in private so that you can be a faithful emissary in public. You’re filling your heart & soul & imagination with good ideas. Tucking away licks and possibilities for later—who knows when they might come in handy.
• “Yes, and…” – When you’re playing, you’re attuned & attentive, fully engaged with your fellow musicians, constantly responding to what they give. The cornerstone of improvisational comedy is “Yes, and…”: you never reject where someone else is trying to go. Doing so would turn the improvisation into a mere power struggle. Instead, you create by listening to those around you, taking up what they provide and transforming it with your own perspective.
• Think past thinking – When you’ve done your thinking ahead of time, in the woodshed, and you’re 100% attuned to your fellow musicians, any thinking you do gets in the way. Improvisation isn’t something that is devoid of thought—far from it; jazz demands knowledge of history, music theory, the mechanics of one’s instrument, a finely tuned ear, etc. But conscious thought needs to be put in its place. We all know how too much thinking gets in our way: we overthink, overanalyze, succumb to “analysis paralysis,” get too “in our heads.” In this, jazz is exemplary. When you live inside your head, it shows up in your stilted, derivative playing.

We can apply these three principles to any endeavor in life to find more creativity.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, teacher, nurse, builder, pastor, farmer, banker, computer programmer, student, or anything else, your work’s going to be more successful if:

• you’re a faithful student of its tradition
• you respond generatively to those you’re working with
• you get outside your head and let things flow

Improvisation is just another word for life well lived.