[MD] Creative Freedom in Jazz

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

I came across this documentary (thank you for the link to
openculture.com, dmb) on Bill Evans and found it very interesting in
how it relates to the MOQ and its notion of Dynamic freedom and static
quality determinism. I think his creative process relates not only to
jazz but to all the arts. See what you think:

http://www.openculture.com/2012/04/the_universal_mind_of_bill_evans_advice_on_learning_to_play_jazz.html

The Universal Mind of Bill Evans: Advice on Learning to Play Jazz &
The Creative Process

Bill Evans was one of the greatest jazz pianists of the second half of
the 20th century. His playing on Miles Davis’s landmark 1959 record,
Kind of Blue, and as leader of the Bill Evans Trio was a major
influence on players like Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett and Chick
Corea. “Bill’s value can’t be measured in any kind of terms,” Corea
once said. “He’s one of the great, great artists of this century.”

Evans’s approach to music was a process of analysis followed by
intuition. He would study a problem deliberately, working on it over
and over until the solution became second nature. “You use your
intellect to take apart the materials,” Evans said in 1969. “But,
actually, it takes years and years of playing to develop the facility
so that you can forget all of that and just relax, and just play.” In
the book Jazz Styles: History and Analysis, music writer Mark C.
Gridley describes his playing:

Evans crafted his improvisations with exacting deliberation. Often he
would take a phrase, or just a kernel of its character, then develop
and extend its rhythms, melodic ideas, and accompanying harmonies.
Then within the same solo he would often return to that kernel,
transforming it each time. And while all this was happening, he would
ponder ways of resolving the tension that was building. He would be
considering rhythmic ways, melodic ways, and harmonies all at the same
time, long before the optimal moment for resolving the idea.

Evans discusses his creative process in a fascinating 1966
documentary, The Universal Mind of Bill Evans. (See above.) The film
is introduced by Tonight Show host Steve Allen and features a
revealing talk between Evans and his older brother Harry, a music
teacher. They begin with a discussion of improvisation and the nature
of jazz, which Evans sees as a process rather than a style. He then
moves to the piano to show how he builds up a jazz improvisation,
starting with a simple framework and then adding layers of rhythmic,
harmonic and melodic variation.

“It’s very important to remember,” Evans says, “that no matter how far
I might diverge or find freedom in this format, it only is free
insofar as it has reference to the strictness of the original form.
And that’s what gives it its strength. In other words, there is no
freedom except in reference to something.”

Dan comments:
I find my own writings to be much like the way Evans builds up his
improvisations by starting with a simple premise and adding layers of
plot, theme, and interwoven character webs. I am free to write
anything that I care to write but only as long as I keep sight of my
original premise, otherwise the story will devolve into nonsense. I
should imagine any creative endeavor to be the same. We might say that
the very act of creation is a complex process of weaving static
quality patterns both into and out of the Dynamic formlessness from
which all such patterns flow.

Perhaps that is why it is easier to study the patterns others have
created (philosophology) rather than mastering those pattens to the
point of forgetting them and just create real philosophy.

Thoughts?

Thank you,

Dan

"To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by static patterns of
quality it is without choice. But to the extent that one follows
Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free." [Lila]

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we
are unable to say." ~ Anais Nin

http://www.danglover.com