Definitely not. There is very little Improvisation big band jazz and the focus is more on the composer just as it is in classical music. big band arrangements are almost completely written out with only a small portion of the "chart" devoted to letting the soloists in the band Improvise. on the opposite end of the spectrum "free jazz" and "Avant Garde" is in many cases unstructured improvisation, no vehicle needed. those are the extremes, but even bebop, cool jazz, hardbop, postbop, whatever you want to call the modern "mainstream" jazz we have now (and I’m not talking about smooth jazz, thats NOT jazz)
is not PURELY for improvisation. the melody and the changes are a very important part of the piece as a whole and set the mood for the improvised solos that may or may not take place. the composition itself is just as important as the improviser’s soloing ability and in my opinion more important. if somebody writes a bad tune, the solos will inevitably be less interesting. most jazz is well structured, but I wouldn’t call it "tightly" structured unless you’re talking about bigband. most small group jazz has the freedom to break from the structure during the improvised sections if the players all feel like doing it.
@Joshua: I agree with you. Improvisation can’t be done that easy especially with a big band. Even in other genres, improvisation can’t be done in just a finger-snap.
One Response
joshua
August 19th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
1Definitely not. There is very little Improvisation big band jazz and the focus is more on the composer just as it is in classical music. big band arrangements are almost completely written out with only a small portion of the "chart" devoted to letting the soloists in the band Improvise. on the opposite end of the spectrum "free jazz" and "Avant Garde" is in many cases unstructured improvisation, no vehicle needed. those are the extremes, but even bebop, cool jazz, hardbop, postbop, whatever you want to call the modern "mainstream" jazz we have now (and I’m not talking about smooth jazz, thats NOT jazz)
is not PURELY for improvisation. the melody and the changes are a very important part of the piece as a whole and set the mood for the improvised solos that may or may not take place. the composition itself is just as important as the improviser’s soloing ability and in my opinion more important. if somebody writes a bad tune, the solos will inevitably be less interesting. most jazz is well structured, but I wouldn’t call it "tightly" structured unless you’re talking about bigband. most small group jazz has the freedom to break from the structure during the improvised sections if the players all feel like doing it.
Thomas Brown
April 14th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
2@Joshua: I agree with you. Improvisation can’t be done that easy especially with a big band. Even in other genres, improvisation can’t be done in just a finger-snap.
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