Listening to Keith Jarrett last night at the War Memorial Opera House, I couldn’t help but wonder: why do they call this jazz?
I should mention that I’m not much of a jazz listener, and don’t pretend to know that much about it. (I don’t have anything against it either, so don’t start with me.)
From what I understand, the material I was listening to was completely improvised, but is that the only criterion for being jazz? No doubt, this is a big topic for discussion withing the jazz world, but it strikes me that much of Mr. Jarrett’s material, were it to be transcribed and then played by a guy in tails, would be perfectly at home under the “Classical” rubric.
He clearly has complete control over his formal ideas and harmonic language, and most of his pieces last night held together impressively. I was usually able to follow his material as it developed. Actually it’s a little vexing that this guy can sit there and compose, say, an 8-minute piano piece that would probably take me a couple of months.
The one critical thought that occurred to me during many of his pieces was that I wished there were more variety within each piece, whereas there was a great emotional range from piece to piece. But I guess that’s just me, with my classical frame of reference. We’re used to contrast within a work, and that doesn’t seem to be part of the jazz paradigm.
Speaking of Improvisation
My friend “M.” of “Suburban Scene” fame occasionally posts home-recorded piano improvisations. If it were up to me, I’d say that these fall into the same genre category as what I heard from Keith Jarrett last night, even if Mr. Jarrett is a much better pianist. (Sorry, M. What’s true is true.) There’s nothing particularly jazzy in either case. Suppose we were to have a new category name for this.
And, Speaking of Keith Jarrett
It was a lovely concert and the audience enjoyed it very much. Even the artist seemed to enjoy it somewhat. Mr. Jarrett has a reputation for scolding his audiences for their bad behavior. We cosmopolitan, sophisticated San Franciscans thought we were pretty well behaved until after the first or second encore, when he flew into a rage about people running video cameras during the concert. It was a valid complaint, of course, but it struck me as particularly poor taste to do this between encores, when he was being loved a lot. I wouldn’t say it ruined the evening, but it was kind of a bummer.
OK, one more thing…
If anyone reading this was in the audience last night, and wondering why the delay opening the house, I invite you to read this from an Opera House electrician. I’ll just summarize by saying that someone was being a bit of a diva. Little did we know the concert was nearly cancelled.
4 Responses to “Does All Improvisation Have To Be “Jazz”?”
I saw a pianist a few years back - I’m sorry I don’t remember his name - but he was a soloist touring through and playing with the San Antonio Symphony. He played a Mozart concerto and improvised his own cadenza. He even did a brief little masterclass-like interlude where he explained what he would be doing. It was quite fascinating and the cadenza was very good.
I’m not sure why improv has vanished from the classical stage, but Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Pagannini and many others improvised their cadenzas in years past.
I’d also agree that KJ blurs the boundaries between jazz and traditional music.
i was also bummed out by jarrett’s lashing out at a few people that tried to take his picture. i can understand his irritation, but it was way over the top.
nonetheless, i thoroughly enjoyed his performance. i like the ballads, folksy tunes and standards more than his spontaneously improvised pieces.
Thanks, Hucbald, for bringing up the point about cadenzas, a tradition that didn’t survive for some reason.
I should have said more about what I liked in the concert. I feel the same as Eric about the ballads and other more transparent stuff. But, I’m pretty sure it was all completely improvised (except the “As Time Goes By” encore, of course.)
Its ok, i plan on being an architect anyway.
though contructive criticism is always appreciated.
