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A Jazz Conversation
From: Columbia University
| By:
Ted Piltzecker |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
 "A very common notion is that jazz is free," musician and educator Ted Piltzecker (right) says, "but along with that freedom comes incredible discipline." In this exclusive interview, Piltzecker brings Fathom into the studio to hear an improvisation for the vibraphone and the piano that lets listeners hear the relationship between structure and freedom in jazz. He discusses the importance of listening for musicians and tells beginning jazz aficionados how to approach this innovative musical genre. |
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| Piltzecker explains the structures that support jazz. | |
Ted Piltzecker: In addressing the notion that jazz is free, which is a very common notion, I want to be very emphatic and say yes, you have incredible freedom, but along with that freedom comes incredible discipline, so it's free in relation to something. It's free in relation to a very strict set of coordinates, and you can weave in and out of them as you wish, creatively, but jazz is actually highly structured. And it's because that structure exists that you feel the freedom. |
If you didn't have the structure, it simply wouldn't be so exciting. It's like you can't always have a good time; you can't always have parties. There is structure that exists that most people don't realize when they listen to a jazz piece. It is the metric system--harmony, beats and the melody. That never changes. It is constant, keeps repeating as musicians play chorus after chorus of improvisation. It sounds free and is sometimes called crazy improvisation, but the notes all dance around a strict set of guidelines--that's why it feels free. The more you know about those guidelines, the more you are going to feel that freedom. |
Fathom: For nonmusicians, is there something that you could compare jazz to? |
Piltzecker: Jazz, in its truest sense, is conversational. There are lots of ways historically that jazz has been played. Think about language and using language to communicate with your friends, whatever language you speak. Let's think about English; that's what we are speaking, and it is very satisfying when you connect and you have an exchange of ideas. |
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| A jazz conversation between a vibraphone and a piano. | |
Let's take it from that point first. If you just do a monologue and run your rap, so to speak, it might be OK, but you don't feel that sense of communication. You feel like you ran your rap, but there wasn't an exchange between two people. When jazz is being played at its best, there is an exchange going on between people using language. It just happens to be a musical language, and that requires a lot of listening on the part of the performer. |
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| Piltzecker plays "When the Saints Go Marching In" as written, and then improvises the same melody. | |
Piltzecker: Jazz has been described as music that contains two key elements: improvisation and swing. Jazz musicians work very hard to acquire these skills. The music, though fun, is not as free and easy as it sounds. There are structures that support the freedom you hear when you listen. |
Beneath the improvisation is something that musicians call meter. One, two, three, four beats make a measure. When you're playing, you might have four measures with four beats each to say what you've got to say--or, rather, since we're talking music, to play what you've got to play. |
It's a bit like playing catch. One player in the band plays and then passes the ball to another member of the team. Whoever has the ball plays his instrument, then passes the ball to the next person. Usually you say something in response to what the last person said. But that's not all that jazz musicians have to dance around. They also have a tonal structure or harmony. Players listen to where the pitch of the music changes. Silence is also used to punctuate measures of music. |
Fathom: Why is listening so important for musicians? |
Piltzecker: Performers have to listen. That's what it's about. Itzhak Perlman is not a jazz artist, but he says, "The hardest thing I have to do is listen to myself." It is certainly true in classical music, and it is absolutely true when you play jazz. You are in a conversation. You don't know what is going to happen next. You are not reading a play, which is scripted. It's improvised, and together you are going to make something, make a statement, so obviously it requires a tremendous amount of listening. It's easy to talk about and it takes a great deal of practice to do. I'm not always good at it--nobody always is--but the older I get, the less I tend to run my hot licks and just be conscious of the environment that I am in. |
Fathom: Could you explain the difference between a piece that's played and the same piece that's improvised? |
Piltzecker: One of the exercises we did at the conference involved playing "When the Saints Go Marching In." When someone put their hand on my shoulder, I improvised. When they removed their hand from my shoulder, I started playing the melody straight--exactly as it was written. The point of that exercise is that the form of the song went from here to there. When it got back to here, it repeated and just kept going over and over again, so you could play the melody from here to there, the entire length, or you could improvise. |
Fathom: What advice would you offer to someone who's never listened to jazz before? |
Piltzecker: When friends begin listening to jazz, I start by introducing them to recognizable tunes, so they know where the melody is and when somebody diverts from the melody a little bit. They still have the frame of reference to know: Oh, yeah, they just played that a bit differently here. And maybe the next time the melody will be more out, a little further removed. |
I can't ask friends who are new to jazz to listen to A Love Supreme, by John Coltrane, as an introduction. I would lose a lot of people. However, one very popular album used over and over again as an introduction to jazz is Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis. Recorded in 1959, it is still selling an incredible number of copies, because it's very clear what the structure is. Some of those structures are innovative, but it's still clear and you can hear the improvisation around the structure. So Kind of Blue is a great introduction to listening to jazz and has been for a long time. |
Fathom: Has your perspective on jazz changed over time? |
Piltzecker: Not long ago, I took a lesson from a very famous player. One of the most important things he said during the lesson was "Yeah, I used to be extremely confident. Man, going to those jazz festivals, I knew my stuff--boom, boom, boom. And then I realized that that confidence was actually a limiting factor, because it tended to make me exclude some sounds that were in the room." |
He explained, and I understand that perhaps he is a little less confident but more attuned, more spiritual, more willing to go with the flow of music, more free and more artistic. |
Ted Piltzecker sang and spoke about his ideas about jazz during a daylong conference at Teachers College, Columbia University, called "The Ambiguities of Freedom." Music Copyright Ted Piltzecker, 2000. Bill Charlap, piano. Used with permission. |
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