Style

• The Style of a Composition
• The Personal Style of a Musician

This is a preview of the educational program A Jazz Improvisation Almanac which is under development for the Outside Shore Music Online School. Feel free to browse this preview and learn what you can from it. For a more completed product, though, check out the original freely browsable jazz textbook, A Jazz Improvisation Primer.

Jazz can be considered one style of music, distinct from country & western or reggae or any other style. Everything I have written thus far in characterizing jazz can be seen as having defined the "jazz style". However, there are actually many different varieties of jazz styles, and the unit on Jazz Styles describes some of these in more detail. In this section, I discuss the role that style plays in improvisation.

The Style of a Composition

A jazz musician strives to make his solo sound like an integral part of the composition being played. If the solo is based on the original chord progression, then the harmony forms one link back to the theme. However, that is normally not enough in itself to guarantee the solo will fit well into the performance. The style of the composition usually must be considered as well. For example, consider the following theme:

Here is a typical improvisation based on the above theme:

The following theme is based on the same chord progression, but the composition has a different style. By this I mean that the rhythmic feel and the nature of the accompaniment differ from the previous example:

An improvisation based on this theme would probably differ from one based on the first theme, as the soloist would attempt to improvise phrases in keeping with the style of the piece:

The style of a piece can affect several aspects of a performance. Some styles are characterized by particular rhythmic patterns that form the foundation for compositions in that style. For example, the mambo has a distinctive rhythmic feel that permeates most improvisations in that style:

A given style such as the shuffle may call for use of an exaggerated swing eighth note feel:

Another may call for straight eighth notes:

Some styles tend to favor melodies that are simple and singable:

Others may favor more complex melodic ideas:

When playing a composition in a given style, a jazz musician will usually tailor his ideas to the conventions of that style. There are many different styles that fall under the general category of jazz. Some of these are described in more detail in later chapters. Most jazz musicians make an effort to master several different styles so that they can play a variety of different compositions and maintain the distinct flavor of each.

Sometimes the deliberate juxtaposition of different styles can create an interesting effect. This in keeping with the general love for surprise that most jazz musicians share. This device is a hallmark of a school known as postmodernism. A postmodern composition may seem like a medley of quite unrelated themes and improvisations. The following example is by John Zorn:

The Personal Style of a Musician

Most jazz musicians try to play within the style of composition being performed. However, there is an often conflicting desire to make a personal statement as well. No two musicians are likely to improvise the same solo on the same composition. Of course, no single musician is likely to improvise the same solo more than once, either, but there will usually be stylistic similarities between two performances by the same musician that mark his performances as being different from performances by another musicians. For example, here are two solos, on two different compositions, as improvised by X. Composition A:

Composition B:

And here are two solos on the same two compositions, as improvised by Y. Composition A:

Composition B:

Note how each musician, even while improvising two different solos on two different composition, conveyed some of his own musical personality in each of his performances. As a result, many listeners would be more likely to recognize the two performances of two different compositions by the same musician as similar, rather than the two performances of the same composition by different musicians.

Although this was a rather extreme example, most jazz musicians have elements of personal style that they project into their performances. The specific elements may differ from musician to musician. One such element is tone. For example, John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins both played the tenor saxophone, but they can easily be distinguished by their tone alone. Here is Coleman Hawkins:

And here is John Coltrane:

Some musicians are known for exploiting a particular range of their instruments, such as Cat Anderson wailing on the high notes on his trumpet:

A musician may have a unique approach to phrasing. For example, Thelonious Monk had a particularly quirky way of displacing accents:

Many jazz musicians are considered virtuosos on their instruments. Often they can be identified by pet phrases or ideas they are able to execute with amazing facility. The following phrase, for example, would only have been played by Oscar Peterson:

Some musicians have such strong and identifiable personal styles that they transform anything they play into an extension of themselves. This was the case, for example, with Charlie Parker, who played in the same bebop style over all types of compositions, from blues:

To ballad:

To mambo:

A jazz musician normally tries to strike a balance between playing in the style of the composition and playing in his own personal style. However, this is usually not an entirely conscious process. When playing, for example, a shuffle, a jazz musician cannot help but think of ideas that are appropriate to that style, as his thinking is influenced by the sound of the music going on around him. In a way, this is similar to the concept of method acting, where the actor tries to think like the character he is portraying in order to generate a more realistic portrayal. And yet, the jazz musician naturally retains elements of his own personality as well, just as most actors project aspects of their own personality into their parts.

Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Style