I’m taking a quick break from fiction writing to share a few comments about another favorite topic I don’t write about a whole lot: jazz. I’ve been a jazz lover since I started playing music in the 4th grade, and there have been a few tracks that carved themselves into my brain early on and which I turn to over and over for inspiration for all kinds of things. One of my all-time favorites is Spanish Key, off of Miles Davis’s legendary album of 1970, Bitches Brew.
It is a particular spot in that track, the keyboard feature that begins at 13:50, that keeps me coming back over and over (play the whole track to get the full impact of the moment). In my opinion it is one of those rare, precious moments of transcendence, where the ensemble breaks through into a luminescent spiritual realm. Maybe you all know a track like that. It can happen in any genre of music. In fact, it is something that transcends music itself: it is a moment of flow, of connection, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
I’m not sure anything objectively changes at that moment that makes it stand out from the rest of this extended musical excursion, but it is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful, propulsive 70-seconds in music. The ensemble is playing in the same key, the same tempo, the same style. On a theoretical, structural, and rhythmic level, nothing changes when Miles plays the break on the trumpet that hands off the solo from himself to his keyboardists.
Maybe the key ingredient is synergy: the feature that follows is not a solo; it is a collective improvisation of three keyboards (Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, and Larry Young) playing lines that weave in and out of each other, finishing each other’s sentences, pulling together into a single cord, all propelled into outer space by the percussive unit that is Lenny White, Jack DeJohnette, Don Alias, and Juma Santos. From the first hard keyboard line that launches their trio, I think the group has entered into a trance state. Their playing is beyond quantifiable.
Collective improvisation is the vehicle, and while Bitches Brew was hailed as an innovative, breakthrough album in its day, its mode is deeply traditional. Those familiar with traditional African music will know what I’m talking about: no written music, each player with their own part, a master drummer directing the ensemble with specific signals conveyed through breaks that move the music and the dancers from one section to the next. Ornette Coleman introduced the jazz world to the same approach on his seminal album Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet, another favorite of mine.
Both this and Bitches Brew utilize the doubling and tripling of instruments. Just as an African dance ensemble will have multiple drums of the same kind, Davis and Coleman like to double and triple up their rhythm sections, giving each player the freedom to improvise in their own style, playing off the flow of the collective, the leader playing breaks to give direction and provide structure.
I’ll wrap this up by getting on my runarchist soapbox: nothing human beings do can or should be fundamentally individual. We are a collective species, meant to be in community with each other, relying on each other, strengthening each other. Whether we’re talking about music, bodily movement, political organizing, or eating together, it is all rooted in this same principle: we’re making it up as we go along, but we play off each other, lean on each other, inspire each other, depend on each other. So enjoy the music, and get out there and do the thing!
Have you ever uploaded one of your own pieces? I used your stuff for a sound track on my toy train videos, and many of my volunteer driving clients have been entertained happily by your Jazz CD playing in my car, but have you ever put anything out there simply ask stand alone music?