Critically examine the role of improvisation in Jazz, in particular the improvisational technique of scat singing, and what figures have promoted this technique?

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Critically examine the role of improvisation in Jazz, in particular the improvisational technique of scat singing, and what figures have promoted this technique?

In modern times, improvisation survives as one of the chief distinguishing characteristics of . Despite the long evolution of Jazz throughout the 20th century, the one feature that has remained consistent throughout all the different styles is its heavy reliance on improvisation. This essay will firstly, critically examine the role of improvisation in Jazz. In order to properly assess it’s role, this essay will make an attempt to define what jazz is, but also assess why any definition of the style is going to be problematic. This essay will also include an analysis the improvisational technique of scat singing,. Scat is a jazz vocal style using emotive, onomatopoeic, and nonsense syllables instead of words in solo improvisations on a melody and has become almost a trademark feature of the jazz style. It is also an example of how improvisation plays an important part in jazz. Finally, this essay will take a brief look at what prominent figures have contributed to not only the development of this technique, but also the popularity that came along with it.

Any attempt to arrive at a precise, all-encompassing definition of jazz is most likely going to be futile. The main reason for this is that Jazz has been, from its very beginnings at the start of the 20th century, a constantly changing, evolving and expanding music, passing through several distinctive phases of development. A definition that might apply to one of the phases, for example, to swing or bebop, becomes inappropriate when applied to another segment of its history, say, to . Early attempts to define jazz as a music whose chief characteristic was , for example, turned out to be restrictive and quite untrue, since , arrangement, and ensemble have also been essential components of jazz for most of its history. Similarly, swing and syncopation, often considered essential and unique to jazz, are in fact lacking in much authentic jazz, whether of the 1920s or of later decades. In Paul Berliner’s ‘Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation’, he states that 

the long-held notion that swing could not occur without syncopation was roundly disproved when trumpeters  and Bunny Berigan (among others) frequently generated enormous swing while playing repeated, unsyncopated quarter notes. (1994)

Jazz is not and never has been an entirely composed, predetermined music, nor is it an entirely improvised one. As stated by Ingrid Monson in ‘Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction,’ “For almost all of its history, jazz has employed both creative approaches in varying degrees and endless permutations.” (1996) And yet, despite these diverse terminological confusions, jazz seems to be instantly recognized and distinguished as something separate from all other forms of musical expression. To repeat Armstrong's famous reply when asked what  meant: “If you have to ask, you'll never know.” To add to the confusion, there often have been seemingly unbridgeable perceptual differences between the producers of jazz, namely the performers, composers and arrangers, and its audiences. For example, as noted by Roger Dean in New Structures in Jazz and Improvised Music since 1960, “with the arrival of free jazz and other latter-day, avant-garde manifestations, many senior musicians maintained that music that didn't swing was not jazz.” (1991)

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It is interesting to note that most early classical composers (such as , —and even ) who became smitten with jazz, were drawn to

its instrumental sounds and timbres, the unusual effects and inflections of jazz playing (brass mutes, glissandos, scoops, bends, and stringless ensembles), and its syncopations, completely ignoring, or at least under appreciating, the extemporized aspects of jazz.

Indeed, the sounds that jazz musicians make on their instruments, created by the way they attack, inflect, release, embellish, and color notes, characterize jazz playing to such an extent that if a classical piece were played ...

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