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)

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.

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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

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 by jazz musicians in their idiomatic phrasings, it would in all likelihood be called and sound a lot like jazz.

Nonetheless, one important aspect of jazz clearly does distinguish it from other traditional musical areas, especially from classical music: the jazz performer is primarily or wholly a creative, improvising composer—his own composer, as it were—whereas in classical music the performer typically expresses and interprets someone else's composition. Jazz musician Guy Strazzullo stated that jazz performers

must be ready and alert at all times. [Non-Jazz] Composers can compose in comfort and when they want. Improvisers feel seven different things at once and must make their decisions [about what to play] quickly. (2007)

Improvisation has always been regarded as the main element of jazz since it offers the possibilities of impulsiveness, surprise, experimentation, and invention, without which most jazz would be devoid of interest. Almost all styles of jazz leave some room for improvisation -whether a single chorus or other short passage during which a soloist may improvise over an accompaniment, a sequence of choruses for different soloists, or the entire piece after the statement of a theme – and some jazz is spontaneously created without the use of a predetermined framework. In reference to Hall’s theory of ‘High and Low Context Communication’, discussed in ‘Improvisation as an Acquired, Multilevel Process’ (1992), this form of music definitely relies on high context communication, since most of the appreciation of this form comes originates from the performers ability to improvise and play with the style, rather than sticking to it. Improvisation is the defining characteristic of much of New Orleans jazz and its related styles, some big-band music, nearly all small-group swing, most bop, modal jazz, and free jazz, and some fusion.

It is, however, demonstrably untrue that all jazz must involve improvisation. Many pieces that are unquestionably classified as belonging to the jazz style are entirely composed before a performance, and take the form of an , either fixed in a notated score or thoroughly memorized by the players. This approach to jazz is characteristic of much music played by a big band, notably that of Duke Ellington, extended pieces that combine elements of jazz and Western art music, and some areas of fusion.

The form of improvisation utilized in the jazz style has changed over time. Early folk blues music often was based around a call and response pattern, and improvisation would factor in the lyrics, the melody, or both. In Dixieland jazz, musicians take turns playing the melody while the others improvise countermelodies. In contrast to the classical form, where performers try to play the piece exactly as the composer envisioned it, the goal in jazz is often to create a new interpretation, changing the melody, harmonies, even the time signature. On the other hand, rhythmic elements are strictly controlled. The leader sets the tempo, often by snapping fingers or counting off to four. As stated by Dean, “Many jazz performances contain no variation in the basic tempo -- there is no room for rubato.” (1991)

By the Swing era, big bands played using arranged sheet music, but individual soloists would perform improvised solos within these compositions. In , however, the focus shifted from arranging to improvisation over the form; musicians paid less attention to the composed melody, or ‘head,’ which was played at the beginning and the end of the tune's performance with improvised sections in between. Later styles of jazz, such as modal jazz, abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression, allowing the individual musicians to improvise more freely within the context of a given scale or mode. The “avant-garde and free jazz idioms permit and even call for rhythmic variety as well.” (Berliner, 1994)

Despite its derivation from and connection with blues and popular song, jazz has developed its own vocal techniques and practices, not all of which fall into the category of conventional singing. Scat singing is one of these techniques of jazz singing in which onomatopoeic or nonsense syllables are sung to improvised melodies. Coker argues in Vocal Improvisation: an Instrumental Approach that

Some writers have traced scat singing back to the practice, common in West African music, of translating percussion patterns into vocal lines by assigning syllables to characteristic rhythms. However, since this practice allows little scope for melodic improvisation, and since the earliest recorded examples of jazz scat singing involved the free invention of rhythm, melody and syllables, it is more likely that the technique of scat singing originated in the United States as singers imitated the sounds of jazz instrumentalists. (1981)

Coker also describes scat singing as “one of the ‘novelty’ devices of early New Orleans jazz.” (1981) As jazz improvisation grew more difficult, scat singing followed suit, with the end result that scat singers who made a name for themselves much later on could improvise effortlessly in the complex bop idiom. Two of the most important figures, however, in promoting this style were Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

Armstrong is one of the only performers in jazz history that was equally influential as a singer and as an instrumentalist. As stated by Coker,

Although he is often recognized in the public eye as a trumpet player more than a singer – the stamp issued by the United States Postal Service in 1995 bears the caption “Louis Armstrong: Trumpeter and Composer” – his singing and trumpet playing are twin manifestations of a single artistic daemon. (1981)

His performance of Dinah in 1933 captures a performance in which the trumpet and vocal choruses are clearly of equal artistic weight. His singing, from its initial phrase, radically transforms the melody, and his second chorus is saturated with scat singing of gleeful abandon. After a brief saxophone solo, he concludes the performance with two trumpet choruses. Armstrong’s phrasing was later acknowledged as being inspiration for many other singers, including Bing Crosby and Tony Bennett. Although he did not invent scat singing, his scatting on recordings such as Heebie Jeebies (1926) and Hotter than That (1927) became models for later singers, among them Cab Calloway and Ella Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald has long been considered as the greatest female jazz singer of all time. Her voice was small and somewhat girlish in timbre, but these disadvantages were offset by an extremely wide vocal range, reaching from D to C above above middle C, which she “commanded with a remarkable agility and an unfailing sense of swing.” (Bailey, 1980) This enabled her to give performances that rivaled those of the best jazz instrumentalists in their virtuosity, particularly in her improvised scat solos, for which she was justly famous. Unlike trained singers, however, she showed strain about the break in her voice. She used this to her advantage, giving her voice extra expressive purpose in the building of climaxes. Fitzgerald also had a gift for mimicry that allowed her to imitate other well-known singers. from Louis Armstrong to Aretha Franklin. as well as jazz instruments. Berliner gives her deserved praise when he stated

As an interpreter of popular songs she was limited by a certain innate cheerfulness from handling drama and pathos convincingly, but was unrivaled in her rendition of light material and for her ease in slipping in and out of the jazz idiom. (1994)

She influenced countless American popular singers of the post-swing period and also international performers.

Other important scat singers in the bop style included Eddie Jefferson, Betty Carter, Anita O’Day, Joe Carroll, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Jon Hendricks, Babs Gonzales and the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. To a much greater extent than jazz instrumentalists, each scat singer adopted a unique, immediately recognizable tone color and delivery, and developed a personal stock of syllables and vocal devices. The trumpeter Clark Terry’s distinctive ‘mumbling’ technique is an example. Bop scat singing was also vitiated and popularized, mainly by Ward Swingle and the Swingle Singers, who performed pre-composed instrumental works, by using only their voices that imitated the instruments.

Come the 1960s and the beginning of the free-jazz era, there was an enormous expansion of the tone colors and resources available to scat singers, and the international expansion of scat singing to other types of music. As noted by Monson, the Chicago singer Leon Thomas “incorporated pygmy yodeling techniques of Central Africa into his singing, while many scat singers came to jazz from other musical cultures.” (1991) He goes on to argue that

The extension of vocal improvisation to include sounds formerly regarded as non-musical, such as cries, screams, sobbing and laughter, was one of the principal innovations of this period, and at times brought jazz singing close to avant-garde art music. (Dean, 1991)

With the bop revival in the mid-1970s there was also a revival of interest in bop scat singing. Many young scat singers regarded themselves as belonging to the classic bop tradition.” Among the best of these was Al Jarreau, who is particularly adept at creating vocal equivalents of complex jazz-rock rhythms, and Bobby McFerrin, whose wide vocal range and mobility are evident in his unaccompanied solo performances. Contemporary scat singers have shown that this vocal art can strike out in all sorts of different directions of its own, independent of developments in instrumental jazz or avant-garde music.

To conclude, improvisation clearly plays a significant role in the production of Jazz music. As discussed earlier in this essay, Jazz is an extremely difficult genre to define due to its many different styles and evolutions. However, improvisation is the one feature that has remained a trademark characteristic of each different evolution throughout the 20th century. It has also been made clear that the vocal technique of scat singing is a commonly used practice in this style, and is almost completely improvisational in its nature. This further supports the claim that improvisation plays an extremely significant role in Jazz music.

References

Bailey, Derek

Improvisation: its Nature and Practice in Music, England: Mooreland Publishers, 1980

Berliner, Paul F.

‘Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation’ in Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Coker, P. and Baker. D.

Vocal Improvisation: an Instrumental Approach, Lebanon: Studio P/R, 1981.

Dean, Roger

New Structures in Jazz and Improvised Music since 1960, London: Open University Press, 1991.

Hall Edward T.

‘Improvisation as an Acquired, Multilevel Process’ in Ethnomusicology

Vol. 36, No. 2 (Spring, 1992), pp. 223-235

Monson, Ingrid

‘Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. 1996 Series’ in Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

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