Historical Voices and the Challenge of Jazz Pedagogy

By Keith Waters & Brian Levy​

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Gunther Schuller's 1958 essay “Sonny Rollins and the Challenge of Thematic Improvisation” marked an important touchstone in the analysis of jazz. It offered a detailed discussion of Rollins’s tenor saxophone solo on “Blue 7,” using transcription to point out motivic recurrences in the solo. Later writers have criticized Schuller’s approach for its attempt to valorize the music through its structural coherence, thus applying organicist claims of European music theory to a distinctly African American art form. Schuller’s focus, for these authors, is on the product (the solo transcription) rather than the communal and interactive process of jazz. Other critics have pointed out that the thematic recurrences that Schuller highlights appeared in any number of other Rollins solos. Nevertheless, Schuller’s program of celebrating certain recordings of jazz through transcription and deep study is consistent with how jazz musicians within an oral tradition study great performances as models.

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The degree to which Schuller’s methods comport with jazz improvisation pedagogy, as developed and institutionalized over the last fifty years, is arguable. The centrality of chord/scale theory to that pedagogy would seem to depart from Schuller’s deeply historical concerns.

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In our pedagogical essay, we use a historical perspective in order to merge ideas of product and process: through solo transcriptions we point out how improvisers participate in a communal language based on groove, rhythm, gesture, melodic shape, roles, and routines. We begin with four snapshots, using excerpts of solos from Oscar Peterson, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane. 

 

In the second part of the essay, we focus on rhythm. Excerpts of solos by Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, and Miles Davis derive from the ride-cymbal pattern and other time-keeping approaches. We then show how the rhythmic designs and comping patterns of Red Garland and Max Roach can offer soloists additional resources. Finally, we examine how Parker uses upsurge shapes to generate rhythmic energy. All of these examples offer pedagogical alternatives to pitch-centric and chord/scale approaches and show how soloists interact with the roles and routines of the rhythm section.

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